T in the park festival 2009. Friday

The Mars Volta opened the BBC Radio One/NME stage in the early evening, bouncing onstage to acrobatics on the drums. I have a foggy recollection of seeing them years ago supporting some Scottish band, and not being impressed, so pleasantly surprised to see my expectations weren’t met in this case. They’re doing the rounds this summer too, stopping at the Wickerman Festival in the Scottish borders in a few weeks, and will be worth checking out.

Newcastle’s Maximo Park took to the main-stage later in the day. I remember being sceptical of the Geordie lot when they first began to get mainstream prominence, and all that being smashed away by the band’s amazing performance at an XFM only gig in Edinburgh. I was sure that they would have given in to the machine of popularity and become dull, but frontman Paul Smith was as electric to watch as last time, and gave the impression that he was singing to each and every person individually, and meaning it. On record I’ve never been too impressed, but live they are definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Glaswegian art sceners Franz Ferdinand followed, cranking out hit after hit, and reminding everyone why they were so popular at their peak. Just because they’ve slid off the radar doesn’t mean you can’t have fun dancing along to the songs you used-to-like-but-got-overplayed.

It’s always nice to see artrockers near the top of festival bills, but when did the Yeah Yeah Yeahs get so popular? Regardless, Karen O strutted around in her cat-like way; camera shutters clicking furiously round about me. She’s someone who has that extra, undeniable edge – a naturally sexy person. She managed to catch and hold the attention of the crowd; each person mouthing along to every word as she somehow seemed to gaze into everybody’s eyes at once. I found out later that inflatable eyeballs were later thrown out into the crowd and left to be pushed around. I was a bit disappointed that Karen O hadn’t plucked the giant eyeball out the backdrop and thrown that in instead, or pulled a Flaming Lips manoeuvre and climbed inside.

Kings of Leon had a pre-approved list of publications allowed in to photograph them. Given what we’ve said previously about their recurring appearances at T, and the fact that I’ve never quite been able to forgive them for shaving off their beards (which coincidentally was around the same time the mainstream media began to notice them properly), I headed over to catch Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on the NME stage. Can’t beat a bit of cold red hand.
  

Photos by Stephen McLeod. Friday gallery is here.

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