motorway services somewhere near gatwick / monday / 1220
off to ibiza later, so we’re just parked up. what a great weekend. T was fantastic – a really great line-up, and a huge scottish crowd singing along like we were the first band of the weekend, not the last. we had a blast. our third time here, and we’ll come back as many times as you’ll have us.
i managed to catch most of bloc party, and a bit of elbow too – both utterly brilliant. also caught the encore of the wonderful blur – we all went to see them at wembley arena in, i don’t know, maybe 1997??? they were as brilliant yesterday as they were all those years ago. dave rowntree is one of the drummers that i used to play along to – i’d stick the great escape or parklife on my headphones and play it from start to finish. a truly great band. the universal was an amazing moment, and quite a way to finish the weekend. see you next time…
bloc party
perthshire, scotland / saturday / 1830
what a strange week this has been – from this (desert between dubai and abu dhabi)
to this (one of the most beautiful bits of scotland i’ve ever seen)
oxegen was a lot of fun. there was a lot of noise coming from the other stage, so we didn’t play an acoustic bit, just playing about as rocking a set as we ever have. seemed like it went down pretty well too, judging by the noise coming from the massive irish crowd. oxegen did us proud again – thankyou!
we had another sleepless night after finishing at 1am and being rudely (and i mean rudely) awoken at 6am at the ferry crossing by some rather zealous security people who made us all get up so they could search our bus. they then left us alone for ages without telling us they had changed their minds, and that we could have gone back to sleep. we have to do a lot of these type of crossings, and some are better than others. this was not a good one… anyway, i got another hour of sleep before getting up for the ferry, where scott very kindly treated me to a nice cooked breakfast…
we’ve got a day off, then it’s our turn at t in the park – definitely one of my favourite festivals anywhere in the world. if you are there already then i hope you are having fun.
oxegen festival / friday / 1300
we had a long travel day yesterday – out through the desert to abu dhabi for the flight to dublin. didn’t get much sleep, but watched a couple of episodes of the excellent series called the nasa missions, and i’m re-watching the west wing because it’s so damn good. also listened to the a camp album again – it’s really growing on me.
it was a pretty tiring day, and i flaked out early after a couple of pints of guinness last night. the others stayed up pretty late by all accounts…
we’ve played oxegen a couple of times before – i remember doing a photo shoot on the big ferris wheel, and worrying that the photographer was going to fall out.
also remember seeing tom vek play a great set in one of the tents. it’s a great line-up. can’t believe we won’t be able to see blur play, but there are tons of great people playing, including our pal lily allen, the excellent mumford and sons, ladyhawke, M83, the fun lovin’ criminals, frankmusik and many more… i’m off to find my wellies.