Extreme Listening Mode!

I don’t like festivals. You probably could have predicted that, I know. You stand in a field and get covered in mud. I don’t like mud. It’s not solid ground, it’s not a proper puddle, its just this gooey mess. In fact, if mud was a singer, it would be James Blunt. That’s how much I hate mud. Then, you camp. In a tent FFS. What are we, animals? I like kettles, central heating, televisions, automatic tin openers, hot running water. It’s 2008. Is this the Modern World? If I wanted to live in a badly constructed canvas structure, I’d buy a ticket to Mexico and live in a shanty town.

Then there’s the food. £5 for a salmonella-infested burger dripping in more grease than Morrisseys got through over the years, or the culinary version of the Sinclair C5, the hot dog. Ah, the festival hot dog. Constructed of the lips and arseholes of the animals making up tastier treats in proper restaurants, held together in an orange-coloured condom-like skin, it arrives looking like nothing other than Hulk Hogan’s cock served in a bun. No. Never shall that pass my lips. (Insert your own 80’s wrestler fellatio gag here.)

And then, worst of all, are the ‘people’ who attend festivals. Up here in North Britain, they divide into three camps. Camp 1, the students. Walking about like a collective dead flower, generally overdoing the wackiness quotient and trying far too hard to convince themselves they are witnessing a Woodstock-style epoch-making event. Then you have what we call here ‘neds’, what our English readers would call ‘chavs’ and what our North American friends will recognise as ’scum’. A gargantuan example of why natural selection doesn’t seem to be working, these walking adverts-for-abortion have no interest in real music and inevitably go to these events to see whatever safe indie choice is top of the pops at the time. They can later be found in the dance tent, laid into an even more incoherent mess by a potent combination of cheap drugs and even cheaper wine. And then, by far the most heinous of the lot, the liberal middle-class cunts. You know the type, there with their 7 year old kid and dog. The child is treated like ‘ a little adult’ even though he’s not, he’s a kid and should be ignored at best and ferociously disciplined at worst. Yet, if I set about any of these groups with my satchel full of hand grenades, I go to jail. How is that fair? (By the way, I was once in a pub beer garden - PUB - when one member of the  liberal middle-class cunts group asked me if I would mind not swearing around his child. Would I mind? Of course I would! Would you mind keeping your child away from my swearing instead? And get his hair cut. He looks like a girl.)

So you can imagine my surprise when my friend bought me a ticket for a festival last year, Connect at Inverary Castle. It would be different I was told. Great bands, great food, different vibe. So I went, and do you know what? It WAS different. The food (and drink) was great and well-priced. The crowd were clued-up music fans mainly, there was a great vibe, the setting was beautiful and there was some great music - Bjork, Jesus and Mary Chain, Beastie Boys, LCD Soundsystem, Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, Rilo Kiley and the highlight of the weekend, Modest Mouse. My friend also had the foresight to book a hostel room, meaning I didn’t get sent down for a long stretch for running amok in the campsite.

So, I have been looking forward to hearing this years line-up, which came yesterday. Initially, I have to say I was very disappointed as it seems the organisers have lurched to the mainstream. Headliners are Franz Ferdinand, the Manic Street Preachers and fucking Kasabian. The Gossip are playing. Now, as I’m not an NME editor, I am not legally bound to pretend to like the fat lesbian just because, well, she’s a fat lesbian. (By the way, she may well be striking a blow for larger ladies and all that, but I for one would not want to smell her bum after she’d played an energetic set in the sun, that’s all I’m saying.) Paolo Nutini and Amy MacDonald are playing, presumably because they are Scottish. It can’t be for their music. If it IS for their music, kudos to DFC promotions for promoting equality by employing a deaf booker. Kasabian and Nutini in particular attract that ned element, meaning we’ll see more football tops and tonic wine bottles. This is bad.

But then, a look down the bill brightened my soul. Sigur Ros are booked and they are simply fabulous. ELM-favourites Elbow are booked, Grinderman are there too and oh look, there’s Spiritualized! Throw in Mercury Rev and Camera Obscura and you have the makings of a comeback.

So I’m not enchanted, I’m not distraught. But a note to the bookers; this festival will succeed because you attract people like me, not people who go to T in the Park or Reading/Leeds. Make sure the rest of the acts come from the left of the field. We neither need or want another festival which books the Fratellis.