No Rock And Roll Fun

'HURRAH! NOBODY BURNED DOWN ANY TOILETS!": So, lets give credit where it's due, and give thanks that - apart from the nasty barrier not-collapse - Leeds festival went well and didn't end in a foreshadowing of armaggeddon.

Shavo Odadjian also earns our respect (on behalf of System of a Down) for their quick action in pulling up their set when the barrier-incident happened: ""It's our responsibilty. Even though it's my show, if kids are getting hurt you've got to stop. Once the energy starts coming from the fans and comes to us it creates a cycle of intense energy. Once that gets too much, you've got to stop it and create some peaceful energy." You might wish to compare and contrast this with the attitude and actions of Fred Durst back at the Big Day Out - if he'd reacted like that, rather than encouraging the Limp Bizkit audience to attack the security guys, maybe that girl might not have died. Everyone at Leeds seems to have swung into action and done the right thing quickly and saved a major-fuck up from turning into a major tragedy, and deserves to be praised for that. But that doesn't let the organisers off the hook - after the Danish and Australian festival disasters, it's unforgivable that the barrier shifting was able to happen. When you hand over your money to a festival company, you have the right to expect that the basic safety equipment is going to work. We'd be interested to see if this is going to be taken any further.

In other festival news: The nme.com coverage of the two legs was excellent - although we'd doubt that a crowd waiting for Metallica would be that "stunned" by Bobby Gillespie being rude to them; Metallica fans will take any end of shit from their own band, so the boss of a rival band coming on all Alex Fergusson won't be too much of a problem, we'd guess. The curious bleeding of the career of Blur continues - Damon falling off stage like an emotional music hall artiste and - oh, what a surprise - Phil Daniels joining them for Parklife. A-bloody-gain. The surprise is probably more in the band dredging up that part of their past to play live rather than Daniels appearing once the opening chords chime out.