Tag: Delgado's

First T in the Park Festival

The first full Festival I ever attended was T in the Park in July 1999 with John Dewhurst and Uncle George. I recall John attended the first couple of festivals in 1994 and 1995 when were held in Strathclyde Park, Hamilton with easy access from Glasgow before the festival moved to the larger site at the disused Balado airfield in 1997. Problems were subsequently encountered at the 2016 festival resulting in that being the last event.

We decided to grab a B&B in Edinburgh with the obligatory dolls dotted everywhere in our triple room and commuted into the site from there which turned out to be a bit of a trawl as it was over an hour each way on the shuttle bus, but you had the consolation of crossing the Forth Road bridge. After a couple of bevies in town on the Saturday we caught the bus about 3pm.  The weather gods smiled on us that weekend.

It was a huge site with several stages, and it possessed a natural amphitheatre for the main stage location. It was a cracking roster that year.

First up on the main stage was in retrospect a touching set as it transpired to be one of Joe Strummer’s final gigs prior to his untimely death, he was backed up by the Mescaleros. Following them was the New York faux gangsters Fun Lovin Criminals with their inimitable lead singer Huey Morgan, who is now a Radio 6 DJ. He was dishing out priceless advice by encouraging us ‘to go out and grab some ass’!  Their ‘Scooby Snacks’ track naturally went down a storm. We also caught a portion of the Stereophonics set.

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Joe Strummer on stage. Image Credit Las Vegas Weekly

We caught a segment of a very young Travis in a packed Stage 2 tent playing a rousing rendition of ‘All I Wanna Do is Rock’ and in the Slam Tent we saw Basement Jaxx.

In the King Tuts Wah Wah tent I encountered Death in Vegas for the first time and they were startingly good, opening with an astonishing 10-minute version of ‘Dirge’ with the added bonus of the guest vocalist Dot Allison actually on stage as she was also playing the festival as a solo act and we caught her set the following day.

The headline act was Mogwai and only the second time I had seen them at that stage, and George’s first and they were in fine fettle. Upon realising they were clashing with main stage headliners Blur, who they understandably had no time for the cheeky young scamps devised some T-shirts. Mogwai had been previously quoted that they thought Blur were one of the weakest bands on the planet thus the message emblazoned across the front was their interpretation of the dictionary definition of the band, namely ‘Blur: Are S#*#e’. I regretfully never purchased one of the T-shirts.   

  

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Infamous T-Shirt. Image Credit WordPress.com

 

Upon arriving back into the city, we foolishly stayed out until about 3am, however the dolls were still waiting for us when we arrived back. Thankfully John had some remaining dexterity to navigate a troublesome lock, whilst me and George giggled inanely behind him!

What greeted me the following morning was one of my all-time crippling hangovers and the thought of another full festival day was put it mildly particularly undesirable at that point in time. The only potential cure was the Hair of the Dog method though I was contending with the size of a Saint Bernard resulting in the extreme step of supping a brandy at lunchtime to set me right.

A few pints followed in a bar on Rose Street and I recall the British Grand Prix being on and chatting to an engaging American chap called Hank who became known thereafter as ‘Hank the Yank’. I felt infinitely better leaving than when entering the pub though I did flag later in the day.

In the newcomer’s tent, we saw Astrid and a very young Biffy Clyro.  On other stages we witnessed Placebo, Massive Attack, Gay Dad, Lanterns and Deus.

However, the best three acts of the day were the main performances in King Tuts tent. A soothing set from the Delgados was followed by a rousing one from Idlewild. The headliners were Mercury Rev who produced a terrific swirling performance to bookend the festival.

On the packed bus on the return journey some punter dropped his cube of recreational drugs. He went into panic mode as he wasn’t the owner resulting in the surreal sight of the entire top deck crouching down searching for the missing artefact before it was eventually located.

We landed back just shy of midnight and we were ravenous. We tasked a local taxi driver to find us an open Chinese takeaway and he met the challenge. A midnight feast followed before having a nightmare about those damn dolls!

I awoke feeling like a new man in the morning and we headed home via an ice cream stop in Moffat.

Gigs Abroad – Part 1

I have been very fortunate to visit many foreign climes and witnessed many bands abroad but many of them have been of the on the hoof low quality holiday threshold. In that regard, my first gig abroad was at Majorca Santa Ponsa Square in 1997. In a rather quaint environment of a bandstand in the centre of a tourist square we saw a rather inferior Beatles tribute, but as with many of these gigs the compensation was the glorious sun and a beer in an ice-cold frosted tankard!

However, the second gig is in stark contrast to the first and at a completely different level. In September 1998, I married my ever supportive long-standing girlfriend Gill and we headed off for a few days to Dublin for our honeymoon.

It was a place we had always yearned to visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our sojourn and we caught the city at a good time as we were in advance of it becoming a stag do destination and subsequent stratospheric prices. It is a very walkable destination and we embraced that approach dually soaking up the culture and visiting many hostelries and rather proudly we did not visit the same venue twice. We also found some fine restaurants dotted around the metropolis.

We headed out on the Dart (the local train) to visit interesting areas on the outskirts either side of the city, passing Ireland’s rugby mecca Lansdowne Road and walking on the pristine sands of Killiney Beach. I really found an affinity with this vibrant cosmopolitan city.

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The Dublin Dart. Image Credit TripSavvy

When I had booked the vacation, I thought it would be worthwhile identifying if there were any likely looking gigs that week and identified one at the Dublin Mean Fiddler. Fortuitously the venue was near the hotel and I recall in a pub next door to the venue on Wexford Road they were having a tribute night to Gene Clark, the founding member of the Byrds, who penned timeless tunes such as ‘Eight Miles High’ and ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’.

I had previously visited the sister venue Harlesden Mean Fiddler in 1987 watching the troubadour Townes Van Zandt. The Dublin branch opened in 1995, subsequently closing in 1999 to reboot itself as a new venue called the Village which is still going strong.

It was a small cosy venue with a downstairs bar and an upstairs venue. We arrived quite early allowing us to grab a seat at a table on a gantry overlooking the stage. At that point, it was the first gig I had observed purely in a seated position. The venue capacity is 550 and it was probably about half full that night. The support band was the Nottingham band Six by Seven who were touring on the back of their debut album ‘The Things We Make’, they created a fine racket with the standout track being ‘Something Wild’ and I would badge their performance in the ‘earnest’ category!

The headline act was the underrated Delgado’s from Motherwell who were uniquely named after Tour de France winner Pedro Delgado. They set up their own record label Chemical Underground which initially signed up a very young Mogwai and Arab Strap. They were fronted by the enigmatic Emma Pollard and they cut an engaging entertaining presence.

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The Delgado’s. Image Credit ohmyrockness.com

After the gig, we headed out to the downstairs late bar and gained entry despite my comedy fall at the bottom of the steps due in part to imbibing several bottles of Becks!