Leeds Festival: Saturday 23rd August 2008

I know I said last year that I would probably never go back to Leeds Festival, but I tend to break these promises – I’ve been back to V as well since I swore I wouldn’t give them any more of my cash. This is not going to be so much a review, as an epic anti-touting rant, however, as I’d like to tell people about the adventure Bricking Chick and I had yesterday (although I do promise to mention the bands), especially having just read an article in The Guardian talking about how many people have been ripped off this summer by “ticket resellers.”

Bricking Chick had an amazing time watching Rage Against the Machine at T in the Park last month. I was with her at the time and I certainly did not expect them to be as mind-bogglingly brilliant as they were. I really can’t bear guitar show-offs playing long solos but we were both truly mesmerised by Tom Morello. So, she told me she wanted to try and get into Leeds for the day to see Rage again. I figured, if nothing else, it would be amusing to go along and see what happened. So we set off from Manchester about 11:30am with a 5 year old and an 8 year old strapped in the back – they can get in for free, they love festivals – they went to V last year for the weekend – and we figured having two kids along would possibly help our chances – only  a mean person would disappoint a child.

The Indie Credential vs. The Leeds Ticket Touts

The road between the M1 and Bramham Park was strangely empty – usually queues stretch miles back at that time of day, but despite this, the first tout we encountered on the road wanted £120/ticket. We laughed when he told us – our reaction annoyed him. We had no intention of paying over face value as there was, quite literally, nothing else on the bill we were interested in seeing (I’d have happily watched Henry Rollins but I knew we’d never get there in time.) The tout told us that the only chance of getting a face value ticket would be turning up at 9pm, if he still had any. We told him that would suit us, and drove off.

The second set of touts we encountered looked about 15 and they wanted £100/ticket. I suspect if anybody had fake tickets it was these kids because they were desperate to appear “connected” with the other touts up and down that road, to give themselves some legitimacy. We told them “no way” and drove off. We thought we might find some people with spares at the site itself, and you never know if the box office will have a few returns on the day – people whose cards have been refused or unusued promotional tickets or whatever. I’ve never managed to get one like that before, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend staking a weekend on the possibility, but I’ve spoken to people who’ve got lucky.

the third set of touts was back up to £120/ticket and did not seem impressed with us not even considering the price. Then we came across a van in a lay-by. There was a gnarled-looking old guy who looked as crooked as they come, and he had a rather drunk mate and two young women selling cameras and umbrellas out of the van. He was actually as nice as could be as he told us he’d just sold out of tickets but he might be able to get his hand on some wristbands – if his mate had managed to steal any from the office on the site he’d be happy to walk us in himself with the wristbands, charge us £25 each on the other side and then take the wristbands back out to reuse. We waited while he tried to get hold of his friend.

As he kept phoning the other mobile, which was engaged, he was very forthright about the fact that he sold the tickets he had at the high price of £120 because it was business. He was unapologetic and if somebody’s stupid enough to drive all the way there and pay that, then fair enough – as long as he’s getting tickets off people on the way in who couldn’t get rid of their spares. I’ve bought off guys outside gigs a few times over the years. Sometimes you pay too much and sometimes you get the tickets under face value. It evens out. It’s not like the big businesses online these days who make thousands by getting in between fans and tickets.

How do touts get all those tickets anyway?

What bothered us was how he actually seemed to get most of his tickets. For starters it seems that they have a cleaner’s uniform so they can get onto the festival site – he was bragging about doing this at T in the Park – go into the festival offices pretending to clean and then steal any tickets and wristbands they find lying around. They got hundreds at T, but had so far only managed to get a few at Leeds and Reading. If people wonder where tickets go this is your answer. Touts steal them straight out of the organisers’ offices – somebody must be aware of this and they need to take more care. They’re letting thieves escalate the touting problem. He also was bragging about getting 8 Weekend tickets off a coach driver in 2007. The coach driver had been finding dropped tickets after depositing busloads of eager fans. He sold all 8 to our new friend for £100 total. So 8 kids didn’t get in last year because a greedy coach driver didn’t hand the tickets into lost and found – he sold them to a tout – who then resold them at £200+ a ticket.

This tout though took a liking to us. Bricking Chick gave him a cigarette, he felt sorry for the kids so he did try and get some wristbands, unfortunately the friend in question was actually at Creamfields so he said he couldn’t help us. He did recommend we try our luck in the car parks where we might find somebody with a spare, and he also said that occasionally they have returns. We might get lucky. So we did try the car parks, and, as you can see, we did get lucky – we managed to acquire a pair of tickets at face value and got inside.

The sad result of secondary ticket agency ticket scams

Sadly, as the aforementioned article in The Guardian says, many people did not get inside, despite having paid for tickets – two or three times above face value. The sad thing is that the stories are so familiar – buy tickets from a company that’s not an authorised seller, tickets are way too expensive, don’t arrive and then you’re told to meet some dodgy guy in a car park. People should do their research. But, frankly, these secondary resellers should be illegal. It should simply be illegal to sell tickets above face value because at least then it could be enforced on the internet. The government should require official sellers like Ticketmaster and Ticketline to take returns – you can return consumer goods for up to 28 days if they’re unused, so why can’t you return event tickets if it’s before the date of the event? They should encourage box offices at venues to take returns – then people could purchase the returned tickets directly. It wouldn’t stop touting outside venues but before the internet those touts were never that bad – and often they do provide a service of sorts. They also weren’t quite so desperate because they had less competition.

