V2005
- Weston Park, Staffordshire 20th/21st
August
'Sorry, but I'm absolutely cunted.'
Andy Fatman, thinking he was on the phone to his beloved Mrs Fatman had
mistakenly, or drunkenly phoned his mother instead. She wouldn't know what 'cunted'
means, but she knew her son was. And Fatman has every right to be as this V
Festival was kindly organised by the Branson Regime as Andy Fatman's Stag
Weekend (or was it to take £18 million in gate receipts?).
We came in numbers, we came prepared. Along with the 75,000 other revellers
on this prolonged stag weekend, Fatman also brought myself (Neil Crud), The
Secretary, Steve Sync, Fairziff, Trevski, Jules, Stack, Pauline, Will, Pippa,
Gaz, Jess, Richard, Joyce, Graham, Linda, Gareth and about six others whose
names elude me. We came prepared with a plan to ensure we all camped together
and even though we left early on Friday the place was heaving and Fatman upset
the natives by claiming an oak tree as his, moved some poor campers tents and
began pitching our village - The Stag Tree Village. The ladies were treated to
Stack's chemical toilet to save them the indignation of shitting on someone
else's shit, and Fatman took his annual festival dose of Immodium and bananas;
this means he doesn't worry about having a poo all weekend but will, by the end
of next week have to have a shit by caesarian section.
Friday night is party night; no bands, just revellers. Take into consideration
we were all set up by 3pm and had well and truly got stuck into our 48 cans
each of Carling, by the evening we were rolling down to the arena rather than
walking. Those who have frequented the V Festival will be all too aware that
you cannot take cans or bottles into the arena; this is because you may throw
them at the bands, although I wouldn't waste good beer on shite bands, I'd
rather drink it, climb to the roof of the stage and vomit on some of them! The
real reason is that no twat in their right mind is going to pay £3 a pint when
you can take your own ale in with you. So cans are resigned to the campsite
only… Unless you are Andy Fatman. Of course, his first attempt was thwarted by
his own 'cunted state' as he tried to negotiate the entrance barriers laden
with cans, lost his balance and took a barrier with him; not sideways, but
vertically. This exposed his smuggled goods and Security screamed,
'He's got cans, he's got cans!'
And they swooped upon him. Thankfully Fatman wasn't on the London Underground
eh!
There's no shame in being caught, it's a fair cop, the drink is taken off you
and you're allowed to go in. That was the only time the big fella got caught;
every subsequent time he strolled through, sometimes with TEN Carlings about
his personage! Shit! I was stumped once with a can down my pants! (There's no
way his dick's that big!).
Steve Sync began a weekend quest to find a funnel to transfer some of Jamieson's
finest Whisky into his little silver swig container. It was a quest that lasted
until Sunday morning when he devised a half cut [sic] can with a small hole in it
and my steady hand to hold it.
After escorting Fatman into the arena for Friday evening we hit the Volvic Tent
- the Volvic Tent, what a name! Corporate advertising to the hilt - we had a
link2wales tent but it was only a two man one! Times have changed, and for the
better on a musical bent. A couple of years ago this tent would've full of
'bang bang bang bang' music with thousands of dickheads in hoodies with
whistles and more E's than a vowelistic dictionary; no one would've known the
tunes but everyone was off their heads anyway. And yet today the hoodies have
been burnt, the whistles left at home and the E's I presume are now called
pills, and the music is most definitely chugga chugga grunge grunge indie windy
rock and roll! Its new indie rock and 5000 voices were all singing I Predict A Riot, Roll With It or Boh Rhap
in unison. Guitars are back, house is dead - hoo-fucking-rah!
It's your stag weekend, you get completely arseholed the night before and
awake to the horror of being sober, so what do you do? You crack open a can and
start again; who cares if it's 6am on a Saturday? Pippa emerges from her tent
and begs the question to the boy,
'How are you still standing?'
It's a well honed art, and by the time Sync uncocooned himself just over an
hour later, the Fatman was on Carling No.4 and was making a cardboard cut out
drum kit for Gaz who had recently relinquished himself from the babe band
Melaphobia.
