Top Five T in the Park Acts

Freshly showered and shaved after returning from Balado, I had been sitting watching highlights of T on the BBC website. As expected the majority of bands I enjoyed were not filmed for TV. To remedy this I have decided to create a short post listing the five acts I enjoyed the most. I enjoyed T, even though I thought the line-up was poor. Unlike the last time I attended there where only a couple of bands I really wanted to see. Whilst the headliners where no doubt impressive names, I thought the smaller bands where disappointing. Though of-course I still had a thoroughly enjoyable time, and there where a few moments which where absolutely thrilling. Here they are in descending order.

5. House of Pain

It turns out they are more than just 'Jump Around'. Beginning with a tribute to Nate Dogg, House of Pain had the crowd in a good mood whilst the sun was out. I have often found rap acts to be poor live as often they seem little more than angry men shouting at a crowd of people. House of Pain were not like this, they got the crowd going and used live music. They closed with 'Jump Around' which had the entire NME stage jumping up and down.

4. Slash

We made our way to the Main Stage to witness the former Guns n Roses guitarist play after watching the quite frankly scary OFGWKTA (The chorus of their first song appeared to be 'KNOCK KNOCK...BITCH' and when that rather interesting shouty rap song was finished one of the members shouted 'FUCK YOU SCOTLAND' to the crowds of us who where leaving, unsure of what sort of performance the NME Stage where welcoming). Slash was fantastic, he played four Guns n Roses songs along with two Velvet Revolver songs and got the crowd going fantastically. Paradise City as their departing song was brilliant with the crowd continuing to sing the chorus long after they left the stage. Love them or hate them, it's hard to deny that Guns n Roses songs get the crowd going.

3. Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers

Absolutely fantastic live performance. They played the T-Break stage (stage for unsigned bands, usually those with a fair bit of hype behind them) on Saturday afternoon and where the first band who I really got into. Unfortunately I had found Friday fairly boring (apart from the fear of suffocation in amidst the Pendulum crowd) and the first couple of bands I saw on Saturday where disappointing. Woodenbox really kicked off the festival for me. With a pint of cold lager in one hand I watched them perform a set which included their best songs. First time I've seen them live and really think they come into their own onstage.

2. Pulp

Pulp! An utterly brilliant performance. One of the last bands I saw but just incredible. Jarvis Cocker engaged with the audience better than anyone else I saw during the festival. I particularly enjoyed seeing him take out a copy of the News of the World (as in the last one ever) only to rub it against his arse like toilet roll whilst shouting 'The only good thing this paper has done in 168 years". Apart from Cocker's theatrics the music itself was performed brilliantly. The atmosphere in the Golden Circle was better than I thought it was at any other point. They kicked off the start of a fantastic Sunday evening.

1. Eels

Simply wonderful. Eels have such a rich catalogue of songs to play and they chose their set list wisely. The band walked on, all with beards, aviators and all of them looking dapper with either suit jackets or waistcoats on. The choreography was brilliant and done professionally (apart from the slightly out of tune rendition of 'Happy Birthday' performed for the guitarist). Personal favourite part of their set was 'Novocaine for the Soul/I Like Birds'. After finishing the former the band immediately blasted into a sped up version of the latter with the audience being left to shout 'BIRDS!' as quickly as we could muster before the musicians played again.

I snapped a picture of Mr E. and the bassist Koool J Murder:

Eels where not only the best band I saw, but the final band. It was great to end T on such a high, and whilst it was not a great T it was a great time.