Fan Review: Rain, Injuries, and Music at Leeds Festival

Leeds Festival August 26 - 28, 2011 Fan Review by Matt

As a lover of live music of any sort and having visited Reading Festival last year, my friends and I decided we would go to its sister festival in Leeds to see how it compared to the original down south. At this point, I could describe all the feelings of excitement and apprehension because of the forecast rain, but I know people will come here to read about the festival, so here goes: WEDNESDAY: Being an Early Bird ticket holder, I was allowed to set up Wednesday to ensure space for my tent. The first task is getting to the shuttle buses, a tiny and supposedly easy task in comparison to the weekend, but this turned out to be one of the hardest elements. I’m not sure what it is about the organisers of Leeds Festival, but they appear to hate signage of any kind. There was a complete absence of directions to the shuttle buses, and this paired with the fact the locals seemed to have no idea that Leeds festival existed, let alone was taking place this weekend, led to us walking around the city for 2 hours with our heavy equipment. We finally found the shuttle buses, only to discover that there were some right by the train station we arrived in, literally hidden around a corner. If I wasn’t so tired I probably would’ve punched the bus driver in his big, smug, laughing face. Arriving at the campsite after a 40 minute bus ride led to further confusion, as there was, again, a complete lack of signs. After wandering round and asking a few staff members we found our way to the campsite. The layout wasn’t the most efficient, with badly set out paths, too many hills and again, no directions. We eventually set up, and it began raining, beginning our festival experience properly....