Leeds Festival 2008

[jaketheb]

Anyone else go??

Couple of my highlights:

Rage Against the Machine!! Of course, the dream of seeing them has been lived.

Bloc Party. Kelly was a bit up his own but they were fantastic.

Seasick Steve. Damn this guy was funny, seen him on Jools Holland, so good live, best hobo ever!

Metallica: First night I left early as I've never used more energy but was a awesome experience.

Lightspeed Champion: Not what I expected at all, they were sooo good. Starwars stuff before last song put such a smile on my face.

Manic Street Preachers: I split from my mates as they were going to see The Killers, 2 reasons, seen them before and don't really like the new album. These were one of the them most fun to see bands of the weekend, last band too.




Awesome weekend. Toilets were lovely.


Ooooohhhh... I'm the biggest Biffy Clyro fan ever (I think)
Their set sucked to the core, they played fine but the setlist was the worst in history:

Puzzle
Machines
More Puzzle
57

ahhhh


Peace.

[eviljohn2]

I spent the weekend at Leeds and had a great time.

Highlights for me were:

Metallica.
I saw them at Reading on their last tour and thought the new material was lacklustre and they were just being self-righteous idiots. They seem to have gone back to the drawing board with the show and worked out what will be really good at a Metallica gig - cue giant screen (with some vision mixing), old-school setlist (missing Battery - BOO!). Heavy metal theatre as it should be.

MGMT.
I've heard plenty about them and know a couple of tracks but they really were excellent and seem like the next Arcade Fire to me but with more keyboards. Kids is the best track I've heard all year and it nearly brought the tent down!

Young Knives.
On a backwards stage on the final day after all of the headline acts so were missed by many but this was probably the best performance I saw - very impressive and a nice intimate closing act for the weekend.

Obviously RATM, Manic Street Preachers and practically every other band I seemed to watch were on top form and the sound mixing on each stage was consistently ace.

[jaketheb]

Originally Posted by eviljohn2

on each stage was consistently ace.

Was that sarcasm or you being serious?

I thought the sound engineers on the main stage sucked big time. They put me off Raconteurs and QOTSA so much. Josh Holme was doing a solo (lead guitar no sound) (comes in really loud) (bass drops out) (evens out)

and The Raconteurs the drummer's one of those that plays bass drum while hitting snare on third beat in a four bar beat, the sound engineers had his bass drum too loud and the snare drum way to quiet.

I may have to add Dizzy Rascal to my highlights too, and Serj Tankian.

[eviljohn2]

I was being serious - and I am a sound engineer. There may have been exceptions that I didn't see (including the 2 bands you mention) but on the whole it was consistently better than previous years.

The conditions were quite windy so unless you were standing any further back than the FOH operating area then the wind took half of it.

[signs]

Originally Posted by eviljohn2

I was being serious - and I am a sound engineer. There may have been exceptions that I didn't see (including the 2 bands you mention) but on the whole it was consistently better than previous years.

The conditions were quite windy so unless you were standing any further back than the FOH operating area then the wind took half of it.

where you working John or was it a busman's holiday ?

[pmc]

Originally Posted by eviljohn2

I was being serious - and I am a sound engineer. There may have been exceptions that I didn't see (including the 2 bands you mention) but on the whole it was consistently better than previous years.

The conditions were quite windy so unless you were standing any further back than the FOH operating area then the wind took half of it.

[eviljohn2]

Originally Posted by signs

where you working John or was it a busman's holiday ?

Punting only for a change.

I was camping with one of the ML techs from Neg Earth though so got plenty of inside info.

[sh18]

I went for the whole weekend, wasnt the mud great.....

Metallica were perfect but ive seen them at Download and Rock AM Ring so i wasnt expecting any less although i didnt think much to the new material.

Rage Against the Machine were brilliant although the sheer size of the crowd and the limited ability to breath dampened the experience and they finished 10 minutes early despite being 20 minutes late coming on but ill let that go!

Saw Manics on the Sunday and they were fantastic, great to hear Holy Bible material

Surprise band of the weekend was The Raconteurs, to my mates surprise ive never heard anything by them ever and was instantly impressed with the music. The drummers and the Jack Whites guitar playing impressed the hell out of me.

a great weekend despite the mud