It has come to our attention that Nine Black Alps, hereafter to be known as Nice Black Alps, are like totally the new Beatles. For the love of God man, look at the evidence!

» They're bonny boys from up north!
» There are four of them (two guitars, bass and drums)!
» They write songs about falling out with girls and stuff!
» The two front men, David and Sam, are moody-like-Lennon and pretty-like-McCartney respectively!
» Recent single 'Unsatisfied' is a close and loving friend of Beatle George Harrison's strum-a-long 'Don't Bother Me'!
» Bass player Martin has a big beard and long hair, just like Paul McCartney circa 1968!
» Girls yelp with pleasure at the very sight of them!
» The have a posh closet svengali who forbids them to smoke on stage and makes them wear tight trousers and grow their hair long!
» Actually, we made that bit up. But the rest of it's true.

Scream!




Did that seven year old girl we saw earlier, sat on her father's shoulders, really have a Scissor Sisters tattoo? Probably not, but The Bees one we saw on the bloke with the ginger beard was very real indeed. What next, a huge rendering of Steve Brookstein, crows feet and all, covering your back? Madness!

And as for coming dressed as both Craig David and a Ghostbuster... Well, we really don't know where to begin...






Grime! Is it any cop? GOOD GOD YES! And the V audience seem to agree. So that's all right then.

But first, viewers, the bad news: Roll Deep pull a respectable ('not very big') crowd in the Volvic Tent, but only four of them turn up and it's only 'The Avenue' that manages to draw a serious whoop from the crowd.

Now some good news! The Streets are still brilliant! And Skinneroo pays tribute to both Oasis and the Kaisers over the course of the weekend in a set stuffed with all his best bits from the first two albums! Of course, Mike Skinner's mates The Mitchell Brothers make an appearance too - along with their own slots over the weekend. Which is nice.




YES! Franz Ferdinand. Have you heard of them? They're here with huge security blokes, all ready to pounce on you and smash your face in if you even look at them funny.

When they appear, it's all exciting and stuff because they promise loads of new material. And what's more, they mean it. 'Evil And A Heathen' is a gnashing blur of fastness and stomping, while 'I'm No Villain' is , um, slower.

Our resident expert reckons it's less Dylan than they've recently been claiming, and more like 'Miss You'-era Rolling Stones meets Talking Heads. At one point, the crowd aren't so sure, and begin to look at their toes a bit. Franz retaliate with 'Take Me Out' and we feel the earth shake beneath our feet. No, really.

New single 'Do You Want To' has its own dance already, and it's not even out yet. We realize quite quickly that having a walloping great chorus that goes 'do-do-do-do-do' for ages is a really smart idea. Well done the Franz!




We experienced Goldie Lookin' Chain's performance with our backs to the stage, watching the reactions of a sheep in a nearby field.

GLC moment: Band bound on stage clad in lurid sportswear and some goldy-looking chains. (Arf!)
Sheep reaction: Chews grass, looks around a bit.

GLC moment: Dwain Xain shouts "Welcome to the second biggest rave of the century!" before launching into a song about telling Alicia Keys to fuck off.
Sheep reaction: Rubs nose on fence.

GLC moment: Crowd pleaser 'Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do'. Lots of "woo woo"-ing from the crowd.
Sheep reaction: A fairly contented 'baaa'.

GLC moment: New single 'Your Missus Is A Nutter'. Dwain announces that he has a "sweaty gusset".
Sheep reaction: Moves forward slightly, spindly knees knocking. Immediately retreats three steps as if slightly startled.

GLC moment: A new song from the album called 'Sister', which is about having carnal relations with an ex-girlfriend's sibling.
Sheep reaction: Rears up in fear, furry stump of a tail waving like billy-o.

GLC moment: The band pretend to walk off, then come back on and do 'Your Mother's Got A Penis'. Mike Balls makes a face like he's farted. The band leave the stage.
Sheep reaction: Collapses in dead faint.

We suppose you could say that the animal in question was in 'the sheep seats'.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this bit of the internet.




We noticed one or two examples of corporate branding around the V site - even some chancers called 'Channel 4' had their name on the second stage - but the tent we had the most time for was Oxfam's.

In order to fully dissect the important political message of Oxfam's work both in the UK and abroad, we sent Gossip Monster along to have a chat with an Oxfam fella in a nice jumper.

Unfortunately, GM became sidetracked by the Strongbow tent, and we had trouble tracking down his report. However, we've managed to get our hands on it. It had a bit of mauve monster spew on it but we cleaned it up and put it on the interweb for you to enjoy - click here and see for yourself!




Christ-a-lordy! It's yet more Gossip Monster! We really should have separated these to make our coverage look more varied. Sadly, readers, we simply cannot change the alphabet and so here Gossip Monster will have to stay.

So basically what we did was send GM out with a camera to do a sort of V festival diary.

Thankfully, he's back from his 72-hour bender now to bring us this report. It's not for the faint-hearted, readers.




Earlier on, we were going to ask Athlete if they'd run across the backstage area for us, but that would have probably tired the poor boys out, so instead we had a bit of a chat with them about some other things while a man flailed around on the bucking bronco in the background. In many ways, this has turned out to be more entertaining. At one point a huge trash lorry pulled out behind them, which made us think of the headline 'Athlete: Rubbish', when of course they're not.

