Tremendous T

T in the Park 2008 was fantastically, bristeringly brilliant. Seen loads of bands and enjoyed much music.
We left early on Friday morning to avoid any traffic queues and got to Balado Airfield in plently of time for the campsite gates to open. After straining much muscle in transporting our provisions and camping equipment we set up camp in the Indigo zone and whiled away the day with a few beers getting to know the folk camping around us who consisted of a few pleasant nutters from Balloch (funny that - nutters from Balloch;-), a bunch of late teen girls who liked to talk about men's private parts, a bunch of late teen guys who liked throwing themselves over tents, a bunch of guys who liked their lager at 8 in the morning and a couple of forty-fifty year old dudes who had dyed hair and thought they were hip. All mostly nice folk though which always makes things a bit more bearable. The Arena then opened at fiveish and Friday's music kicked off with the Wombats, followed by Kids in Glass Houses, Stereophonics, the Chemical Brothers and The Verve. The sun managed to fight the clouds off a few times throughout Friday and Saturday not emerging fully till Sunday. The highlight on Friday was most probably The Chemical Brothers 'Hey Boy' and the Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony' after which we trekked back to our tent.
After a mostly sleepless night Saturday's line up for us was a bit of Eddy Grant, The Rocket Summer, The Feeling, Biffy Clyro, We Are Scientists, The Pigeon Detectives, The Fratellis, Rage Against the Machine and then The Kaiser Chiefs.
Biffy Clyro and The Pigeon Detectives were both great highlights for me, the Kaisers were also good but not as good as when I'd previously seen them in the Carling Academy. They extended two songs by about five minutes each forcing the crowds to chant the same line over and over. Gets a bit tiresome after a while...The Pigeon Detectives earlier were great. Loud, energised, fun, brash and cool and the lead singer Matt Bowman had a great time with the audience.

On Sunday, we seen The Ting Tings, British Sea Power, Vampire Weekend, Amy Winehouse, The Zutons, a few songs from REM and then the Prodigy. REM and The Prodigy's time's clashed as did more than a few of the other bands so we had to make a decision! REM sounded great but were on at the same time as The Prodigy and as I had never seen them live we dived over to the NME/Radio 1 tent for them just before they started and was not disappointed by their performance.

Two totally different kinds of music on the two different stages to finish off the festival which is probably the best but most difficult decision to make when you like both!! I'll watch REM on the TV though. Amy Winehouse was also good and to my ears much improved from when I heard her live at Glastonbury. Good to see her on the stage again. The Zutons were as always brilliant as well. God damn it - everything was brilliant! Can't complain...apart from the toilet situation. The portaloos in the campsite were just atrocious and the ones in the Arena, come 5pm, not much better! Boggin' but I suppose you have to expect that with a festival of that magnitude. It was Ka's first camping experience so I don't think she was too enthralled with the prospect of going holidaying in a tent again. I'm trying to reassure her festival camping is in no way the same. Tickets go on sale today for T in the Park 2009. Looking forward to it!....oh wait I'll be on honeymoon...I'll MAKE IT the honeymoon! Yeah, great idea, hold on I'll just go and suggest it to Ka...

Tomorrow in the Park

Well, tomorrow morning Ka and myself will be setting off to T in the Park in the wee red clio. Watch out balado, here we come! Camping for the weekend too which should be interesting considering Ka has never camped before in her life! There's a great line up of music - looking forward to Rage Against the Machine, Primal Scream, Vampire Weekend and REM especially. Really curious about Vampire Weekend as they sound very Talking Heads like. But there's just loads. Probably won't manage to see everyone I've got half an interest in. Hopefully the weather holds out to some extent and we don't get completely soaked, even if Gareth in the work wishes it. He seems to think I've went out and bought a shit tent. He obviously has no faith in my tent buying skills. It was a proper £25 quid tent we bought so hopefully we'll be well sheltered from the stormy nights! None of your £10 Somerfield specials here thank you very much. We've got our wellies, rainjackets, torches, alcohol and mallets at the ready so bring it on!!

