sun and boggy campsites welcome Leeds Festival arrivals

Well Leeds Festival 2008 looked a pretty tasty treat for me the opening headliners Metallica are the other half's favourite band, The Killers who are a personal favourite of mine closing the festival and a huge filling of Rage Against the Machine, surely a recipe for a great weekend. Well Leeds Festival 2008 looked a pretty tasty treat for me the opening headliners Metallica are the other halves favourite band, The Killers who are a personal favourite of mine closing the festival and a huge filling of Rage Against the Machine, surely a recipe for a great weekend.

Despite the horror stories of all the flooding blocking the main entrance into the site earlier in the week, as we travelled up the A1 the sun was shining although the black clouds were looming to remind us that summer is here... honest!

We arrived onto the festival site with relative ease the car park wasn't too muddy although the ground was rather spongy to say the least, but on with the wellies to commence proceedings.

Playing buckaroo with a rucksack, tent and numerous items of camping equipment through the campsite was an experience, we entered through Lord Bingley's gate and heading down to Piccadilly Circus. Looking around as we walk through the valley of trees I wonder at what point of the weekend would some people find pitching their tent on a steep slope a problem, I for one would be terrified of finding myself and my airbed at the bottom of the slope in the morning. Due to the weather the walkways had become pretty muddy but after V Festival at Stafford last weekend the mud here was like a walk in the park.

After setting up camp I thought a little wander round would be a good idea as there seemed to be plenty going on around the somewhat boggy campsites. Most of the campsites here feature an evening DJ and rather oddly a tent selling firewood. Leeds festival has been marred by trouble in the past so a more relaxed approached seems to be appearing now I guess to try and limit the flashpoints, gas canister exchanges are more visible than ever and there seems more to do in the campsite areas at Leeds than some festivals have in the main arena.

As I entered the main arena, the NME/Radio One tent in a new position to previous years instantly meets me. It's good to see they have plenty of screens outside from what I can recall by the end of the day you have a tough time squeezing inside, I often wonder if they'll ever make the second stage here an outdoor one in my eyes it would make more sense.

The Dance/Lock-up Stage has also found a new home across the arena to the right of the main stage, I'm hoping this might stop the bottleneck into the main stage arena along the left side but I'm guessing not.

It's good to see that the organisers have tried to battle back against the elements and laid lots of bark chippings down near the front of the main stage, with a little more rain these may well come in handy but I can see it's wellies all weekend for me despite the sun now shining down.

Latest Updates