Retreating back to his tent to get more supplies, Fatman re-emerged to announce
that on top of Carling he also had red wine, wet wipes and Rohypnol in case he got lucky. He was banking on shafting
Abi Titmuss over the weekend but none of us fancied her chances!
So Saturday - it means bands! We had the choice of the main stage for starters
until Fatman told us,
'Rooster can suck my corporate
cock.'
That meant the Channel 4 Stage was our choice of
venue for the day with No Hope For New
Jersey (pic above) who were kind enough to inform us that they are the
saviours of rock 'n' roll. Perhaps they had been reading the link2wales message
boards about Gintis. And our musical
quest for the 10th V Festival began and Fatman was quick to quip
that they were Gintis, but good! He was taking the piss. They also told us it
was pissing it down at the other V Festival in Chelmsford, we did have a
smattering of rain last night but we were snugly sheltered by our tree.
No Hope were not that memorable, maybe just a snuck above the swathes of other
bands doing the rounds, so they must have a damn good manager, either that of
they're fingering the sphincter of some record company's A&R department
(easy option). They gave us a taster of what their new LP will sound like on
its release this week with the same vocal melody for every song. The final
number was pretty good with a big grungey sound and come to think of it they
would be alright on a smaller stage.
The river of cider from the Strongbow Rooms to my stomach was flowing freely as
El Presidente (pic below) took to
the stage and I had a costly encounter with my nephew Danny Crud that cost me
£40 with a promise on the phone from my sister that I'd get it back (and
remarkably I did!). Also saw a great t-shirt - 'Dip Me In Chocolate and Feed Me
To The Lesbians,' which takes over the mantel from 'Does My Penis Look Fat in
This?'
The Scottish El Presidente certainly had a singer who looked the part in a white
suit (a la Bryan Ferry) so let's be pretentious! Who gives a fuck? He has a 70s
nasal vocal with a hefty chunk of Axl Rose thrown in and a great on stage
character to boot. It always helps having birds in the band that do more than
just backing vocals; so sick her on the drums. One request from Sid The Sexist
would be 'more birds in rock please, they look ace.' Although its not being
sexist, it’s a wanting for equality! They got every hand in the air to welcome
their new single Rocket and that
ended their set, which was far too short as everyone was getting into it.
Fatman was surprised El Presidente weren't higher on the bill, but to be
playing V full stop is prestigious enough.
The Frames from Ireland take to the stage and Fatman writes;
'A lull in beer drinking brings a heart to heart with Crud's Secretary. The
Frames provide the perfect soundtrack - Waah Waah….'
Myself, I was getting worse for wear through intravenously consuming cider, I
do remember a great finale from the Frames but my notes were becoming
gibberish, eg;
'Andy needs a wank on his own shit.'
'I want to make more sense.'
'Old women's witch tits.'
'Imagine Andy's mum and dad without their clothes on.'
I know the last statement was referring how I am to get through the Best Man
speech at Fatman's wedding, but as for the rest of it…?
The Ordinary Boys were on next and I
passed out! On a brief regaining of consciousness Fatman said the band were
'Fucking ace' and he licked my head before Steve Sync added, 'very primitive,
not a festival band.'
That was it for the rest of the day! The Secretary
also passed out and we came round at about 5.30pm and stumbled toward the JJB
tent for Goldfrapp, but it was so
hot in there that everything started spinning, so we crawled back to the
sanctuary of the link2wales tent to sleep it off a bit more.
So we missed The Hives, Alan said
they were excellent, they stopped playing midway thru one of their songs as if
someone has pressed Pause on the remote control, all unanimated for about a
minute. Alan also said Franz Ferdinand
were tight as fuck and Sync recorded Matinee
and said the only downpoint was the introducing of each band member, who in
turn did a solo - which is cheese to say the least.
We slid from our tent as dusk fell upon us to witness The Prodigy along with tens of thousands of others - could hardly
see them from our viewpoint but it was a superb set all the same with the
re-instated Keith Flint there to put the punk back into Prodigy. Someone lit a
flare in the crowd during Firestarter
which had a different hook line instead of the 'hey hey hey hey' bit. It was a
rocking performance.
