My Coldplay.com - A Coldplay Blog

As mentioned earlier, I went along to V Festival 2008 in Chelmsford. I drove this time, as it’s only 40 minutes away. The traffic on the A12 was horrendous and it took a while just to get into the campsite. However, the field I was staying in was quite close by, so setting up was a doddle…

They’ve changed the layout completely since last year. The 4Music stage was were the V Stage was and vice versa. It took a while for me to get my bearings. I had mates over in red camping [I was in yellow] and it took ages for me to find them, the area was so big and not very well marked out. They need to sort that out for next year…

On the Saturday I checked out Air Traffic, who were ok, but they much better when I saw them at Rock Werchter last year. I’d never seen Shed Seven before, so checked them out on recommendation of my mate. Now I see where Oasis got their sound from. They have totally ripped off this band, who have been around for ages and have some great tunes. I really enjoyed their set.

I stayed around to see The Hold Steady for a few songs, but I wanted to check out The Script, so I ran over to the JJB stage, but when I got there David Jordan was performing [bleh!] so I hightailed it outta there over to the main V stage and saw The Lost Prophets, who were great [did anyone catch that extreme closeup of me on the Channel 4 coverage? Whoa!]. The lead singer had jokes and had a weird accent - sort of Englishy- Welshy-American, but he was funny. He also got the crowd going by getting us to repeat after him and sing/shout as loud as we could. Very entertaining.

Maximo Park were good, but not as good as I’ve seen them on previous occaisions. Their new songs aren’t grabbing me either. However, I was loving what Lukas Wooller was wearing - a black, open v-necked hoodie. He looked way lush. Paul Smith had a lovely green check suit on and looked very dapper with his blowler hat. Dave Berry came out to do a link, just before The Kooks came on. He looked lovely too, bless him. Also, The Script appeared on stage and did two songs, which was nice of them, considering I’d missed them earlier…

The Kooks were ok. They did a good job with the crowd, who were singing all the new material from Konk. They also did a collaboration with Ray Davies from the Kinks, which was rockin’. The Stereophonics were awesome, as always and had a nice light show - lots of yellows and reds and greens. They are so cool and laid back. They just give it to you and the crowd were lapping it up.

MUSE were out of this world - literally. Their set was like a spaceship with two gigantic satellite dishes either side of the stage and two on the stage, which moved up and down and side to side and had lights beaming out of them as well as projected video images. The had green lasers, which did different patterns projecting out into the crowd. The whole thing looked amazing. Their set was great, which included Butterflies, Supermassive Black Hole, New Born, Starlight [which had everyone clapping away] and Plug In Baby went down a treat. Everyone was singing away, really loud. I was jumping about like a loon. Muse always do the business when they’re on stage. Everything is always immaculate. I absolutely loved it when Chris Wolstenholme played harmonica before the start of Knights of Cydonia [my absolutely TOP favourite Muse song]. I like how they end with it instead of playing it at the beginning. It is a CHOON!

SETLIST

‘Map Of The Problematique’
‘Supermassive Black Hole’
‘Dead Star’
‘New Born’
‘Hysteria’
‘Butterflies And Hurricanes’
‘Feeling Good’
‘Space Dementia’
‘Invincible’
‘Time Is Running Out’
‘Stockholm Syndrome’
‘Take A Bow’
‘Starlight’
‘Plug In Baby’
‘Knights Of Cydonia’

The only moan I have was the sound. It was bloody awful. I was on the right side of the barrier, in front of 5 massive, floor based speakers and they had them turned up way too much. It was absoulutely shocking. Also there was too much dry ice during Muse’s show - on stage and on the ground level. You could hardly see the band some of the time. I thought it was totally unecessary. However, the pillars of smoke, which turned into pillars of fire on the front of the stage at the very end was top notch.

I did wish I was able to split myself in two and see The Prodigy, who were headlining the 4Music stage at the same time. They are fucking crazy live. The TV highlights looked great [*pouts*.]

On Sunday I wanted to see The Stranglers and Squeeze, but I got up too late [I was knackered, still recovering from Muse], so I ended up checking out Girls Aloud from a distance [whilst I was getting my phone/camera charged up]. They had a massive crowd for their show. I saw on TV that Nadine Coyle was running away from a wasp, whilst she was singing - how funny was that? I also went over to the signing tent and got The Reverend’s [aka John McClure] autograph. He is a top bloke, really thoughtful and cares about the fans. He knew he was running out of time and said he felt bad that he wasn’t able to sign for everyone.

