Truth be told; when planning a trip to the UK a few years back the V Festival hadn’t been top on my list of ‘must do’ events. You see, this was before the V Festival had made their debut in Australia, so while you hear a lot about the mud at Glastonbury and the bottle throwing at Reading… the V Festival seemed to sneak through as the quiet achiever on the UK summer festival circuit.
Buying tickets
With Radiohead rumoured as the headline act the year I was heading over (2006), my travel compatriots and I kept a close eye on the relevant forums and message boards in the months, weeks and days leading to the ticket on-sale date, hoping to get something more concrete than idle gossip that the band would headline. As is the way with many UK festivals, tickets went on sale (and promptly sold out… in a matter of hours) before a confirmed lineup was even close to having been announced, so in the end we hedged our bets and woke up at 4am local time one cold autumn morning to buy our tickets online.
It was a stressful experience, made all the more traumatic because it was a Wednesday morning a good 3 hours before the sun had even come up. But, we persevered, and in the end had ourselves tickets to the Staffordshire leg of the dual-city festival (minus camping passes, they sold out too quickly) In the end our prayers were answered, with Radiohead announced as the headline act. Cartwheeling and months of uttering “I can’t believe I’m going to see Radiohead in the UK!” to jealous friends ensued.
Where to stay
Staffordshire is in the north of England, and we managed to find a quaint motel in nearby Wolverhampton (about a 45-60 minute shuttle bus to the festival site) for a relatively moderate price. There was a full body statue of a knight in shining armour in the reception area and very loud parrot in the lounge. We felt a bit like we were in Fawlty Towers. A word of advice; book as far in advance as you possibly can. It’s similar to the nightmare of trying to book accommodation in Byron Bay for Splendour In The Grass x about 100.
The main event
V Festival is a two day event and – as is de rigeur with many UK festivals that happen in two locations over the one weekend – they swap lineups each day. The unlucky chumps in Chelmsford (in the south of England) had Radiohead on the first day, so we were left quietly rubbing our palms together in glee at the thought of them closing out the final day for Staffordshire. As was to be expected (it’s the UK after all), it rained for a good part of both days. It was never torrential, and the weather was still quite warm, so as long as you had a poncho it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
Day one was filled with a lot of cider, Morrissey, Faithless, a lot of gin, Lily Allen, Hard Fi and the Editors, as well as a few unexpected highlights. One of the more interesting facets of the V Festival is that it’s as much a festival for pop fans as it is for indie and rock kids, so when the Sugababes took to the stage early in the afternoon it was quite a lot of fun to dance around like a spaz and know that everyone else was enjoying it just as much.
On day two there was Keane (singer Tom Chaplin went straight to rehab for cocaine addiction the following day, nice), Beck, Bloc Party and We Are Scientists, as well as the band it seemed everyone at the festival had been waiting for; Radiohead. They played a marathon 2 hour set and it was absolute bliss. Being their only UK festival show of that year they played many of their biggest hits, including ‘Fade Out (Street Spirit)’, ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Just’... it had me close to tears! When they finished with ‘Creep’ – a song that’s long since disappeared from their set list, and which they’d reportedly not played live in over 10 years – you could have told me I only had 1 day left to live and I’d still have left the festival smiling. A truly epic ending to an even more epic weekend.
What’s that ‘psssssst’ noise?
It was something of a culture shock to hear the constant ‘pssssssssssssssssttttt’ of bulbs being sucked back by monging Brits in the crowd, especially during the more introspective and quieter moments of indie and folk performers. It was also rather interesting to find massive deposits of spent bulbs scattered at various locations throughout the festival. I’m not sure how the brain-freeze of nitrous-oxide is conducive to enjoying live music, but who am I to judge?
Why you should do it
With the V Festival now a firm fixture on the Australian live music calendar each year, awareness of the event around the country is no doubt at an all time high. If you enjoyed the local version of the festival on its first tour earlier in 2007, then take note that the UK event is – predictably – just as much fun, and on an even bigger scale. While writing this article I did a bit of online sleuth work to see the rumours for the 2008 festival, and it seems that – riding high on the success of their recent album ‘In Rainbows’ – message boards are awash that Radiohead will return to top the bill next year. If I start saving now I should be able to manage a return trip…
Radiohead playing ‘Creep’ (with the sound of 80,000 people singing along):
Sugababes and their rendition of ‘Push The Button’:
sarahanne
said ages ago