Extreme Listening Mode!

ScantRegard hates most living things, yet that hasn’t stopped her becoming a T in the Park Stalwart. Here’s her guide to what you can look forward to;

It’s that time of the year again, when half of Glasgow and Edinburgh packs up and heads north to terrorise the good citizens of rural Kinross for a weekend. T in the Park is established as one of stalwarts of the ever-expanding British festival scene, and with that comes the good, bad and ugly sides of inviting 80,000 pissed Scottish people to spend time together outside the confines of a city centre.

The good

For a big festival the site is relatively compact, and this allows you the chance to see almost everything you want to, barring the inevitable scheduling conflicts. I remember one year happening upon the Inspiral Carpets on the NME stage as I went for a pee, which was great, as I was so smashed I had no idea they were even playing the festival that year. Funnily enough, I can’t remember too much more about that year, apart from the 3rd degree sunburn. This year, there are again some gems on the bill, like Squeeze, The Gaslight Anthem and Edwyn Collins, that should not be missed (see our guide to the t in the park stage times for more.)

The bad

Some say that the festival tries too hard to please the fly-by-night supermarket indie buyers. One look at this year’s line up show s a distinct lack of imagination on the part of the organisers, but they are not alone. So many festivals springing up around the UK in recent years has meant that June – August has become something of a travelling circus for these bands and their hype machines. It’s all a bit too Glasto-lite. Lily Allen? Check. Keane? Check. Fucking Razorlight? Check. Added to that, you get the inevitable Scottish boys done good, witnessed this year by Paolo “I’m a very old man” Nutella and Snow Patrol, to let the pissed up neds wave their Saltires at something before they go robbing. Which leads me nicely into…

The ugly

The scourge of the Scottish inner city is a breed of tracksuit wearing felons known as “neds”. They can often be witnessed drinking buckfast, listening to terrible techno and threatening people on public transports in every town from Inverness to Dumfries. Except in the middle of July, when they descend en masse on a disused airfield somewhere outside Balado, and proceed to cause utter havoc. At last year’s T, a friend of mine witnessed a ned leave on the Saturday afternoon because he couldn’t get anymore loot in his car.  He came, he terrorised, he fucked off with a lot of iPods. Live and let live, I usually say, but an inevitable consequence of marketing the event to the masses is that it attracts a larger concentration of people the Daily Mail would probably call “undesirables”, which taints the atmosphere and changes the vibe of the thing. My advice to all this year; if you catch a whiff of the sickly scent of tonic wine and hear a distinct nasal twang, move your tent, you’re in for trouble.

Filed under: General Stuff Tagged: | 2009 t in the park survival guide, Live music, live music in scotland, neds, Razorlight, T in the Park, t in the park 2009