I wanted to see Sam Sparro and hauled ass over to the JJB Arena, but he wasn’t there! That’s another thing that got on my nerves. I subscribed to mobile phone updates and got nothing. No notifications of the lineup changes, which pissed me off. I didn’t stick around as Robyn was on stage [she's not my Tetley, you know what I mean...]

There were heaps more people on Sunday, than there were on Saturday, which was great, but bloody annoying at the same time. Took ages to get from place to place, coz there were people everywhere! I didn’t/couldn’t move around much, because of the crowds. I stuck mainly with the 4Music stage [in readiness for the Kaiser Chiefs]. I caught some of One Republic’s set. They’re really bland, but the lead singer has a good voice, really strong. He was belting out their songs for all he was worth, which was quite admirable. Next up was Scouting for Girls and I’m telling you, they had a HUGE crowd. I was on the barrier and I turned around and I’ve never seen so many people, they’re so popular. The sun was shining, which was great and everyone was having a great time during their set, singing along and jumping up and down. Oh yeah, just before their set, the lead singer came out to where some people were standing/sitting who were guestlist and on the other side of the barrier near to us. I was stunned. The lead singer was just feet away from us. There was a teenage girl next to me, who went crazy. We were trying to call him over, but he walked off [the bastard LOL!]. Anyways, at the end of their set he comes down off the stage and runs the length of the barrier, so we at least got to give him a high five as he was running past.

The Reverend and the Makers are doing really well. They’ve come a long way since I first saw them supporting The Arctic Monkeys way back when. It’s so nice to see that people are getting them and they delivered a great, funky set too.

Next on were The View. I’m bored of these guys, seriously. The sound was abominable. I had my fingers in my ears most of the time. I dunno why they turned up the volume. The bass and kick drum were totally distorted. It really put me off. Kyle has lost weight though. All that puppy fat has gone. I was quite surprised.

The Zutons however, had a storming set and I really feel that they should have been the headliner. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some Kaiser Chiefs, but in terms of stage craft and general musicianship, they don’t hold a candle to The Zutons. These guys are fabulous and really don’t get their due. Yeah, ‘Valerie’ was a big hit for them, but the song has been bastardised and I think they should just drop it altogether and stick with their new sound - a really meaty rock that just made the place jump. You don’t even have to know their songs to be able to sing along, they’re really catchy. I especially loved ‘Zuton Fever’ and ‘Always Right Behind You’. And that Abi Harding is way fitter than The Reverend and the Makers girl, who can’t sing [and really needs to tone up]. Abi has a killer voice and plays a mean sax - you go girl! I definitely got to go and see them again.

On to the Kaiser Chiefs, who were great, but it was really weird. Just before they came on stage, it started to rain. Just ever so slightly, then it was pouring down. Ricky Wilson said ‘We’re not going let a bit of rain hold us back’. I thought we were going to get electrocuted as I could hear zap sounds coming from somewhere. The Chiefs played more new songs, which I was loving - ‘Never Miss A Beat’, ‘You Want History’ and ‘Half The Truth’ all went down well. The crowd were jumping up and down to ‘I Predict a Riot’ as Ricky decided to scale the scaffold at the side for the stage. He also came down to the crowd a couple of times, but stayed in the middle [spoilsport]. It turns out that he had a dodgy ankle, so, no wonder he wasn’t all over the place like he usually is. I was in shock though when I saw Nick Hodgson’s ‘porntache’. What? Is he trying to give Jonny Buckland a run for his money? We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Peanut and also they had a couple of guys play with them on two songs and Ricky kept saying ‘Here’s so and so - it’s his birthday too!’. He’s very droll.

They did really well and put on a great show, but we didn’t get an encore, which left me a bit dazed and confused. I know the band usually end with ‘Oh My God’, but they could’ve broken it up a bit. We were definitely left wanting more….

The festival finished with a whimper instead of a bang for me this time around. I wonder what next year will bring….

Piccies are in my flickr gallery. No vids I’m afraid as the sound on them is too horrible to expose anyone else to them…