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.
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.
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.
