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| Leeds Festival 2002Day One2002 live show  Review by: eyeball_kid See others by this writer www.leedsfestival.com (link) Only registered users can post comments 
 
Published on September 10th 2002 In today's civilised world, camping in a field for three days merely to get drunk and dirty would be frowned upon. However add to that mixture a crateload of high quality punk/rock/indie bands (plus err...Guns N'Roses) and you have a music festival. With over 50,000 people milling around the relatively small site it was damn difficult to catch all of the bands I wanted to see. I think I just about managed it though... On friday morning I got up nice and early to see The Dillinger Escape Plan wake up a few thousand people on the gigantic main stage. Tearing it up for a whole half hour, they played a good mix of older stuff and a couple of new songs from the 'Irony is a Dead Scene' EP. Frontman Greg Puciato jumped off speaker stacks and threw himself around the stage and eventually into the crowd where he lost his t-shirt. That only served to make him sound more angry! It was the best possible start to the day and most of the rapidly expanding crowd had smiles on their faces enjoying the spectacle if not the music, which was just about perfectly played. The guitarists looked as though they were desperately trying to stop their instruments attacking them. Next up Amen played an entertaining set. It wasn't great musically, probably due to them having recently acquired a new drummer and guitarist but the constant Guns N'Roses bashing ("Axl Rose is bald" etc) and Fat Mike coming out on stage to help with broken equipment (on the whole thanks to the second insane frontman of the day) kept it interesting. Next Hundred Reasons played 45 minutes of bouncy Fugazi inspired rock. The fact that they resemble a more accessible At the Drive-in (minus the weird tangents and cryptic lyrics) gives them a huge following and the younger fans around me knew the words to every song they played. It was fun but was got a bit old after half an hour. Following some Terrible Kurt Cobain tribute act, I pushed my way to the front for my first NOFX live experience. Having not played anywhere near the North of England for at least three years the fans were suitably mental. We sang through 'The Brews' and other tunes while they were setting up on stage. The only time the singing stopped was when I was hit square on in the forehead with a full cup of water (thrown by the security) leaving a nice red circle. The singing then turned to laughter. Anyway the band came on to a huge cheer and after El Hefe had ripped through a guitar solo ("I'm like fuckin' Van Halen man!") they played a great mix of tunes from all the 90s albums (with the exception of Ribbed) and the soon to be classic 'Idiot Son of an Asshole' It would be an understatement to say the crowd went crazy. Thankfully the talking between songs was pretty minimal. Hefe was in many ways the star of the show, breakdancing and showing off his new trombone skills on the end of The Decline. After their time ran out Melvin played his accordion for a good five minutes while Mike took photos and gave out freebies down the front. The soundmen cut the accordion and it was all over. After being part of the weekend's only spontaneous circle pit I was exhausted, and got a quick drink or three before The Offspring were due to play. They came on half an hour late having taken ages to set up two huge racks of percussion which were basically inaudible anyway. Boy, did those guys look old. Dexter Holland was pretty tubby and the stage presence was almost non-existent. An hour later they still hadn't got out of first gear - a really lazy performance. The fact that great songs like 'All I Want' were played slower than on record and they had two men who looked even older than them backing them up on guitar and vocals insulted the audience even more. The biggest bottle fight in festival history started, presumably to alleviate the boredom. At least that was fun. Even including Reel Big Fish (who had pulled out at the last minute) the other smaller stages weren't much of a draw on this particular day. I had missed Pretty Girls Make Graves just waiting in the queue to get into the festival arena. Now after a quick dinner of the worst plate of chips I had ever tasted and some flat coke all that was left was "Guns N'Roses". Fair play to them, they were only about 90 minutes late coming on. About half of that was due to The Offspring and The Prodigy who were on the same stage beforehand though. I was dismayed to find that on the list of stage times they didn't have a finishing time. Would I have to sit through a 12-minute version of November Rain? Please god no! I took it as a challenge. After some ridiculous video footage we were transported back to 1989 for two whole hours. The crowd had aged about 20 years and I was bathing in a sea of cheese rock! Somehow I was enjoying it. I only knew 4 songs, but it still managed to be entertaining. About the most punk thing that happened was the set being split in two by the new guitarist Buckethead (6'8", KFC bucket, white mask, yellow jumpsuit, you know the drill) doing a nunchucka display followed by some robot dancing. Though it was a decent performance they still had the air of being a bit washed up. There was no exciting new material or anything. Spectacular pyrotechnics ended 'Paradise City' and we left happy. Only two days to go then... TO BE CONTINUED
