Leeds Festival offers something for everyone

For as long as I've been attending Leeds festival, it as always been the highlight of the festival season, in the past line-ups have included Metallica, Iron Maiden, Oasis, Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Pearl Jam, Green Day, and Guns N Roses. So being a rock music fan at heart, Leeds always satisfied my appetite for great live music.

Obviously this year was no exception to the rule, although Radiohead did seem to be a questionable choice to be headliners, after seeing them play, they should be categorised as flatliners instead.

There was more life in the Leeds General Infirmary morgue than there was in the crowd watching Radiohead. Jesus I even thought about shooting myself as it would save me from listening to Tom Yorke's excruciatingly painful singing. I wish I could just say that it wasn't my cup of tea, but that really isn't the case here... Radiohead's music is just crap. Fact!

The rest of the bands that played over the weekend were a pleasure to watch and Leeds festival can hold its head up high with the amount of diverse bands that they had selected to play over this weekend.

No overview would be complete without mentioning the great British weather, this year it was temperamental to say the least, one minute rainy the next blazing hot sunshine. But most people had turned up with their waterproofs in one hand and suncream in the other.

The food and drinks were moderately priced, and actually tasted like the food had been cooked, which made a huge difference when compared to some other big festivals we could mention.

This year Leeds festival even had a nice surprise in the form of Them Crooked Vultures - if like me you had never heard of them, it is a superband with Dave Grohl on drums, Josh Homme (QOTSA) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin). Now seeing them was worth the ticket price alone.

Obviously Kings Of Leon were one of the few main stage bands to get a huge crowd, and they knew how to impress their fans. Other bands which impressed on the main stage included The Prodigy, which to be honest I have never seen them ever do a bad show. The Kaiser Chiefs have still got that magic ingredient to attract vast numbers to come and watch them play live.

But for me one of the most unexpected highlights of the weekend was Placebo. Yes in the past I have criticised them for one reason or another, mainly because Brian Molko would often have temper tantrums "Oh, I'm not going to play if you keep throwing bottles at us" and this would just lead to him walking off stage like a spoilt brat.

However this year Placebo, and I honestly cant believe I am writing this, but Placebo were the band of the weekend, as their set was energetic, entrancing, passionate, edgy, and was delivered with enough of a punch to make you take notice. This year their were no temper tantrums, and the entire band seemed to look so much happier and healthy due to well documented reasons. But for me there was a renewed spark about Placebo, they actually seemed to want to be up there on stage playing for us. So top marks to Mr Molko and crew for easily being the best band at Leeds 2009.

Numerous other bands on the smaller stages seemed to attract more people than the bands on the main stage. Patrick Wolf and Little Boots to name a couple. The biggest surprise was La Roux being so packed that I couldn't even catch a small glimpse of her. God damn it!

So even though the headliners weren't the strongest set of headliners to play at Leeds, the festival as a whole was fab. There really was something for everyone, and the fact that the smaller stages were rammed to the rafters leaving the main stage empty must show a drifting change in music amongst the young fans. They are clearly fed up with old school rock, and prefer the more edgy, weird, and more cultured artistes.

Overall I absolutely loved this years Leeds Festival, so I will certainly be looking forward to going next year regardless of who the headliners are, which I predict will be the Kaiser Chiefs, and Them Crooked Vultures. The only thing that will stop me going is if they decide to book those flatliners Radiohead again... now where did I put my gun....

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