Looking forward to T

The weather does not bode well for our weekend in Balado at T in the Park...it's pouring as I write. It was sunny around one this afternoon which raised my spirits a little but now it's peeing down again. It would be nice to get dry weather for the whole Festival camping experience but I doubt it's going to happen. Of course, there are some that would say rain and mud ARE PART of the whole festival experience. It's only monday I suppose and I'm sure it'll be great anyway, come rain or shine. Looking forward to seeing the Fratellis, REM, the Kaisers and Amy Winehouse to name just a few. There are literally loads of bands I've been meaning to see for ages playing at the festival and some at similar times so there may have to be a coin flipped to decide which tent to head for. On the sunday night REM are up against the Prodigy and even though REM are great I've already seen them live and will probably opt for the Prodigy. However, I'd love to see REM again... decisions, decisions. Still got three shifts to go before then though and a new tent to practise putting up!

Brilliant Adventure

Ended up in the Casino on wednesday night after a few drinks in Bunker and then the Garage. Colin is leaving for a new life in Warrington so we had to go somewhere for a few drinks to send him off! Afterwards, Chaz and myself headed for the casino. It's very easy to see how people get hooked on gambling. Chaz was teaching me the ways of the roulette table whilst trying to sell the Floor Manager a car, surprisingly enough. He failed with the car selling but did make a little money himself at the table and managed to teach me a thing or two on the rules of the table. Managed to make some money out of it - not a lot but the night out was paid for. It all just seems so strange to me that you make money from placing counters on a game table. But I suppose that's how these places pull you in. The occasional dabble is good fun though. We eventually dragged ourselves away from the spinning roulette and walked out into the early morning light getting home at five in the morning.
Next morning I read the interesting article From Sunday's Mail on Sunday on the god like music maestro that is David Bowie. In the piece Bowie himself picked out 12 tracks for the free CD to accompany the article and wrote about each song explaining why he chose them as favourites. The article is now online. Click here to read it.
Talking of 'Loving the Alien' its the final episode of the current series of Doctor Who tomorrow night. Will Tennant regenerate? We all flamin' hope not! The guy's a brilliant actor and a brilliant Doctor. He did take a little getting used to after Eccleston's grumpier approach to the character but not long. Personally I think he'll survive. Don't know how but that's up to Russell T Davies (I do have a few theories knocking about though). Colin came up with the best theory on Wednesday night - the TARDIS itself would stop the regeneration and come to his rescue! Again, don't know how.
Before that however, there are paintings to be hung and preparations for next weekends trip to Balado.

Quantum of Solace

Busy day at work running from desk to desk doing outputting, ads and planning! Yes, I know I'm a mug but supposedly the more jobs you learn to adapt to the more useful (and safer) you are. Not sure I believe that though...they could just be taking advantage of my 'muggish' nature. Nevermind, the rest of the ad team were twiddling their fingers today so it kept me busily occupied. Some of them were even looking for Halloween costumes?! Halloween costumes I ask ye?! Yes, the year is toddling along at a pretty fast pace but come on - Halloween's at the end of October!
When it comes to surfing in the work there are only so many pages 'that cannot be displayed' you can look at. We still have IE 5 in the office which nowadays is a bit old hat for the old surfing but our office macs are too old for anything else. That's one thing I love about my mac at home - none of those old display problems. Some of the browsers in the work don't even display this blogging page properly?! Imagine that...
Did manage to have a look at the new Bond trailer on my lunch break though...

The Stolen Earth

Last night's Doctor Who was a great 50 mins of tv. Fantastic! A total return to the edge of y'er seat Doctor Who excitement of old. The return of Davros and his Daleks with The Doctor and Donna gaining the help of friends old and new but the cliffhanger had to be the cruelest cliffhanger of them all! Half zapped by a extermination ray from a Dalek prowling in the shadows. Could this be the end for the tenth Doctor?

Paintball

It has almost been a week since the paintballing and I still have the small but painful bruises to prove it! It was a great experience and really fun. It kinda felt like being a kid again, diving about a forest with gun and mask evading the enemy gunfire, diving for cover and chasing after flags. Reminiscent of being in a forest when you were a kid pretending you were on Endor. Fortunately there were now silly, furry creatures running about with logs and slings. The paintballs were difficult enough to cope with. Even though it may sound stupid to compare to the real life hell that is army combat you can't help but feel you get a slight taste of what it would be like in a real life situation. After suffering many hits though I've come to the conclusion it's probably a good thing I didn't join the army! My left leg was riddled with the small, circular red bruises for about two days after which they turned green and have now turned a dull brown. Slightly pricey at £40 a day excluding extra paintballs but great fun and a good laugh. Gareth took some cracking pics too which I'll hopefully stick up here or on the website. Gareth's probably to blame for most of my hits, come to think of it. He's the one in the Motherwell scarf! Git!