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                          V'97 Festival - Hylands Park
                        Chelmsford - Sunday 17th August
                           Day ticket - £28.50 + P&P


    Being slightly pissed off in the knowledge of the bands we had
    missed the previous day (Blur, Pavement, Chemical Brothers, Devine
    Comedy, Mansun, Silver Sun etc) my friends and I trundled into
    Hylands park at about 11.30 am.  There was more than a slight
    confusion about how to get in, so we tried the old faithful of
    following everyone else.  It was on this journey where I had my first
    brush with a festival toilet.  Richard Branson's claim that there
    would be no ques for the toilets was almost correct, but he forgot to
    mention much of these "toilets" would be filled with newspaper for
    some god forsaken reason.  Having got passed the gate and being
    searched for glass bottles (the reason which would become apparent
    during day) we entered the V'97 festival.

    The actual grounds themselves had lots of stuff to do apart from the
    music, there were dozens of food stalls, including a chinese (probably
    not a good idea at a festival) and a British Beef Burger stall (not a
    good idea anywhere).  The drinks were decidely expensive, a small
    bottle of water costing up to £1.50.  There were puns galore, with the
    Virgin Pop tent (for drinks) and beer being sold in a Vanishing Pint
    (a play on Vanishing Point - Primal Scream's new album).  There was an
    inflatable maze and things you could attach yourself to and then spin
    at high speeds.  A Harry crishner tent supplied welcome shade for weary
    travellers, and was also giving away free gruel.  Their chanting was
    quite melodic to start with, but it soon started altering my brain
    waves, so we made a hasty retreat.T-shirts and shoddy gear selling was
    a go-go too.

    Right, the music.  The first band to grace the main stage was Feeder,
    who I had not previously heard of. They were good.  Very good infact.
    Thay are probably best described as a sonically powerful three piece
    punk rock band, veering more towards the heavish rock side. Or
    something.  Some of their songs sounded a bit similar, but they were
    a good start act and got the crowd going a bit.

    Next up on the main stage was No Way Sis, and can I just say who ever
    booked them for the main stage should be killed in a slow and painful
    way.  Quickly fleeing their crapness we arrived at the NME stage in
    time to see the Stereophonics.  They were also good, but perhaps not
    as good as they could have been.  Their hits, "More Life in a Tramp's
    Vest" and the fantastic "A Thousands Trees" seemed to lack a bit of the
    conviction and impact when performed live.  Still, thay could have
    been a bit nervous, as V2 label owner Richard Branson was watching
    them at the time.  Another good band, Hurricane #1, soon followed them
    on the NME stage, who also were not quite as great as I expected live.

    Looking at the timetable we saw the only major flaw with V'97.  There
    was just TOO many worthy bands playing for one day. We would have to
    miss out on seeing Bentley Rhythm Ace, Sneaker Pimps, Daft Punk,
    Geneva, Echo & The Bunnymen, Longpigs, Gene AND the Bluetones.  WHY?
    Why, I say.  Knowing this we went to the main stage to spend the rest
    of the day infront of the main stage.

    Echobelly played a fine fifty minute set, but with out their female
    guitarist, who had been replaced.  They played their usual addictive
    userfriendly guitar pop with new material like "The Earth is Flat",
    but it was the older stuff which really caught the crowd's attention.
    Sonya (the lead singer) worked up the audience with crowd participation
    , and by going down to infront of the stage.  Infact, they loved her
    so much that for a while football-esque chants of "We love you Sonya,
    we do..." took centre stage.

    But, at just after five Placebo became the centre of attention.  Much
    was expected of them, and they delivered.  The band played most of
    the tracks off their debut album "Placebo" including the rip snorting
    explosive punk energy of the the singles "Nancy Boy",
    "Bruise Pristine", "Teenage Angst" and "36 Degrees".  The crowd was
    easily the most excited it had been so far that day. It even got
    pretty violent near front.  Over the course of the day it had become
    very obvious why glass bottles were not allowed on site. For some
    reason people were chucking their used bottles (making sure they still
    had some liquid in them) into the crowd.Often people tried to hit
    members of the band playing at that given moment (you probably got
    extra points for that). Anyway, back to Placebo.  Brian Molko (the
    small, femine make up wearing one) took a break in the set to sing a
    sort of pray, something along the lines of "Jesus loves me..." etc,
    etc, but all done in his ironic sort of tone.  Whiles doing this
    someone saw fit to chuck a bottle (perhaps in an effort to make him
    stop) narrowly missing him and hitting the microphone. This resulted
    in the witty put down, "But Jesus doesn't love you, motherfucker", as
    he pointed at the culprit, which the crowd greatly appreciated. Sadly
    , the encore was an overlong kind of jam session which got just a little
    bit boring.

