Leeds Festival - the music, the rain, and more rain.

In true Leeds Festival fashion, a massive downpour greets us as we arrive and attempt to put up our tent.  It says “hello, there’s going to be as much rain as rock music this weekend”, and this is exactly what we get.

In fact, there is so much rain and rock music that it all blends into one big soggy, musical mess, with the highlights standing out like shiny pennies in the mud.  Patrick Wolf’s fantastically diva-like performance precedes our shiniest penny of the first day, in the form of a secret set on the NME/Radio 1 stage.  Josh Homme walks on stage and we are literally running to the front of the tent.  He is joined by Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones to make up Them Crooked Vultures, one side-project worth watching.  They are exhilarating, sexy and raw, making otherwise brilliant sets from White Lies and The Blackout seem rehearsed and tame in comparison.

Unfortunately Radiohead also fall into this tame category the next day.  We know they should be a highlight, if not the highlight of the weekend, but they are disappointingly lacking in energy and passion and so we see Lostprophets instead.  Who are brutally excellent.  Ian Watkins literally has the shirt ripped off his back and crowd surfers start a mini-pit on the wrong side of the barrier.  Rock ‘n’ roll, eh?

More carnage takes place first thing on Sunday morning when The Ghost Of A Thousand initiate the first successful Wall Of Death of the weekend.  And then the rain swoops in, driving everyone into the tents for cover.  A siren voice and drenching raindrops make Florence And The Machine’s set a little bit epic, with the weather leaking through in a column of water onto Florence’s drummer.  Even when the rain stops the tent is still packed for Friendly Fires and goodness, what a dancer!  Forget nu-rave, we’d rather dance to this cowbell-heavy indie-dance-pop hybrid.

Kings Of Leon are the perfect festival headliners.  The hits are big, the sound is rich and full and pretty much everyone’s singing along.  ‘Closer’ is deliciously eerie but overall it’s a feel-good set to end the weekend on a high, even though it’s started raining again.