LEEDS UNITED: Another round-up of coverage

It's raining in Leeds. Tipping down, says the NME blog - which will probably be good news for the Love not riots organisers - as the cop said at the end of, erm, Cops, rain is the best policeman there is. It's like nature's water cannon.

They've also got the final confirmation that, yes, Alan McGee has finally lost his grip:

McGee, currently managing Dirty Pretty Things, had some surprising revelations to tell us. The three best gigs he ever saw were The Clash in '77, Oasis in '95 and The Libertines in '04.
Until last week, that is, when he saw The Rolling Stones... The energy emanating off Sir Mick was apparently amazing, while Keith's guitar playing was real 'dirty'.

As Smash Hits observed many, many years ago, you know you've crossed the generation gap when you start talking about how today's bands are fine, but Mick and Keith just blow them off the stage for their "energy". Still, let's hope he tries to sign them to Poptones.

NME proper has coverage of the reuniting of Andy Nicholson and the restofthe Arctic Monkeys backstage at Leeds:

Drummer Matt Helders chatted with his fellow founding member plus a group of friends in the backstage bar as Arctic Monkeys took in the atmosphere ahead of their main stage appearence this evening.

It can't be confirmed that Helders was saying "yeah, but before you were kicked out, did Alex start to look at you funny and always make you go for the Ginsters pasties?" with a worried look.

It's also thanks to the NME that we know that Carl Barat kept his arm in the sling during his set this aftenoon - understandable, after the gruesome twangs of pain yesterday.

The Sunday People gossip column VIP was down in Reading, but still was able to delight us with the news that Goldie Lookin' Chain got stuck in Leeds instead of transfering to the other site: they'd drunk way, way too much. In a way, it's incredible that anyone still wants to underwrite their drinks bills.

Gaz Crawler was in Leeds with but one aim, to see Pearl Jam. He supplies a kind of negative setlist:

However, I knew much before that no matter what they did, I would always be dissapointed as they have so many good songs they would not play ones I really love. They didn't play 'I am mine' or 'Rear view mirror' which are fan favourites and two of my favourites, so was quite surprised and dissapointed when they didn't. Other songs I hoped they would have played were 'Nothing as it seems', 'Light years', 'In my tree', 'Save you' and 'Immortality.

If you stare at this, and then look away at a blank white wall, the songs they actually did play will appear, reversed out.

Gaz ends with chill words:

If you're a twat and want slag off or argue Pearl jam with me, then heed my words. I KNOW MORE ABOUT PEARL JAM THAN YOU, YOU WILL LOSE.

Ah, but how much do you know about the Sha-La-La flexi disc series, Gaz, eh? Eh? Eh?

You can't argue with facts. Steven's Blog knows the facts:

Body Count I first listened to in 1993 when someone lent me a tape. The singer is Ice T, who most people will of seen in a few films. He was one of the first rappers to turn into an actor.

There surely aren't any people alive who haven't seen Ice T in a few films.

And who knew that seeing a chubby bloke say two words could make someone as happy as it made Stina:

We managed to get back to the main stage just as Chris Moyles came on. And introduced PETER bloody KAY!!!!!!! HAAA!! I was spazzing (hahahaha) and fumbled around with my camera pmsl and just caught a bad pic of the screen before he went again haha. He introduced Kaiser Chiefs and was like "KAISER... CHIIIIEFS?!" hahahaha which was SO funny lol.

But do you see... like he didn't know that that was really the name of the band. Although someone who works in the top flight of the UK entertainment industry and who has got free passes to Leeds in return for a spot of introducing not knowing the name of the Kaiser Chiefs is unlikely, isn't it? First rule of comedy, Spike, you must have veracity.

The odd mix of audience at Leeds has drawn comment before, and xjeennehx got to see how strange it was close up:

Next up were The Subways. By now we pushed ourselves further forward but behind this family, a Mum and Dad who decided to come along and bring there 10 year old sons, who looked like they weren't into it at all. I heard one of the kids turn round and say to his mate or bro or whatever, when The Subways were playing, ''this is crap'' =O! I wanted to yell FUCK OFF into his little infant ears. Seriously, there was no point in them being there. So Kaff came up with the idea that if we were really loud, we could drive them away haha. So when they did Rock & Roll Queen, we were going for gold hahaha. Then Billy started shouting '' SUP LEEDS YOU SEXY FUUUUUUCKS!'' to the bemusement and horror of the mother infront of us. Plus, the kids were giggling because he said the word 'Fuck'.

Clearly, the Clear Channel people still need to fine-tune the event to capture more of that family audience. Perhaps next year they should get The Fimbles and The Hoobs to headline.

music leeds 2006 subways peter kay kaiser chiefs pearl jam