Festival misery

It's been a bit of a miserable weekends at the festivals: Not only the bloke being stabbed at T in the Park, but some poor woman at Oxegen got third degree burns after "a friend" somehow hit in the face with a "makeshift blowtorch" and a man was found dead in his T in the Park tent.

We're still trying to work out under what circumstances you'd require a blowtorch, makeshift or otherwise, at a music festival.

T in the Park 'despondent' but upbeat over stabbing

Geoff Ellis, T In The Park organiser, is trying to keep the serious stabbing at T in the Park in some sort of context:

"We're despondent about it," he told NME.COM. "Does it cast a cloud over the festival? Well, as serious as it is, it is an isolated incident, and we've had a really well-behaved festival here so far.

"Unfortunately we're seeing things like this in society today, it seems to be on the rise in general. The security here is really robust – we've got a big fence around the site, for example, but it'd be foolish to say that it's impossible to get illegal things [such as knives] into the site."

It's true enough - you can't really expect a pop festival to stop people getting stabbed on-site if, say, secondary schools have trouble doing the same, but "let's focus on the thousands of people who haven't been stabbed" seems a little too glass-half-full in the circumstances.

But, of course, he'd have to believe that, wouldn't he?

T in the Park is making noises in Scotland this weekend, and the great headline debate which hung over Glastonbury has turned up there, too. To be more precise, the 'Rage Against The Machine? In 2008? Playing a large beer commercial? Seriously?' question, which organiser Geoff Ellis has attempted to answer:

"For me, getting Rage Against The Machine back to T was a great coup," he said. "They are just as relevant now as they were in 1994 at the first T festival, which was when they last played here."

We did wonder if this was a back-handed complement - perhaps Ellis was suggesting that the band had already compromised itself into being a Sony BMG t-shirt marketing scheme painted as political activists; we suspect, though, he meant it.

Winehouse for beer fest

Amy Winehouse has confirmed she'll be playing T in the Park this summer.

Or, rather: Amy Winehouse has confirmed plans to cancel an appearance at T in the Park this summer. It's not yet known what day between now and the scheduled appearance she'll pull out, although 'exhaustion' from press revelations about drug-taking is expected to be the cause. Organisers of the event said they were delighted Amy has agreed to be briefly listed on the bill again: "Last year's non-appearance really got people noticing T in the Park; we're delighted that Amy has agreed once again to make a vague promise about overcoming the recent negative press coverage to consider a date and look forward to announcing just who will be filling her slot at a press conference nearer the time."

T in the park's weak brew a national outrage

Drowned In Sound are suggesting that this year's T in the Park line-up is an affront to Scotland, with its Rage Against The Machine and Shed Seven and Newton Faulkner.

It might also just be an indication of how very, very thin the talent jam gets spread around the multiple festivals - especially if you sideline a couple of bigger acts with drugs problems, for example.

On the other hand: surely there's no schedule vacuum wide enough that would allow an excuse for having The Hoosiers and Bowling For Soup on a public platform, surely?

The Verve stop by for T

Making the Glastonbury line-up seem even less special, it's been confirmed that Richard Ashcroft will be double-dipping by having The Verve as one of the headliners at T in the Park as well.

Joining Dickie will be REM and Rage Against The Machine. No, we checked, this is definitely the 2008 line-up.

Who wouldn't want to see Zack yelling about individuality and corporate evils at an event which simply wouldn't exist if it wasn't promoting lager.

That pdf document, by the way, is quite interesting as it shows exactly what Tennnets gets out of the deal. In 2005, the 10th anniversary, it brought:

The brand’s integral position to the festival and the heritage that this represents was communicated excellently, with consumers encouraged to celebrate the milestone with Tennent’s Lager.
Over £6.5 million media coverage was reached – editorial and promotional coverage, no
including any advertising spend:
- £4.2 million press coverage
- £2.3 million broadcast coverage

Presumably this is some different machine to the one being raged at.

Other bands playing this year:

Kings of Leon
The Fratellis
Stereophonics
Kaiser Chiefs
Prodigy
Kooks
Primal Scream
Chemical Brothers
Interpol
Ian Brown
The Raconteurs
Biffy Clyro
Counting Crows
KT Tunstall
Feeder
Pigeon Detectives
The Enemy
The Feeling
Amy MacDonald
Panic At The Disco
Hot Chip
Aphex Twin
The Charlatans
The Pogues
Ben Folds
Wombats
Reverend and The Makers
Pendulum
Justice
DJ Hell
Erol Alkan
The National
Band of Horses
Seasick Steve
Eddy Grant
Alabama 3
Sons and Daughters
The Courteeners
Slam
Paul Heaton
Lightspeed Champion
Ting Tings
Black Kids
Sergeant

Kings of Leon - Glastonbury headliners, remember - are taking second billing here. You have to wonder if Glasto is really interested in tempting younger audience, if they'd be better off hiring someone from the organisers of T rather than a bloke from Mendip Council.

T in the Park introduce muddled slew of ticket packages

Camping, no camping. One day, full festival. It shouldn't be difficult to sort out the tickets for a festival. But, in the misplaced desire to offer 'options', T in the Park has decided to introduce more packages than you can wave a potato-based tent peg at:

There will now be four ticket packages to choose from – weekend with camping ticket, combined Saturday and Sunday ticket, Saturday ticket and Sunday ticket.

The combined Saturday and Sunday ticket will let you in for both days but does not allow for camping.

When buying either the combined Saturday and Sunday ticket or the weekend with camping ticket you will be asked if you want to buy a Citylink bus ticket at the same time – which organisers believe is the most cost effective method of travel to the site.

We've managed to buy a bus ticket with camping for Friday and Sunday, but no entry to the festival. Can that be right?

Okay, it's not that confusing, but it's more complex than it needs to be, surely?

T in advance

We were a little surprised to see this claim in our feedreader:

Amy Winehouse to play T In The Park 2008

Blimey; she can't be relied upon to turn up to things booked a day in advance; ten months is surely pushing it.

But at NME.com, the headline has its all-important question mark in place.

And she's not even been approached yet, the story is that Geoff Ellis is considering inviting her to play. And they read it in the Record. Which constitutes less a story about the 2008 T in the Park line-up, more a peek at the back of an envelope wish list.

T in the Park 2008 sells out

Or at least the earlybird tickets have all gone: 40,000 gone in just over an hour.

It's curious that T are able to flog their tickets twelve months in advance, and yet there's no problems with servers melting down, or any on-selling to an extent that requires a national panic and questions in the house. Funny, that.