    The bottle wars continued into the Foo Fighters.  The punk rock band
    (again?) that had risen from Nirvana treated the audience to such
    crowd pleasers as "This is a Call", "I'll stick around", the new
    single "Everlong", and furthe tracks off their new album.  The lack of
    "Big Me" was a big disappointment, as was the fact that the one hour
    long set seemed a bit stretched.  Some of the band memebers, excluding
    Grohl and the drummer, did not seem to be particularly enjoying
    themselves, while Placebo did.  The Foo Fighters were still excellent
    overall though.

    Next, was the highlight act (in my opinion) of the day, Beck.  Wisely
    (or stupidly) I decided this was the best time to go as close as I
    could get to front of the huge crowd that had gathered to see Mr
    Hansen and his bizzare musical antics. His new band came out person
    by person, building up the anticipation for when "the coolest kid in
    the world" (apparently) arrived on stage.  When he finally did the
    crowd was sent into a sprawling mess of jumping up and down limbs by
    "Devil's Hair Cut".  Beck and his band are utterly show stealing,
    from the bloke who can play the death march by scratching records (it
    is well worth seeing them for this alone) to Beck's trade mark robot
    dancing in time with the music.  A highlight among the other
    highlights was "Where It's At", which again sent the crowd into
    another frenzy (I nearly lost both my shoes).  Some fantastic crowd
    interaction ensued, aswell as Beck calling the people chucking bottles
    on stage "eunuchs" and continuing to drolly go onto their lack of
    genitals.  Among the other hip hop/blues/rock/folk/rap/lo-fi tracks
    was the crowd pleaser "Loser", aswell as "New Pollution" and "Jackass"
    . Can I just say what a surreal sight it is to see someone you know
    being bounced around as they crowd surf.  After Beck changed into his
    rhinestone cow boy suit that would make anyone else crap, they played
    "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" easily the most hip hop influenced
    track on the "Odelay" album, before vacating the stage.

    Now, our plan was to watch about half an hour of the Prodigy and then
    go watch the remainder of the Bluetones session on the NME stage, so
    as to get the best of both worlds.  It was a good plan.  However, we
    had not reckoned on the hordes of people who descended on the
    mainstage, basically blocking our way to the other stage.  So we
    watched the whole one and a half hour Prodigy set. They came on stage
    late, obviously to get the audience gagging for it, which they were.
    The Prodigy gave the audience exactly what they wanted with their
    pantomime mix of big beats, sampled in guitars and punk rock
    hellraiser attitude.  They started with the actually very funny
    "Smack My Bitch Up" (which pissed off Americans, so it must be good).
    The huge singles "Firestarter" and "Breathe" were on show, as was
    "Mindfields" all from "The Fat of the Land" album.  Older tracks
    "Poison" and "Voodoo People" also made an appearance.  In essence the
    Prodigy did what they do best, excite the crowd.  They cnly did that,
    as there was thousands upon thousands of people actual dancing and
    fires literally being started during "Firestarter". It was surprising
    to see that Maxim is really the frontman, doing most of the singing
    and talking, while Keith does very little in comparison. Liam does
    all the instrumentation, apart from some sex pistol rip off bloke
    who "plays" guitar.  Leeroy, the dancer, does about ten minutes of
    dancing during the whole set.

    Sadly, all this probably left the Bluetones playing to about two
    people. As we quickly left the grounds to get back to our coach in
    time the rain finally started.  It was quite fitting that the rain
    had seemingly waited til the end of V'97 to let rip.  Perhaps two
    mud bath festivals in one year would make this year's Glastonbury
    weather a bit of a cliche.