Still buggered from the overdose earlier on we passed on the all night cricket
match, leaving Sync, Fairziff, Fatman and Trevski to bowl, bat and field with
about 100 others, and while everyone else from the entourage had gone to bed,
the fearsome foursome came back to camp and told stories of yore, keeping
everyone entertained within their canvas comfort zones. I decided to get up
once Trevski had climbed to the top of the oak tree, risking life and tent, and
splashed down 4 cans of Carling's finest until 5am with the boys.
Sunday morning and The Stands helped clear off the cobwebs at midday with a singer who
looks like the League of Gentlemen's Crème Brulee frontman! There was no prizes
for guessing where The Stands come from and Fatman quipped,
'The Beatles are great aren't they.'
It was that typical Scouse Zanzibar sound, epitomised by the girl saxophonist
from The Zutons making a guest appearance - they all went to the same school,
they all wrote their songs using the same tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti. Back To You was dedicated to some of
their mates who were arrested on the way in for possession of cannabis.
'It's ridiculous that you can't come to a festival and have a smoke.'
Quite right too.
While we watched The Stands end with a song sounding so close to Pocket Venus' Like You Too that I'm certain they've
got a copy, Sync found us having watched a group on the Channel 4 Stage who got
the slot by winning a Battle of The Bands Competition. 'They were fucking
brilliant!' He said enthusiastically before heading for the bar.
'Fuck you Alicia Keys'
Goldie Looking Chain (pic below) have
arrived! The safe as fuck dole wallers from South Wales had the masses laughing
into their beers, guffawing into their burgers with stuff like No Win No Fee and Adam's Charm School - 'Double detention it doesn't matter, I got my
fingers stuck in the dinner lady's batter.'
Kid Carpet (check out his new new single), turned up late (3 hours
late!) to do his twisted DJ set in the Strongbow Rooms, so we only caught the
last 2 numbers and as Sync described, 'He was doing some weird shit with Van
Halen's Jump.' And we pushed our way
back into the crowds. This was the downfall of V Festival, it had been
massively oversold; far too many people and not enough space.
After The Prodigy last night, Good Charlotte (main pic) are as close as you'd get to punk at this
festival this year, although the fact that Sync's 10 year old daughter has got
the album speaks volumes as to where they're coming from; one notch up from
McFly and Busted ? I dunno. Although Sync knew the songs and shed a different
light on it stating Good Charlotte are,
'A breath of fresh air. This fest is lacking a few things, their not filling it
but they are trying.'
The V Festival could do with a good retro band to keep the old twats happy.
Perhaps it is our age, but what you'd give for a set by The Cramps, PiL, The
Cure or The Damned! We did have Killing Joke a couple of years ago, but there
was nothing remotely as good as that this time. Sync had changed his tune by
the end of the GC set,
'Spleen churningly average punk music.'
Next up, The
Bravery (pic above by Trevski) had a difference of opinions from the camp. Cel called
them 'Duran Duran from New York.' But Jules was more upbeat,
'They never fail to put on a total ROCK show. Great lead singer, 80s throwback
riffs, strutting round like cockrells (check the hair do's!). Fab! Always a
treat!'
Kaiser
Chiefs - what can you say. I Predict A Riot is the anthem of 2005
and the rest of the site must have been empty. They were excellent, even if the
girl who climbed a stantion and flashed her tits got a louder cheer!
We chanced upon The Streets back on the main stage but it was like a poor man's
Goldie Looking Chain minus a denomination of 12. Dry your eyes mate.
It was Chav and Scally city by the time Oasis
wandered onto the stage, The Secretary and myself watched up to the fourth song
(Cigarettes & Alcohol) with
50,000 other people but we got as bored as the Gallaghers looked; it was as if
they had turned up for work. So we fucked off to watch 2 blokes put a CD in the
player and dance on the spot with their hands in the air. Yes, The Chemical Brothers are great, but
'live'? There's nothing live about this, it's easy money being a bruvver.
We also chanced upon one of the true legends of all time in Robert Plant and we strutted to Gallow's Pole amongst others.
The smell of one of the numerous urinals wafted over the night and we worked
out that around 60,000 gallons of piss per day is deposited across these
fields, so thankfully the heavens opened to wash it all away. Unfortunately
those same heavens stayed open all night and even the trusted oak tree gave up
protecting us as the tent got a battering.