1 Big Recap

Well we went to Radio 1's Big Weekend today, and it was absolutely fantastic!!! We only live a 15 minute walk from Moor Park, and despite the fact it looked like it was going to hammer down all weekend if the weather forecast was to be believed, in actual fact the sun shone and it was glorious!

Behold the lovely weather!

And behold Stu feasting on some dubious festival food!

I stuck to a good old fashioned Cambridge bar! MMMMM (not!)

We managed to see most of the bands I wanted to, with a couple of exceptions, namely the Klaxons and Maximo Park, but never mind!

First up we went in the In New Music We Trust tent and saw The Enemy, who were totally fantastic, and i'll even forgive them for making me feel very old by looking so young!

Then we hung around to watch Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, who I have to say was my favourite of the day, awesome doesn't come close! And, possibly the coolest name for a band, ever!

We then nipped very sharpishly over to the main tent to see Mark Ronson, mainly because i've just bought the album and I was keen to see how it translated live. And again, it was awesome. Stu wasn't overly keen, but he reckons that's because he doesn't 'get it'. What's to get! Some very cool versions of songs I already love, like Radiohead's 'Just', and the Kaisers 'Oh My God'. Brilliant!

After that we had a bit of a bask in the sunshine whilst listening to Pete Tong and Vernon doing some head to head djing type shenanigans. That's something I don't get really, i'm not one for all that mixing, but it was good none the less.

After that we went and had a squizz at Mika who was a lot of fun and really does have a great voice. He danced about like a loon and had funky trousers on, cool! Oh and he sang a song about big girls and had a curvy girl in a corset dancing about. Heh.

Then it was The View who I was really looking forward to seeing, and they didn't disappoint. Again I felt quite old, they are all young lads, and I definately felt like a mum because I kept thinking about how one of them needed to brush his hair. Still, great music! And they seem to have a pretty hardcore fan following, we had two in front of us doing synchronised dances and everything!

After the view it was the Stereophonics who played a huge array of their hits as well as some new ones, really, really good. The main stage was heaving at this point and little me got quite squished!

We then nipped outside for a breather, which in hindsight was a mistake, before the final act of the day, the Kaiser Chiefs. Struggled to get back in the tent, it was rammed! And despite mr lead singer man being a tad on the arrogant side I feel, they were fantastic live, never seen them live before and it was ace. I now have no voice from singing so loudly, and I bounced about, and generally had a fantastic time!

General ponderings and things that made me smile on the day go as follows....

1. There were a huge amount of inflated condoms bouncing about, I predict a baby boom amoungst the student population of Preston in the not too distant future...

2. There is a huge array of fast food available at festivals these days, you could have noodles, curry, burgers, mexican, carvery, veggie, pizza, fish and chips, you name it, they had it! I'm hungry now.

3. They had this thing running whereby if you took your paper beer cups back to a special recycling tent you got 10p back. Cue lots, and lots, and lots of student types collecting the cups from people and from bins. Nice. Even saw a respectable middle aged dad type on his hands and knees routing through a bin pulling the cups out. His son was sensibly pretending he wasn't with him.

4. I saw absolutely no one I knew, but I did see hundreds of people who looked like people I knew but weren't. Odd.

5. I only saw 1 celebrity type, Nikki Sanderson a.k.a Candice from Corrie. She was sitting on an expensive looking leather jacket on the grass rummaging through a very nice handbag. I whiled away a good 15 minutes watching people none too subtly spot her, then circle her to make sure it was her, and occasionally have pirtures taken with her. I was happily maintaining an air of dignified indifference to the celeb 10 feet away until Stu came back from investing more money in the dodgy burger and beer industry and took a photo of her. Men.

6. I only saw 1 other person wearing the same wellies as me.

7. The latest thing in fashion seems to be looking like you should have woken up 20 years ago. Honestly, I saw so many girls today who looked identical to the girls in those photo stories you used to get in jackie magazine or whatever it was called in the 80's. Or like the girls Rodney dated in the early Fools and Horses. Heh. I'm just jealous obviously.

All in all, a really great day, great for Preston, and I don't feel so bad about living up here now!