Toby: Summer (Pt1) Leeds Festival

The months of august and September where particularly sparse writing times for me, for one I wasn’t really around a computer for too much of it all, and secondly I was too busy living the events and soaking them all up, I didn’t really want to ruin it all by rationalising it in my head. So now, in hindsight I look back on one of my favourite summers in a long long time.

Leeds Festival.

Leeds festival is good fun no matter what happens, that’s what we all had in our minds and to a certain extent that’s still universally true. I had to think this harder than most this year, because frankly the line up was sparse and obtuse. My favourite bands were clashing or on in mid day, people had gone mental for nu-rave and the beer were a ten pence cheaper. However, this all was eroded upon the first day of glorious sunshine and good old fashioned joshing.

Friday’s highlights included buying the guardian and thinking that Trent Reznor looked like David Gest.

Saturday’s highlight was seeing MAXÏMO PARK (sorry but they have to be in caps) blow the entirety of Leeds away with some as always jaggy art pop driven genius. I can’t hear them without smelling room oderiser. They just make me happy, they’ve got artsy lyrics about girls and love and roughly 14 amazing choruses. Me and Philip greeted each other on the morning after with –

“Five times five equals?”

“TWENTY FYYYYYYYYYVVVE!”

Amazing, topped off by a rather thin but ultimately sublime Patrick Wolf the day was one to be savoured.

Sunday came round with pangs of guilt and regret. I’ll tell you the tail but first you must agree not to judge me or condemn me until you know the facts. On Sunday I burnt my friend’s guitar. Right. “Bastard” you’re thinking and think you might, however here be the facts and in some way there is a redeeming logic to it all. Skip back a night to the Saturday of fun times, I’d had fun and as with fun, when 4am roles around you kind of get tired and in thinking that you’ll be up in roughly another 4 hours anyway it’ll be best to get some sleep. (Due to the transparency of tents, and the overzealous nature of Leeds campers). So when 5 rolled around and some CUNT sorry but CUNT was playing “Why does it always rain on me?” for the fifteenth time with boy band vocals added that perfectly rational part of my psyche snapped. I was not only over the edge of reason I was somewhere past Cuba lighting up a cigar and giving the US border guards a rounded V sign. I cracked that night in Branham Park. And I’m not proud of my exacting revenge.

Sunday passed without remark, the bands were average the cider was flowing and I’d finished off my box of wine, I’ll be very honest in saying I was very drunk. Yes very drunk in-fact. However not too drunk not to remember I had yesterday’s guardian in my tent that I hadn’t read yet and through utter despair at the line up headed that way with Sarah, possibly Hayley too. We arrived to find Phil, Nic, Georgia, Mike and Dickie. Possibly others were there, I’m not sure. They seemed to be stuffing grass into Luke’s guitar. Now call this full blown twatishness or sheer excitement but seeing my tormenter royally stuffed filled me with a passionate joy. And like most passionate joys when inebriated it bypassed my brain and went straight to my foot. And my foot went straight through the guitar. Oops.

I hadn’t quite intended it to all happen so soon, but then the memory changes and becomes confused and quite separated through myth and fiction. I can remember someone shouting “BURN IT” (this may have been me, though more than likely Phil) and I dutifully obliged, it seemed those fire lighters were in my pocket for the speed at which they were dispatched. The guitar was gone. No one claimed the deed, no one dobbed the other in. We passed it off as a moment of madness.