The Leeds Festival Diary - 25th to 28th August 05 (5/8) By Andy Knudsen Photographs Em Alexander, Steve Clappison and Sam Saunders

(1/8), (2/8), (3/8), (4/8), (5/8), (6/8), (7/8), (8/8).

It's only as we thread our clumsy way out through the throng that we realise quite how many people were watching the band. The crowd extends way beyond the cover of the tent, where the stage is just a mystery and the band just waifs in the distance. We sit down at the backstage bar and spend the rest of the night drinking steadily and doing a little Favours bonding. I strike up conversation with a guy at our table. His name is Ben and he's in a band called Serafin and they aren't playing at the Festival but he got backstage passes through The Pixies somehow and would I like some of his jazz cigarette? Yes please.

And soon all The Favours know him and are chatting wildly as the movers and shakers of backstage Leeds swoop and chat and fawn about the place. And soon tiredness is closing my eyes and stroking my hair, and I head for my cold tent to get some much needed sleep.

Saturday 27th August 05

Some people love camping. And I don't understand them. Waking up in a tent is like waking up with a hangover. Waking up in a tent with a hangover is like waking up and realising that you've died. So I try to sleep as long as I can because my head is beating a painful rhythm and I'd rather it did so while I was asleep.

I eventually get up at about 11. By the time I make it into the arena, those delightful boys from Goldie Looking Chain are on. We're treated to the delights of Half Man Half Machine, Guns Don't Kill People Rappers Do and You're Mother's Got A Penis while we eat breakfast of a carvery pork and stuffing baguette. It's very nice but I avoid the apple sauce on offer. It looks like it's been tampered with. I catch the very impressive opening track by The Wedding Present but head away from the Main Stage in order to maintain solidarity with Em, Martin and Dave.

We busied around between the other stages, half indecisive, half uninterested before heading to the Lee Jeans van in order to pick up the jeans we were promised as payment for this crazy gig. We chill there for a while, exchanging the jeans we're given for the jeans that we want and chatting to the friendly folk who run the van. They promise to come and watch us play.

Staggering into the Radio 1/NME Tent upon someone else's advice, I find myself watching Death From Above 1979 - a bassist with lots of effects and a singing drummer. It's a fairly empty spectacle, though musically they sound pretty interesting. I'm impressed, but not in a big way. We head out to the Carling Stage to await the arrival of The Paddingtons, another one of the Hull bands, but the only one that isn't unsigned. We go via the Comedy Tent, catching a snippet of some guy who wants David Blaine to die. I can understand the sentiment, but not the passion.

The Paddingtons tear through a vitriolic set, staggering and contorting around the stage to the delight of the large crowd that contained a pretty massive Hull contingent. Close to the end of the set, I'm forced to make an exit from the tent as I watch a girl in front of me, whom I understand is also from Hull, pull down her trousers and underwear and take a squatting piss in the middle of the dancing crowd. As her function draws to a dribbling close, one of her friends slaps her arse with ferocious force. It wobbles like jelly and I find myself running away.

Continued... next page

Check the thisisUll.com Gallery

Photographs courtesy and Copyright © Em Alexander 2005 Em's Gallery 1, Em's Gallery 2.

Photographs courtesy and Copyright © Steve Clappison 2005 at (www.tallorders.org)

Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Adventures of Loki,	65 Days of Static,	Bam Bam Franks,
Cardboard Radio,	Ali Whitton,	Harrisons,
Circlesound,	Cardboard Cowboy ,	Lyca Sleep,
Deserves to Die.	Censored.	Sunday People.
Future Ex Wife,	Chicken Legs Weaver,	Mr Mojo.
Last Days of Vengeance.	Fifty-Nine Violets.	Mr Shiraz.
Friday People.	I Like Trains.	New Minds Eye.
Oh Farcas.	Saturday People.	Sunshine Underground.
Paris Man.	The Kiks.	The Favours.
Pilla.	Western Suburbs.	The Last People On Earth.
This Et Al.	Your Vegas.	Turismo.
Xenith Sound.		Voltage Union.

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