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Saw them 3 out of the 4 gigs that weekend.  Fantastic band Met Grian standing in the crowd about 40m before they were on stage watching Goat Girl .

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The 1975 would smash it out of the park, they are well worthy of a headline spot! An incredible live band with banger after banger.  Exactly what a festival headliner is all about.    Music is subjective, we can’t all like the same thing, but to suggest their music is unadulterated shite is laughable really.  A colleague I work with can’t stand them, which is his prerogative, but he’s admitted he’s never listened to them, apart from Chocolate back when it came out, & said they are just a UK Maroon 5, which made me spit my tea out.   The ironic thing is, their music would be right up his street if he actually gave them a proper listen.   I showed him Part of the band, & he loves that song.      Seems The 1975 are the new Coldplay, it’s cool to hate them.     Digressing slightly, I’m going Download for the first time next year, & absolutely cannot wait, most looking forward to Sleep Token who are absolutely fantastic! Saw them last week in Leeds, didn’t disappoint.  But my god over on the download Facebook groups is worse than here!  Why does music bring out the worst in folk?  Proper snobbish behaviour.  If you don’t like a band/artist, nobody’s forcing you to listen.

Already seeing a few instances of Sleep Token fans asking how early they’ll have to arrive to get on the barrier and if paying the £500 for RIP will guarantee them a spot there. Hadn’t even considered that they’d draw that kind of TikTok obsessive crowd tbh, but suppose it makes sense. Gonna be a whole bunch of kids passing out as they try and rawdog that ten hour wait.

Two gigs in quick succession here for me: While She Sleeps on Thursday evening at O2 Academy Leeds, and then Slipknot last night at First Direct Arena.   Very impressed by the former, who I have typically found to be mostly trapped in a muddy dirge of their own making when I saw them last the best part of a decade ago. They've come on in leaps and bounds.   The latter are absolutely stealing a living on this tour. Eighty-minute sets, including an encore break, with just fourteen tunes and a good bit of speech-padding. But they are sounding great still. Have my reservations on Eloy Casagrande at the back still - know Jay Weinberg wasn't immensely popular among fans, but struggling to see how this is a particular upgrade.