Mud With Your Carling, Madame?

It was Saturday morning, approximately 5:30am, when my alarm started beeping and vibrating indignantly.

'Grrrrr!' I thought, 'It's my day off today! Why are you beeping?'

Then I sat up quickly. It was Saturday, 25th August. Today was the day I would be driving down to Leeds for the one and only Carling Festival! Hurrah! Gosh! And so on...

I bumbled into my mum's bedroom to wake her up, as she was going with her best friend, Lyndsey, and we were all driving down together. Groggily she sat up and I ran off to get changed into my festival wear: One rather special Blondie t-shirt, very short denim shorts and black flats. Had I been going for the whole weekend, wellies would have replaced the flats, but as I was only going for one day (and a very sunny one at that), I didn't feel quite so guilty.

Skip to finally getting to the arena. I had arranged to meet my friends there, by the main stage, where the polka dotted darlings, The Pipettes, were pulling some shapes. Little did I realise finding my friends was going to be harder than previously assumed. Several phone conversations later, most of which involved cries of 'WHAT? I CAN'T HEEEEEAR YOU!', Charlotte came to find me standing like a space cadet in big sunglasses by some signs. She ushered me over to where Fran, Nina and three new accquaintances, Helen, Matt and Fish were standing. After many hugs, introductions (Nina: 'I'm not drunk at eleven thirty in the morninnnng!') and exclamations over my comparitively clean hair, we got down to some badass moves.

With brilliant bands and bars selling Carling Extra Cold everywhere you looked, it was always going to be a good day. The Long Blondes ripped out some incredible tunes, with frontwoman Kate Jackson delivering style and attitude unrivalled by any woman for a long time. Gogol Bordello gave a jaw-dropping performance, but what would you expect from a band of Ukranian gypsy punks?

I abandoned my friends to briefly regroup with Mum and Lyndz for Frank Turner's set on the Carling Stage. His Billy Bragg inspited acoustic delights moved the audience to shouting every word with him whilst punching the air in a way that would rival Mike Tyson. The highlight, without a doubt, was 'Thatcher Fucked The Kids', where the crowd shouted the aforementioned line with such force as to beat the kids at the Reading festival at their own game ('Yawwwksher! Yawwwksher!').

While The Enemy played on the NME stage (a phrase which never fails to make me giggle), I met up with another friend of mine; the delightfully pink-haired Louise White who showed me some mighty impressive pictures she'd taken during Gogol Bordello's set. She had managed to end up front and centre and there were many pictures were Eugene Hutz, the crazy, moustachio'd frontman, had posed just for her.

The highlights of the evening's entertainment were, without a shadow of a doubt, Maximo Park. Paul Smith proved himself an electric frontman, the emotion of every song etched onto his face. Kings Of Leon delivered some good old American rock. Then it was time for the headline act...ladies and gentleman, I give you...Razorlight!

Yawwwwwwn!

Okay, if you like that sort of thing, I'm sure it is very good, but Johnny Borell's infamous arrogance was obvious throughout and all the effort put in by other bands to get the crowd going was lost here, Johnny obviously thinking his questionable songwriting skills alone would suffice.

Then it was time for us day ticketers to part ways with those greasy campers (one of which I will definitely be next year) and drive home to our duvets. Misplaced headliners aside, Saturday of the Carling Weekend was one not be missed and defnitely not forgotten.