Did you watch the live feed of the Download Festival at the weekend? I watched the odd bit, but to be honest I didn’t really need to because I had arranged something far better.

Using cutting-edge 21st century technology, my friend Clive agreed to contact me regularly with text messages LIVE from the scene! Why watch the event from the comfort of your own home when you can have someone in a field, getting progressively more drunk, sending you pithy live updates?

Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday June 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am

Wired Desire are the Scottish Guns N’ Roses, you know, which is a niche I hadn’t previously thought required filling, but, you know, whatevs.
This gig was only a wee showcase in the basement of The Fly, so it was, but bless their unreconstructed little hearts, the Wired Desire chaps gave it their all as if they were headlining the main stage at Download. They even tried to get us stiff “industry” types to clap our hands, which was always going to be a big ask.
The short set showcased tracks from recent EP Barely Illegal, which is still impossible to reference without a chuckle at the appalling title. A couple of new tracks were given an airing towards the end, but for my money their best song remains the pummelling “No One Sleeps”, which was played early on.

Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Wednesday October 1st, 2008 at 12:01 pm

I was speaking to a friend who attended the Download Festival the other day, and he said that as he walked around the site he saw people wearing hoodies proclaiming “I Bottled Bizzle” – before the much-publicised bottling took place. So the bottling and Muller-ricing he received was pre-planned, and indeed Bizzle admits he recognised this as he set off to the festival.
Check out his post on guardian.co.uk’s music blog, which is a pretty dignified account of the incident – he says he understands that the Download crowd are protective of their music, but having a banana skin with a racial epithet written on it took the abuse to another level: “Why did they have to bring my race into it?”
Obviously it’s awful that some idiot would go to these lengths to racially abuse a performer, but if we excuse the explicit racism for a moment – does the co-ordinated bottling and hoodie-printing mean that the fans who took part in these activities are also guilty of racism?

Continue reading »

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Friday June 20th, 2008 at 10:31 am

- Starsailor substituted their own dross for covers of some decent tunes at Isle Of Wight
- Chris Rock introduced Metallica at Bonnaroo, and Stereogum have a LOT of quality photos of their set
- While Drowned In Sound have some decent shots from Download…
- … where Judas Priest and Kiss battled it out for rock supremacy
- And back at Bonnaroo, M.I.A claims to have played her last show, while Kanye West pissed off a whole lot of people

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday June 16th, 2008 at 11:26 am