@ T in the Park – Part Three

Last day of T. Cold beer for breakfast. Again.

And we got the very, very last of the sunshine, before torrential rain washed the entire place out, making us scurry from tent to tent, checking out:

First: The Naked and Famous. All the way from New Zealand, easily the best band T-shirt of the festival, and their music a smooth, elegant Southern Hemisphere, instantly classic/modern sound that’s best described as beautiful. Check out the video for The Sun (below) to get a good feel for it. You must also check out their YouTube channel to see the rest of their art – and it is art. Reward their creativity and niceness for sharing it all on the web by doing the right thing.

Second: Fenech-Soler. All the way from Northamptonshire, easily the most abstracted graphic flag of the festival hanging behind the band, and their music not quite as punchy live as some of the stonking remixes that have been done, like Disco of Doom‘s:

Third: Metronomy. Flashing White Heart Badges! So cute! More guitars! The English Riveria nominated for a Mercury! But after just a few tracks my feet were literally itching to get shifting to some heavy beats, so we headed rapidly to:

Fourth: Diplo. Probably the only artist on the planet who still only uses myspace, but lets not hold that against him. Heading into the tent I remarked: “This is either going to blow your head clean off or be a total waste of time.” Diplo can be a little patchy sometimes, but this time… OMFG.

Tune after tune! I mentioned in Part Two that I wasn’t a huge fan of dubstep? Somehow, Diplo managed to take us all there without us even noticing it, mashed us around the room for a good quarter hour, and then took us back to his home-baked electro-house-dancehall sound. We must have expended the energy equivalent of a small nuclear warhead in about 45 minutes flat. There is no one track that could do justice to that set, so I’ll settle for the slightly older C’Mon where, oddly, Tiesto gets into the mix:

Fifth: Blondie. Diplo was exhausting fun. The rain was done, so it was time to head outside and into to recovery mode, and what could make you feel more betterer than a little Blondie? Debbie Harry rocked out all the old classics, and did them well. At age 66 she’s a force to be reckoned with, and I can only imagine her back in her prime… look out!

Sixth: Pulp. Reformed, out of retirement, and with the consummate showman strutting his stuff, they were everything you would expect. Highlights included Jarvis wiping his arse with the last ever edition of News of the World (hooray!) and, of course, Common People. The only problem with Common People is that William Shatner has ruined that song for me. His cover is astoundingly good. So rather than give you the song you’ve heard a thousand times before, I’m going to give you it in a way that will send shivers down your spine (just wait for the Shat to growl out the word roaches at 3:56):

Seventh: Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl made us very much aware that they were beer and whiskey drinking, genuine no bullshit, balls-to-the-wall rock-and-rollers with too many loud guitars and a very loud drum kit and they were going to hammer out the noise until the management turned off the soundsystem.

And man, did they rock. Every time they played a new song it was a classic: it’s still a surprise to (re-)realise they’ve produced a tonne of stuff post-Cobain that is all their own, and brilliant: Nirvana casts such an enormous shadow. There was Monkey Wrench, of course, but the live and extended version of Stacked Actors was the thing that tore the roof off. Except there was no roof… apologies for the lame video, it was the best I could find… just go get the album.

The totally hilarious thing about the Foos was that they rocked so hard, then all but Dave left the stage so he could play us a nice acoustic number, and we heard the noise that had been kind of bugging everyone throughout the entire performance. It was Deadmau5, with the volume knob turned up way, way, WAY past 11. We all took one listen to that, compared it to whatever quiet solo number Dave was about to perform, and headed for the noise…

Eighth: Deadmau5. Ten seconds after starting the walk away from the Foo Fighters, we realised we’d made the right decision. I have no idea what the sound tech had done, but compared the the previous night with SHM, Deadmau5 was at least three times louder. I always wear a pair of Etymotic ER-20’s when I’m anyplace with loud music. They prevent damage to the ears without blocking the tunes, and everyone should own a pair: I cannot recommend them enough. More on that in another post I think.

I really needed them right then.

It’s not often I can say, with complete and utter honesty, that my clothes were flapping against my skin with the force of the bass. And certainly, I have never experienced anything like that outdoors. I mean… I’ve felt music before – really felt it, pounding through my body, making the hairs on my arms vibrate, the whole thing.

But never. Ever. Anything. Like this.

It was all I could to to just stand there, arms held out at 90 degrees to my body, and bathe in it.

The light show was also spectacular, but rather immaterial when the kick threatened to knock you off your feet.

It was so good I’m not going to even try and give you a sample of what it was like: through little laptop speakers that would be just sacrilege. So instead, a slow, nice remix of Kaskade, the XX, and of course our friend Deadmau5 holding it all together.

What a great way to end an amazing weekend.