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i unfortunatley did happen to catch the end ot the MTV awards and saw GNR. it was quite possibly the worst sight i have ever seen. pathetic. end of story. I don't like NOFX musically, but I love their lyrics- I can imagine what "Idiot Son Of An Asshole" is about and it puts a smile on my face- it's about time someone nailed bush in a song. I just wish it was a violent nail, like pushing through his empty redneck skull! DEP....the only worthy band in the bunch! The only band worse than Guns and Roses is the pathetic excuse for a cover band playing here. Axl has completely lost whatever excuse for talent he once had. Anyone see the MTV awards? Pathetic. Harsh comment (guy two below). Still not as bad as the day three review hijacker though. hey man shut the fuck up you asshole, who would want to hear more than 4 guns and roses songs anyway you assmunch they are fucking shite, stupid cock rock assholes, this review was for all the bands that he saw on the first day of the festival, and if u had been there at the guns and roses show im sure u would have something to say about it, whether you liked them or not, so stick that in your blunt and smoke it, this site is all about personal opinion and interpretation of music, notice the title...'punk news' punk is about being open minded and respectful of opinion, so if your narrow minded/dont like punk which u seem to be then u can hit the road mate If you only knew 4 GNR songs, no matter what they are now... you are fucking retarded, and you have no right reviewing ANYTHING. I'm not even joking dude. Read 666 times! Maybe I should have written about Slipknot after all... I went to Leeds fest and had a fucking great time. Guns'n'Roses rocked my ass. I know they're only a fake band now, but still put on a bitchin show. NOFX, Hundred Reasons, Offspring and Capdown (a British Ska-core band) were all amazing. Looking forward to the next two reviews. I, like the person who wrote the dissertation about DEP, went to reading. by the way... As that true? I read about the same thing at Buddyhead, but you gotta take what they say with a grain of salt. Travis's comments about GNR were fucking hilarious though. Word up to the leeds massive; went to reading (not reading stupid, pronounce it “Redding”) and had a similarly splendid time. FOR REAL to the “Terrible Kurt Cobain Tribute Act” comment as I was totally thinking the same thing through their whole set, which we also had just before NOFX. It sucked. You guys had GNR which we missed out on, but as previously commented, there’ll never be a chance to see the REAL GNR again. Not ever. Will be interested to hear the other 2 days as I’m not sure who we had that you didn’t but there were some pretty good bands on the concrete jungle stage as well as the main stage. Also, did you hear the Dillinger Escape Plan shit story? About the lead singer taking a dump right out there on the main stage? "..Hundred Reasons played 45 minutes of bouncy Fugazi inspired rock.." WHAT????? fuck guns n roses. yeah they were the best 80's "hard rock" band but it's still 80's hard rock. and that sucks. Maybe I am wrong, but didn't the original band do the ill-conceived Spaghetti Incident as well? Hehe yeah sorry fries. Anyone else understand the 'Proper English' in Austin Powers 3 perfectly? i fucking hate Guns n Roses Chips are fries to you limeys, right? Nope, their current bassist is Tommy Stinson [of the Replacements]. You're thinking of their keyboardist Dizzy Reed, he's been in the band since the "Use Your Illusion" albums, I believe. guns n' roses, that is. actually i believe the original bassist is still in the band too. That's why i put "Guns N'Roses" The band you saw was not GNR, they broke up after Use Your Illusion I&II. What you saw was just Axl & a bunch of jackasses. Rip on the poor excuse for GNR that played, but realize that GNR (the original GNR) put out some of the best music in any genre. Put it this way: If NOFX (the band you so badly wanted to see) put out a greatest hits cd, it still couldn't hold a candle to "Appetite For Destruction or "Use Your Illusion", maybe "Lies" but that's it. damn, if you only know four songs from "appetite for destruction" then there's something wrong with your musical education, no matter what age you are. damn good review. offspring use to be so damn cool, ixnay rocked. |
