A nun, a Smurf, a cowboy and an inflatable horse. A Thunderbird on crutches and a vicar in a tutu. Two eyeballs, three bananas, four Teletubbies and dozens upon dozens of Hugh Tennent’s.
If it’s the opening day of T in the Park 2010 it must be Fancy Dress Friday. By early afternoon, four hours before the first bands took to the stages, the atmosphere in the famous Balado campsite was already at fever pitch. Inside one of the bar tents, ground zero for this year’s fancy dress competition, revellers danced to hits by Dizzee Rascal, The View and Franz Ferdinand.
“We were inspired by the advert for Vision Express”, says Joanna Johnston, 28, dressed as a giant eyeball. “Or was it Specsavers?” asks Bekka MacKenzie, her 23-year-old eye-pal. The girls came down on the train from John O’Groats in their costumes, although they did make their giant sunglasses in their tent once they’d arrived on the festival site. “We didn’t think they’d fit on the train”. Their aim: “To be in the crowd, on telly, swaying around behind our sunglasses.”
Many festival-goers have followed this years fancy dress theme Mad Hatters T Party but instead of donning a mad hat, the site was packed with Mad Hatters, Alices, Queens Of Hearts, a pair of Tweedledums and Tweedledees, teapots, and more than one tray of cakes, all pulling out the stops to take home the top prize: VIP tickets for T In The Park 2011.
And many more T-types have gone moustache-mental. In tribute to Hugh Tennent, creator of the lager and star of Tennent’s current advertising campaign, Hugh Tennent’s Marvellous Moustache Emporium is offering free facial fuzz makeovers. Already, T in the Park is a sea of impressive top-lip accessories. Even Alice In Wonderland, it transpires, looks good with a tache.
There was more Fancy Dress Friday fun at the Balado main gates at 4pm. As first of the 85,000 fans poured into the festival site, they were offered free hugs by a White Rabbit, a Cheshire Cat and some dancing Playing Cards. And right on cue, the sun started shining.
As T in the Park revellers basked in golden early evening light, the festival had lift-off. Coming up: party performances from Faithless, The Black Eyed Peas and Calvin Harris. And full on rock’n’roll pyrotechnics from Main Stage headliners Muse
Meanwhile, were the rumours from the Artists Village true that even Paloma Faith had entered into the Fancy Dress Friday spirit by dressing up as one of the Queen Of Hearts courtiers? It seems not. She always dresses like that. Now that’s a real T-lady.
BACKSTAGE CHATS WITH T IN THE PARK ARTISTS
FAITHLESS – MAXI JAZZ (SINGER)
We’re in our element at festivals. We love doing festivals generally because there are so many bands on the bill, if you manage to rock a festival bill from front to back, you’ve definitely made new friends. But also, there is a quantifiable difference between festivals in Scotland and festivals pretty much anywhere else in the world.
The Scots have a kind of this is the last day of my life attitude to partying, which you don’t find everywhere in the world! We can utterly vibe off that.
When you’re on stage, 90 per cent of the audiences are loving it – the sound, the lights, the togetherness. But there are certain crowds that are loving it, and love you at the same time. And you can feel it, it’s like an affection that you can feel from the crowd. You get it here, in Holland and in Belgium a lot. Properly kick-off gigs. People are happy you came. Thank God you’re here! And we feel that in Scotland, and its such a lovely feeling, and you feel it onstage as an energy. Which is good for us, cause at the moment were doing probably the most energetic and physically draining set we’ve ever done.
My festival motto: enjoy yourself.
My T in the Park tweet: thanks for having us.
If I could be any other artist on the bill: I would like very much to play rhythm guitar in Kasabian. Either that, or drums in Groove Armada.
If I could collaborate with any other artist on the bill: it’d be Dizzee Rascal. Or The Stranglers. Or Skin. Or Jay-Z. Or Groove Armada. Corinne Bailey Rae, definitely. La Roux well probably do something together at some point.
EDITORS – CHRIS URBANOWICZ (GUITAR) AND ED LAY (DRUMS)
Ed: We’re doing 35 festivals this summer, and we’ve got about 16 to go.
Ed: Our favourite memory of playing T in the Park before was when we were in the King Tut’s Wah Wah Tent three years ago. Our second record had just come out, and I’d never seen it so rammed in there and I’ve watched Primal Scream in that tent, but it didn’t feel as busy as when we were there.
If we could collaborate with any other artist on the bill: Ed: Black Eyed Peas / Chris: La Roux
If we could be any other artist on the bill: Chris: Maxi Jazz from Faithless. We’ve seen him walking around backstage. He looks cooler than everyone else.
Our T in the Park tweet: it was raining, but now the suns out.
THE BLACK EYED PEAS - Will.i.am
Playing festivals is a world of difference from playing your own shows. You have people there outside who aren’t necessarily there to see you. And they’re in the front because they wanted to get the good seats. And they’re mingling with people that came to see you. So there’s no time for comfort. You got to have energy. You can’t expect the crowd to help you– you can’t feed off the crowd. The last time we played T in the Park what I remember most is that the crowd was nuts. The crowd was crazy. I just love Scotland, I love playing Glasgow, I love playing Edinburgh. Edinburgh’s gorgeous.