In many instances these agencies are preying on people who aren’t seasoned gig-goers and don’t know the difference between legitimate ticket firms like Ticketmaster and See Tickets and these dodgy, fly-by-night resellers. They do look legitimate, they’re easy to find online and they can even fool those who should know better. Just a week ago a co-worker who is a regular gig-goer was shocked at the £70 price of Nick Cave tickets until I told him to try Gigs and Tours cause what he’d found was a reseller. Sadly the government seems uninterested in these scams that take huge amounts of money off innocent victims so yet again the unknowing missed out on a festival they would have loved while myself, the cynic, got inside – simply because I know what I’m doing after years of experience.

The Indie Credential at Leeds Festival 2008 – Rage Against The Machine really do rock!

So, was Leeds 2008 worth the drama? Well, these sorts of days out with Bricking Chick are always worth the drama. Watching two small kids mosh to RATM was well-worth the drama. On the whole though, even though the crowd was miles better than last year and seemed more a traditional Leeds rock crowd, the lineup really let the festival down.

There probably were some new bands I’d have enjoyed but I wasn’t in an exploring  mood, rather preferring instead to sit with a pint in the warmth with my friend and watch the youngsters collect cups and attract stares – it seems that, on the whole, people think it’s pretty cool seeing kids that young on the site – and wish their parents had been willing to drag them to festivals in their formative years. In any case, I thought Florence and the Machine were intriguing – a little bit PJ Harvey, a little bit Evancescence and not at all how I expected. Bricking Chick though they sounded like Kate Nash and was horrified.

Ida Maria was unbelieveably catchy and there was lots of dancing even though we couldn’t see much. I think she beat up her band at the end – I’m going on hearsay for that. I did enjoy the set.

Strangely, I also quite liked Biffy Clyro – although I wish they’d put their shirts on. They had on matching peacock-blue skinny jeans and a lot of energy and their odd brand of emo rock is pretty melodic and not unappealing when accompanied by warm sun and cold beer.

Less appealing were Vampire Weekend – boring, One Night Only – vile and MGMT. At least MGMT have 3 really good songs to erase the rest of the set which is incredibly unexciting. The Wombats were actually a bit better than expected. They sounded like The Futureheads and the songs which aren’t that irritating Bridget Jones one and the hideous novelty “Lets Dance to Joy Division” were actually not appalling – and they were pretty lively on stage. We abandoned their set about 4 songs in though to go get a good spot for the real reason we were there – Rage Against the Machine.

Now, I never really cared much for RATM back in the day. I saw them at Lollapalooza in 1993 in Rhode Island and was so uninterested I couldn’t tell you anything about it – except I know I was there and they were there. I don’t really know any of the songs that well and I don’t own a single RATM album – but they really were stunning at T in the Park. At Leeds however, they were 30 minutes late and a lot more subdued in comparison. Whereas they’d come on stage dressed as Guantanamo prisoners the night before in Reading and had made a very political speech at T, we got no between-song chatter except Zack de la Rocha telling the people down front to move back so nobody got crushed. The crowd were pretty good, singing along most of the way through, even as far back as we were, but the sound was terrible. The wind was blowing the sound down the hill and it was far too quiet for a rock band – for a band like Rage I expect the sound to make my ears bleed.

Now when I say Rage Against the Machine were more subdued than at T in the Park, reader you need to understand that subdued for RATM is still about 100x more energetic than anything else we’ve seen in the last month. They were still bursting with energy and, erm, rage, as they bounced all over the stage, shouting and exhorting the crowd. We jumped about, we taught kids to headbang and, where we knew the words, we sang along (I do at least recognise “Renegades of Funk” and one or two others). With the stunning finish of “Killing in the Name Of” we then departed for the hour-long trek through the typically poorly-laid-out Leeds site and back home.

Bricking Chick is back to Leeds today for The Killers and should be reporting back to us here. The Ledge and I are instead off to see one of our favourte bands of all time, R.E.M. at the Lancashire Cricket Ground and I for one am suitably warmed up for that experience after yesterday and my discovery that I do like crazy long guitar solos and rock-rap music – only 15 years late.

8 Responses to “Leeds Festival: Saturday 23rd August 2008”

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  • lee Says:

    your blog sucks your probally some washed up loser that knows nothing about music go listen to nickel back you faggot

  • Han. Says:

    Great blog, I went to Leeds Festival simply to see Rage and they were amazing, by far the best band I’ve seen live! I agree about the sound though, a bit quiet for a rock band but still they were the highlight of my weekend, possibly even the whole year! I think if they were any louder they would have been fined, I know Metallica was fined at Leeds and Reading.

    By the way, the person who commented above, Lee is it? You need to learn correct grammar, Its YOU’RE you faggot.

  • JustHipper Says:

    Cheers Han. I don’t think the problem we had with the sound was that the volume itself was too low, it was the wind blowing the sound away from us. We had the same problem at the start of REM’s set at T in the Park while waiting for a member of our party to return with beverages. At T, however, as we didn’t have 2 small children with us, we were able to move further down into the crowd where the sound (and view) were better.

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    Thank you for the share.

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