No Rock And Roll Fun

BSN GOES TO LEEDS: We had hoped to bring you Rory off bsn's report from Leeds last week, but we'd edited it down a bit and wound up crashing the computer when we tried to paste it in. So, here it is again. Readers unfamiliar with Rory may find it instructive to read his perspective on events, the policing especially, with the knowledge that Rory lives in Belfast:
After we'd pitched our tent, one of Leeds' major problems became apparent - there's nothing to do when the arena's not open. Sure, there were a few stalls in the field outside it, but they were rather barren (i still managed to pick up Senseless Things' Too Much Kissing single (for 90p!) to replace my badly-scratched copy, as well as Angelica's new album. Graham and Selina arrived at midday on the Friday, and, we went down into the arena to poke around the stalls, listen to a few bands, and the like. It was rather scary to realise that I knew more about the bands playing on the wee Carling stage than I did about those who were on the main stage that weekend. I'm frighteningly out of touch "with 'ver kids", i suppose, but on this, Leeds' "rock day", I was glad for the excuse to stay out of the way of the scary metal types. We'd been standing at the edges of the tents for most of the day, but for Easyworld and Trail of the Dead and Spitualised; these were the most crowded sets of all, so we retired back to the campsite, to discover that the sound from the main stage was better there than it was at the back of the crowd around it, which was handy.
So, we lit our fire, had some drink, and, (eventually) guns'n'roses came on. I've no idea why they were so late, but lots of comedy "you mothers thought i wasn't going to fucking show up, assholes"-style posturing. but they weren't too bad really - lots of pyro, and "mr. brownstone" and "paradise city" and "sweet child o' mine", and though they'd been threatening to play some of their newer ("industrial-tinged") material, they didn't bother (a good thing). And yeh, it was all a bit of a sham, 'cos it wasn't really G'n'R, it was one-bloke-out-of-G'n'R-who's-won-the-legal-right-to-use-the-name-in-a-Bucks-Fizz-stylee but who cares, 'cos as far as bad 80s rock wank nostalgia goes, they were fab.
Saturday morning came, and we were all up early, and so decided to pop home to Sarah's to wash (my, aren't we spoilt), but the traffic getting back was horrendous, so we missed the Von Bondies and Mercury Rev. bah. We arrived in time for the White Stripes, thankfully, only to be greeted by the biggest crowd we'd experienced so far. The sound from the back of the main stage really was horrendous - all mixed in with noise from the fairground, but we persevered, and were rewarded by Jack and Meg being rather wonderful. They played material from across their back catalogue, and, thankfully, a good proportion of the audience seemed to be familiar with their earlier stuff. Festival audiences are generally fairly dead so early on in the day, but there seemed to be sufficient interest from the crowd to've warranted a headlining slot, imho. oh well.
We managed to get close to the front for the very, very, very wonderful The Pattern, who feature a singer who wants to be Mick Jagger when he grows up, which is no bad thing... And the Libertines, who're Sarah's current favourite band were rather splendid too and, and, and, well, yes, sunday was a Good Day.
By mid-evening, though, the crowds were again getting to be a bit much, so we went back to the tent to prepare for the inevitable (or so we thought) night of violence that lay ahead.
After the riots of the last couple of years, Mean Fiddler have made huge changes to the organisation of the festival. The campsite fields had 2.5m-high perimeter fences, and the toilet and waste areas were separately enclosed.
There are 27 of these fields, 18 in the "red" area, 8 in the "yellow area" (where we were), and 1 for VIPs. Each field had several (generally 2 or 3) "guard towers", equipped with searchlights and IR-cameras, with microwave links to beam video back to base. Each tower had 4 stewards attached to it - 2 of whom were on the tower at all times. There were also a couple of stewards gaurding the entrance to the toilet blocks.
By sunday evening, they'd closed down the waste disposal areas. Unlike the toilet blocks, these had been fenced off with a chain link fence (the toilets and perimeter fences were soild corrugated steel). Now, though, they'd lined the interior of the waste areas with black plastic to stop people seeing in - and it quickly became apparent why: they'd been stuffed with maybe 30-40 police officers apiece. Now, I've seen them described elsewhere as having been in "riot gear" - and yes, maybe 4 or 5 of them had helmets rather than caps, but that was about it, unless you count "riot gear" as being a fluorescent yellow raincoat, a set of handcuffs and a comedy truncheon. No guns, no flares, no water cannon, nothing. That was quite frighetening in itself, and I could understand why they were hiding like that, as they'd have been sitting ducks if there had been any determined rioting.
As things turned out though, there was nothing of the sort. People are used to being turfed out of the campsite by 10 or 11am on the monday, and so many decided to stay up all night. There where also loads of spoilt teenagers there who'd never been away on their own before, and couldn't really be expected to be completely responsible and quiet on the last night.
By midnight, they'd shut the toilets completely (handy), and, other than a steady hubbub of people talking and laughing and singing, there was little else of note. Oh... one group near us burnt down their tent 'cos they couldn't be arsed bringing it home with them (i bet they laughed hard when it started to rain later on. oh well. that'll learn 'em, as my granny would say), which attracted a couple of stewards with a fire extinguisher (not that they bothered to use it).
There could've been a nasty-ish incident a bit later when people realised that they could no longer go to the toilets, but some of the police came out of hiding and waved their truncheons, and the irate crowd of maybe 20 people quickly dispersed - presumably to go and piss outside other peoples' tents out of desperation.
Things weren't so quiet in one of the other fields, apparently - in which one of the toilet blocks was destroyed by a mob of 50-odd people, and around the same number again started chanting at the police. At this, the police imposed a curfew in that field, and forced everyone inside their tents (not difficult, as it was starting to get very cold by that stage).
All in all, it was a fairly calm night. The organisation of the festival was hugely better than before - and the perimeter fence, and the walling-off of the toilet blocks were sensible and effective moves.
Could things have been done better? Well, yes - the half-arsed policepresence could've been beefed up and bit, and made into a visible deterrent. Some proper riot police patrolling the place, maybe an armoured landrover or two parked at each guard tower, that sort of thing, would've have killed an potential trouble dead - after all, the "rioters" don't have any serious aim or purpose - they were just doing it becuase they were bored and drunk. It's not the Short Strand, where another 16 heavily-armed soldiers were badly injured in last night's riots (though the campsite did look almost as messy as the outside of my office on a mnonday morning), there's no need for the army to be called in, or for people to be shot, or for hysterical newspaper coverage.
The noise was bloody awful, mind. One wee shite, in particular, nearly got himself lynched for walking round and round the field blowing an air horn for 3 or 4 hours on the trot. And another group were playing happy hardcore at top volume all night long (though they'd done that previously too). But that's the sort of thing that I expect happens at all such events - wee shites let loos for the first time are bound to engage in all sorts of relatively trivial anti-social behaviour. The mess and squalor and behaviour of some parts of the site were apalling, but I can't moan too much about that lest i sound even more like an old man than i already have done.
anyway, yes, a good time was had by all.