What a day What a fucking class day. I’m sunburned to a crisp, but hell, it was worth it. I’ve spent almost the whole day out of town. I awoke at 9AM, on Andy M’s floor. I returned home at about 11, and less than an hour later, I was waiting for a bus with Gregg, on my way to Middlesbrough to see Kosheen and some other bands play.

It started off fantastic. We passed Tioxide. That’s a relatively large chemical plant that makes stuff such as pigments, on the way from Middlesbrough to Hartlepool. Imagine my delight when I spied that the entire plant’s roadways are lit by Thorn Alpha 1’s! However, imagine my dismay when I noticed the very last aincient streetlights on Hart Lane have gone.

This is a picture of them I took less then three months ago…

(uh, I’ve lost that image)

But now, they’re gone. Replaced with… sigh, I’m not even going to go there.

Anyway. We arrived in Middlesbrough, and went on the hunt for music. Things looked bleak, when we stumbled across the BBC Bus, parked outside the bus station. Unamplified acoustic cuitars, and some bloke with a really quiet voice, also unamplified, started proceedings. Garbage.

We then decided to let our ears take us somewhere. There were 6 stages scattered around the town centre. Some large, some small, some indoors. We didn’t bother going to those ones. Instead, while Gregg admired the music of a few unsigned artists, I stood around and admired the vast, vast amounts of fanny that walked past. The afternoon went on, and we “stumbled” across the main stage. Well, by that, I mean that we found it, not climbed on it, or anything.

The first band we watched were “The Lockdown Project”. I ended up loving them from the moment my delicate ears vibrated to their melodies. Well, not quite true. It’s sort-of gangsta rap, but it isn’t, as most of the songs had a catchy chorus. A quick google brings up their website, as well as one of these songs… here’s a link to a 90- second clip of one of their tunes. It contains fucking swearies, so don’t click if you don’t like that sort of thing.

After they were done, we went for a walk, first to MankDonalds, then to the bus station. I did my best to crash the little journey planners they have. And I succeeded. Made me smile, that.

After consumption of afore mentioned grease, we went on the wander again, and ended up watching Mark Joseph. He wasn’t at all bad. But, it was 6PM, and it was starting to get cold. The sun was starting to disappear behind some wispy clouds. we walked back to the TFM stage. Next up was some… er, band. I can’t remember their name, and I’m fucked If I can find the programme I pilfered. Either way, they were an abomination to music. THe crowd enjoyed them. Or rather, enjoyed throwing half-full beer cans, bottles of water, and various shapes and sizes of football across the place. Something which I’ve forgotten to mention is the amount of beer that was for sale. It was weird. Everywhere you looked, everyone was drinking from cans, or little plastic cups. There were two mobile lorries serving the stuff. I’d never seen mobile bars before. But… did I get drunk? Did I bollocks. One thing I knew was that the toilets would be stacked out, and absolutely minging. So I kept my fluid consumption to a level barely high enough to keep myself alive.

Up next were Kosheen. A band I’ve loved for years. And I’m sure the lead singer was, at one point, in The Quest Project. Either way. how would a band mainly consisting of drum loops fare when playing live? Quite good, I’d say. Their order of songs was a bit dodgy, however. Started off with a few obscure album tracks, then they did a new track, when they started coming out with all of the classics. “Catch”, and “All in My Head” were the last two, And they were fantastic. The sun had set now, and it was getting VERY cold. One band left, Electric Six. You know, “Danger, High Voltage” and stuff. They were bound to be good! How wrong I was. After waiting about 40 minutes in the now blistering cold, they finally appeared. Then somebody set a nearby tree alight. The band were upstaged by a smouldering shrub. It was quite amusing to be honest, listening to a few thousand people go “oooooh!” at the sight of fire. Oh, my SIDES. We put up with two or three unknown songs - it wasn’t possible to decipher a tune from it, and the vocals were too quiet. it was 9:30PM at this point. Earlier in the day I’d bribed Daddykins into driving 15 miles and picking me up at 10PM, so there was half an hour left. After we both agreed that Electric Six were actually quite shit, we went to… yes, you guessed it… a pub. Only because it was nice and warm, and I was dying of thirst. My dad arrived, and we went home. Fatigue quickly caught up with me, and I flopped on my bed, fully clothed, at 00:48. I couldn’t even be bothered to switch my light out.

It’s now Tuesday morning, my arms are red. There’s no chance of them getting any redder today, it’s drizzly and overcast. Awww.