Live Review

Day 3, Leeds Festival – Braham Park, Leeds

• 6th Sep 2010

So it’s the final day and everyone is a little sad to see it arrive, however to wake us all up and get everyone in the mood Young Guns put on a stirring performance which wakes everyone up from there 3 day hangovers and kicks the day off with a crowd whipping frenzy.

Next it’s over to the Festival Republic Stage for the first time this weekend to see an up and coming band, Funeral Party. These guys are full of energy and light up the stage, the crowd respond to everything they do and if this really was a party after some distant relatives tragic end everyone would be celebrating life in the most beautiful form. With the crowd singing along to current single ‘Just Because’.

After a short walk around we’re back at the Festival Republic stage for another up and coming band that have hit the pages of music publications recently, Pulled Apart By Horses. They’re intense vocals send shivers down our spines and we try our hardest to bop along however it’s difficult to convey what the band have. It’s like indie screamo.

We now return to the main stage to view a band that have slipped down the pecking order since previous years. Lostprophets enter the stage screaming and hollering getting the crowd excited for the set and with every song being so well known by the crowd the sing-a-longs begin. For ‘Last Train Home’ Ian convinces everyone from the very front to the very back of the crowd to jump and go nuts and the vision is spectacular…for him of course I mean we’re in the crowd so we can’t see it. However, finishing the set with a cover of The Prodigy’s Omen is a stroke of genius.

Next is something that shocked me to my core. That’s right Simon Neil’s new blonde locks! Biffy Clyro come on and send us all into a fit of power house rock craziness. It’s a beautiful sight, a band that has worked so hard to get here being enjoyed by thousands of people. Opening with ‘That Golden Rule’ and moving straight on without hesitation to ‘Living is a Problem When Everything Dies’ hits the spot very sweetly with the crowd and we chant ‘Mon The Biff’ at every opportunity.

After a swift walk back to the Festival Republic Stage we find our selves presented with someone that truly is a rock star… Adam Green. Wankered off his face, as is his norm, and strutting across the stage with the moves Jagger has bestowed upon him, this is the mark of a truly unrecognised rock and roll star. Playing with the crowd, seducing the mic stand and getting down with lyrics about all things rock and roll. His stage diving and crowd surfing antics combined with him proclaiming at high volume ‘I LOVE DRUGS’ should surely cement his place in the rock and roll hall of fame. To look at him you would not immediately imagine this persona though, what with his Simon Amstell hair and his Noel Fielding fashion sense. He finishes off a rapturous set with ‘Jessica’ asking Miss Simpson where her love has gone as it’s not in the music.

Possibly the second biggest crowd pullers of the weekend, and surprisingly not headlining, despite their headline slot at Glasto, is Mumford and Sons. People are sitting down outside the NME/Radio 1 tent to watch the set on the screens outside because they know there will be no room inside… and they’re right it’s packed tighter than Steve Tyler’s trousers. The band emerge to an applause louder than a supersonic jet taking off. Every track they play is sung back to them just as loud and every foot stomping beat is clapped along to religiously. It’s funny to watch as the band are notorious for building it up, dropping it down and building it up again all in the same song. So to see the crowd looking a bit aimless when it drops down brings me to a chuckle. Even when they play two brand new tracks to the crowd, there are clap-alongs and after each one a eruption of applause and approval. The band leave with enormous smiles across their faces.

We decided to leave as there are the notorious riots here tonight, thankfully we miss them. However friends of ours are stuck in the tent with fear and not being able to sleep as the site explodes into a riot without a political agenda. There are mass fires of tents and cans and aerosoles are ignited! Staff ignore complaints remove their high visability jackets and join in the chaos. Something needs to be sorted out about this final night. If we ignore these riots we can yet again say with confidence that Leeds Festival is one that is not to be missed!