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23 August 2004

LIFE – V Festival and the Pixies

On Saturday Natty took me to the V Festival in Stafford. There was a 3 hour queue to get into the site – normally I cannot abide traffic jams, but the Saturday papers, Carter USM on the tape deck and leftover pizza from the night before meant the time passed pleasantly.

Having missed the first 2 hours of the festival we managed to hear a passable Snow Patrol go through a lacklustre set which sounded great from the car park and generally dull next to the main stadium. Badly Drawn Boy was atrocious and his presence fast led me to indulge in the £3 Budweiser.

N-E-R-D

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this band, despite being impressed with by their audacity in advertising their presence with a tethered blimp.

N-E-R-D are a typical four piece US punk ensemble fronted by 2 rappers – the best way to describe their sound would be a more melodic Rage Against the Machine with a heavy funk element. Determined to get a good place in the crowd before the Pixies and slightly reassured by Natty’s insistence that they were ‘alright’, I stood there impassively for all of a couple of minutes before breaking out in a broad smile.

Whilst not strictly my cup of tea but they were energetic and got the crowd going, they played cheery songs which you could shout along to. I’ll not be rushing out to buy their album but any band which name checks itself so often and sounds great live are well worth a view.

The Pixies

The Pixies are another band which I really should have liked when I was younger – but really didn’t. It wasn’t until earlier this year when presented with a ticket that I realised I’d have to listen to a couple of their albums.

The Pixies are really worth the effort – their music is fantastic and I was constantly listening to their albums before I left. The band didn’t talk much throughout the gig – Frank Black didn’t even grace the crowd with a hello or goodbye. Barely had the sound of the last song finished before the first chord of the next had started up. This, however, added to the pace of the set and Kim Deal’s beaming face made up for the lack of communication from the rest of the band. The crowd was ecstatically enthusiastic as the band played one classic after another. Altogether it was an accomplished and thoroughly entertaining performance.

Knackered from 2 nights drinking and the onset of a cold we missed Primal Scream and hit the shops. Managed to get Natty some new stripy socks and myself a fresh pair of blue metallic Doc Martins for £35 – the store was playing the Nephilim so I had to have them! We left the arena via the Pot Noodle stand with a contended feeling and rather less cash.

posted by Matthew at 20:05 0 comments

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