THE PROCLAIMERS – Craig & Charlie Reid
Charlie: We released our last album Notes And Rhymes in January last year, and we’ve been touring since March last year. In terms of flights, promo, gigs, everything put together, 2009 was the most intense year for us ever. Was it just the most intense cause I feel older? It is that, but it was the busiest year we ever had.
Craig: We did a tour of wineries in Australia, with the B52s that was like a holiday! We knew last October that we’d be ending this month at T in the Park. We could have gone on, for weeks and weeks doing other festivals. But we thought, nah, it’s gotta be this way. We’re still enjoying it, but were looking forward to getting a holiday, and writing some new tunes.
Charlie: T in the Park feels like a good end point, and the appropriate one. It does mean a lot. People do get sentimental about Scotland, but this does matter. To get acts like Jay-Z and Eminem to me, as a Scot, artists like that coming here and going, I remember that. Getting Eminem to play his only UK festival show this year you’ve got to say, that’s a big achievement.
Rumour has it there’s a film version of the stage musical Sunshine On Leith?
Craig: Apparently. There’s a new run of the stage show starting in September, and again in the new year. They’re scripting the film this year and will hopefully start filming next year.
Charlie: It would be fantastic if it happened. For the English run of the play they’ve got [Lord Of The Rings star] Billy Boyd in it. Could there be a sequel? Sunset On Gorgie? That was always my favourite!
If I could collaborate with any other artist on the bill: Charlie – Jay-Z. Craig – Eminem.
CALVIN HARRIS
You played T in the Park last year, and have toured constantly every since. One year on, how are you feeling?
I can definitely do better. Work harder. Make better tunes. I did an academy tour the end of last year, which was fine, but they’re not my favourite thing to do to be honest. I love doing festivals. I love DJ’ing. But I love festivals with a band a lot. We haven’t had a bad one all summer, touch wood. We’ve had a great run.
But as far as making music goes, I need to do a bit more of that. I’ve hardly had a chance to do anything this year. I did a song on Kylie’s album, and a song on Example’s album, and that’s it. The rest has just been gigging.
With the Kylie track, I came down with the track. I had a little melody idea for the verse. Jake Shears and Kylie did the hook, the chorus, and most of the words. I’m not really a words man when it comes to other people singing words. I find it a little bit impossible.
But that track is one of the very few occasions when I knew who I was making the track for a particular artist, when I’ve gone in and thought, I’m gonna make a track for Kylie today. Cause I hardly ever do that. Maybe I should do that more, cause that definitely worked out rather than having a big supply of songs that you’ve rejected for yourself! It’s probably not the best way to do things, is it?
With the Kylie track, I knew exactly what the arrangement should be like. It’s quite similar to my song I’m Not Alone in its arrangement to be honest. In fact, yeah, very similar! What am I talking about?! It was a case of trying to make another one of them. But it wasn’t exactly the same!
This year I’m playing in a tent and it’s gonna look well better than last year. It’s dark for a start. You can see the lights, and they always add a greater dimension to everything. Certainly everything dance-y. And we’ve got lasers.
Earlier this week I played Ibiza Rocks and Majorca Rocks. Majorca Rocks scared me a little bit because Tinie Tempah was on before me, and he’s a very new breed of artist, in the way that he’s marrying different styles of dance music. Bringing something incredibly fresh that properly goes off. And I was standing there watching it, just thinking, shit, am I still gonna go off? I’ve got a more traditional house influence, which isn’t his, or Example’s, or Chase And Status dubsteppy, drum and bassy sound. But then it did go off, so that was fine. But I did have a frightening moment where I thought I was something horribly out of touch.
I don’t get daunted playing back in Scotland I look forward to it more. Tonight’s gonna be pretty scary. I haven’t really thought it through yet but I will be a bit scared later on.
I’m on tour DJ’ing, and with the band until December. Not that I’m complaining, but I should.
I’ll probably do a third album. I’m not contractually obliged to do so, actually the complete opposite. But I think I definitely need to give it another track. I want to make a better one. I like the second one a lot, but I don’t think the first was very good.
My festival motto: ignore the future
If I could be any other artist on the bill: Oh, I’d be all of the Black Eyed Peas
If I could collaborate with any other artist on the bill: Kasabian.
PALOMA FAITH
Today onstage I wore a vintage black dress, sequinned, with a long train at the back, and that was from a shop called The Girl Can Help It in London. And the hat was a felt hat that looked like hair was by House Of Flora. The wind was fine but the dress was so heavy I couldn’t move and I felt there was a bit of a lack of moshing action from me.
It was a brilliant gig. I love Scottish audiences. We had such a good time. We weren’t daunted by playing early on the first day. I’ve played to the old man in the corner dribbling down his shirt, and various weirdoes, in my time. So this was quite good!
I’m hanging about now to see La Roux, Florence and Faithless. Now I’m wearing tracksuit bottoms, a Marilyn Monroe T-shirt and red high heels – that’s the way I rock.
My festival motto: worry about the waist up
My T in the Park tweet: T in the Park showers: baking hot dribble, or freezing cold good pressure. I actually did Tweet that.
If I could be any other artist on the bill: I’d be Florence + The Machine cause she’s got what I wanted: more success than me!
If I could collaborate with any other artist on the bill: Paolo Nutini, every time. Not cause I fancy him, because I think he’s a brilliant singer and I think he’s got great taste in music.
