V FESTIVAL 2008

This Review From Judy Allison

Getting the tickets this year was a bitch. Only being fourteen, I can’t skip school to queue for them, and my Mum, probably because she just couldn’t be bothered, decided she wouldn’t queue. But eventually I got my sister to get me one!

The night before V, I didn’t get much sleep; we were getting the plane from Turkey to arrive at six in the morning. So, by the time we got home, I only had about half an hour to get ready, because Rachel’s mum was giving us a lift to Tescos. We were meeting my other friends there before walking over to Hylands.

We spent the first while not actually listening to the music, but trying to figure out where everything actually was. The first band we saw were the Futureheads. Im not exactly their biggest fan, but they weren’t really that bad. Then we pushed our way as close to front as we could get to see our favourites – Lost Prophets. They made my day, and I was in the mood where you don’t mind being elbowed in the face, when normally I would have turned round and whacked them straight in the face. We stayed more or less in the same place to listen to Maximo Park. Hadn’t really listened to them before, so I didn’t know any of the songs, but I still managed to enjoy it. The next band we saw was the kooks, I’m not a great fan of their newer songs, but I like some of the older stuff. It was really good, except they tried to make everybody sit down on the floor, (…if they had seen the amount of crap) but being surrounded by drunks makes the whole situation really quite hilarious and rather fun.

We had a walk round the site, tripping over cans and bottles, trying not to loose each other. Then we headed to see the Pigeon Detectives. I hadn’t really listened to them much before V, but what I heard I liked. But after seeing them live I think they will be on my ipod for quite a while. After jumping up and down continuously for the whole of their set, we headed for the headliners, Muse. But from where we were standing, we couldn’t see anything (and, is it just me, or was whatever was on the screen completely pointless), and to be honest we couldn’t hear it too well either. And being surrounded by the cool kids (because they were obviously way to cool to dance) and old women, it wasn’t exactly great.

When Sunday arrived, we just about managed to stumble out of bed to leave early left early, because we wanted to see the stranglers. We thought the queue would be quite short, and we were wrong. I never realised as many people liked them. Excellent performance, we only heard the last few songs, but worth chasing them up and seeing again.

Then we sat on the floor at the very back of the crowd talking, while the Feeling were playing; they were quite (and by quite, I mean very) boring. We didn’t really want to listen to a crappy band who’s song all sounded the same, so me and the girls went to see Scouting for Girls (there was nothing else on nearby) and spent our time laughing at the woman in front of us, who may have been slightly large, but there was no doubt that she had a world class wedgie.

We watched the first few songs from Amy Winehouse, but she couldn’t sing to save her life (not that we get the impression she wants to save her life), and pulling her skirt up over her head, put us right off. But at least we can say ‘I’ve seen Amy Winehouse’ after all she’ll probably be dead soon. We were pushed right against the stage barrier, with a pretty good view of the View. The show was spoilt a bit by the most annoying drunk being carried out by security guard, the crowd surrounding us cheered as he was carted away. A couple of old blokes with wives, looked completely shocked that people were throwing themselves into other people, knowing they would be injured. By the way… it’s called moshing.

Next was the legendary Kings of Leon, we were well sad, we couldn’t see or hear them properly, but they were undoubtedly amazing.

And to finish the weekend, was the Kaiser Chiefs. I admit, I hadn’t listened to them for a while, but they were one of the very best bands that weekend (despite the rain), worth the cost of the ticket just to see them playing on the main stage. Judy Allinson