Homelands Weekend: Chapter 3

After sitting down and enjoying the view (and the Stellas) for a while, we decided to get up and head over to the Live Stage. Inside we found the Bravery just starting. I'll put it quite simply, we only waited for Jutty to get back with the next round of Stellas before we left. Since it was early in the afternoon, we weren't there for very long. I mean, the Bravery suck. I'll compare my distaste for the Bravery to my dislike of Morrissey and the Smiths. Watching the lead singer of the Bravery (let me do some quick research, 'cuz I have no idea what his name is), Sam Endicott(?), is pretty much exactly watching Morrissey on stage. They even look the same, for Christ sakes! The comparisons are very apparent between the Bravery and the Smiths... the music is good, the singing is shooting 82's when par is 71.

Thanks NME.com for the research help.

So in lieu of not wanting to watch the Bravery, we decided to use our hour and a bit before the Audio Bullys to take a leak. Well, Mark and I did, while Jutty and Barry disappeared. If Mark & I didn't already take a piss, we woulda pissed ourselves because we couldn't find them right away. It was quite funny, but Mark was on his mobile trying to ring Barry. That didn't work, 'cuz as it turned out during the day, Barry's phone got such shit reception, that no one could hear what he was saying anyways. Eventually, they moved away from where they were and found us again by the Live Arena. Later on, Barry told us that they disappeared to see Groove Armada at the Outdoor Stage, or something like that.

When we all gathered together, we found ourselves another beer and waited outside the Live Arena for the Audio Bullys to come on the stage. When we were sitting outside, the first approach came from a big black fella for pills. When in Rome, eh? 6 for £20. What was thought to be a reasonable afternoon, quickly went out the window and the rollercoaster ride began.

The Audio Bullys were pretty cool. I got some pretty good footage on my camcorder and some really good digital stills as well. I was pretty impressed with the end product and so were the lads. It's kind of a shame that the film and stuff would be so big or else I would post some of it for all of you to see. The cover and remix of Nancy Sinatra's 'Bang Bang' was the opening and finishing (a poor lead-up to an encore as well) track of the set, which sent the crowd pretty nuts. It was pretty awesome.

The Live Stage was really where we wanted to be for the gist of the day. Ronan was just dead up for the Drum & Bass stage and if we ever needed to find him, that's where he'd be... or else he'd be standing outside getting some food or fresh air... or may be even a beer. After the Audio Bullys had finished, we decided to go find Ronan and see what a few of the other tents were like. We had about 20 minutes until Mylo came on stage, so we thought we had enough time to do a quick tour and have a good laugh.

I think the day was really kicking in, because we had sat down with more beer, went into Arena's 2, 4 & 3 (3 being the Drum & Bass arena), found Ronan, Mark had a quick bite to eat and we ended up back at the Live Arena for the end of Roots Manuva. 'How the hell did we kill 2 hours like that?' That was the big question before we sorted ourselves out some more goodies and went in to see Beck.

Beck wasn't on until 8pm, but the sun was still shining, the girls were getting more and more gorgeous and well, we were getting more and more wasted. Luckily, I was still rather coherant for Beck. Since I missed Babyshambles earlier in the day, I sure as hell didn't want to miss Beck.



We didn't miss Beck. In actual fact, we got an excellent spot for Beck. Barry gauged us at about 5 rows from the front, if not better. I was snapping away with the camera and was trying my best to get a few of the good singles on video. Barry insisted that I have all of Loser on video, which I hopefully did. I think I did, I tried my best. But already, looking back at the tape, I think some people had been playing with it and rewinded it to certain parts, because I'm sure I had more footage on there than what was left. Maybe that was just me anyways.

Tunes Beck had played, that I remember anyways were The Devil's Haircut, Loser, the New Pollution and Epro. There was probably a lot more, but I was really beginning to fall apart upstairs... ha ha! It was a pretty good set and the arena was absolutely packed! What a great atmosphere.

And then everything gets a little silly...

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7