Watch them a-chatterin' and a-natterin' right here!

Anyway, this all happened at about twenty minutes past three, shortly before the band were due on stage. Out of politeness, we went to see them doing their thing, but got sidetracked by the Strongbow boozerama-rave-o-dome and only saw the very end of their set. What we found was a huge field full of people mumbling along and The 'Thletes' charismatic frontperson lecturing the crowd on sharing the love of music in much the same manner as one might expect to find a preacher wibbling on about the good news of Jesus. How queer!




Which is to say that at the precise point at which Goldfrapp are rocking the JJB Arena to its very foundations with their mindblowing electroshufflepop masterworks, rather less amazing things are on display elsewhere on site. More specifically:

1. When Alison appears in a black catsuit and red platforms and you can sort of see her bra, we're glad we're Frapping rather than eating something nutritious from the Healthy Options food emporium backstage.

2. When Alison starts doing rude things with a Theramin during a kid-perplexing retread of Baccara's 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie', we're glad we're Frapping rather than having a reverse bungee on the V site's 'fun' fair.

3. When Goldfrapp's dancers are shimmying around with foxes and glitterball horses on their heads, we're glad we're Frapping rather than being asleep and sunburned outside the Bacardi B-Bar.

4. And when Alison tells the crowd: "You're beautiful!" as if in some hitherto unimaginable good interpetation of James Blunt's platinum-selling, pensioner-arousing snoozathon, we're glad we're Frapping rather than, well, anything really. It's that kind of moment.

The same cannot perhaps be said for the Am I Bothered? brigade, who spend most of the Goldfrapp set right down the front waiting for Dizzee Rascal and looking a bit confused. Bless the Am I Bothered? brigade! Being confused is OK! Embrace it!




Sometimes, you get 'the general idea' after only sixty seconds with a band. Brace yourself for the one minute men (and women) of V 2005...

The Roots! Amid lots of funky 'stuff'. their bass player goes a bit mad and starts bending strings all over the shop. He steals the show. Just for a minute, mind you.

The Hives! Pelle shouts to the Channel 4 stage audience: "I will be your rock and roll lead singer!" Imagine!

Ana Matronic! Wows the kids with a hearty bellow of "Bring me the head of Crazy Frog!" whilst swishing around in a very fetching pink satin 'number'.

Presidents Of The USA Yes They Are Still Going! During 'Lump', some leaping and flailing occurs, but rather a lot more people are standing around observing the flailing and leaping and thinking: "Ooh, it's a bit too hot for all that."

Jet! Coming on stage after a good blast of some sirens always makes a band seem more exciting than they are. Not that we're suggesting Jet wouldn't be exciting without the aid of an air attack warning.

Tunstall! KT has a far smaller crowd than The Magic Numbers before her, and while they're unfamiliar with the songs, they like to clap. KT tries to sample their clapping with her onstage effects 'kit', but inadvertently samples herself telling us what she's doing, meaning that she starts her next song with a loop of: "You've just all been recorded," before saying "Fuck!" and starting again. She eventually gets the clap.

The Proclaimers! The cheeky Scottish twins say hello to an over-excited V audience and the tent is so packed that security stop letting people in. Crivens!

The Zutons! The V crowd sing the 'doo do do's' from the one that isn't the famous one, meaning that in conjunction with Franz's efforts, this has been a very good festival for do-do-doing. If only Black Lace were here too.

The Bravery! Sam introduces 'Tyrant' by telling the crowd the heartbreaking story of when he fell in love with his next door neighbour, was dumped by her, and then heard her shagging loads of new blokes through the thin walls in their 'block' (her being his neighbour and everything). "It kinda drove me mental for a while," he says, which makes Slashmusic think: Too much information! Why not just move house? Get over it!

The Polyphonic Spree! The loveable hippies dedicate a song to the Sun, which is somewhat ironic given that they're in a big tent with the Sun obscured by a large blue tarpaulin. But it's the thought that counts.

Maroon 5! They do 'This Love'. As Beddo N and Estelle duetted this yesterday, we wonder whether they will both be brought on stage for some three-way action. But no, because they're in Chelmsford aren't they?

Well that's twelve minutes of our lives we won't get back.




Brothers and sisters! Can you hear me? Erm, good. Because perhaps you could explain why there are so many inter-family bands going on this weekend. It's making our heads spin. Oasis, Magic Numbers and Embrace have direct family relations, Mitchell Brothers are cousins (how very confusing!), Zutons and Polyphonic Spree have husband and wife action going on and then there are the Scissor Sisters and the Chemical Brothers.

Someone somewhere has really been having it off rather a lot.

Of all those acts, The Magic Numbers prove to be V's real hit. You can't get near the Channel 4 stage unless you want to stand near the fence where the nasty men do toilet (and there's a lot of that - we even see some boys weeing against the back of the Portaloos, as if they at least get points for being close).

It seems like the whole of V is thronging biblically towards the C4 arena, and before we can even see the stage we hear the roar of the crowd. It's a roar that Fidel Castro would probably describe as 'louder than war'. The old Commie fool. Basically it's very loud.

You'd have thought the Numbers would be used to the adoration by now. They're not. Romeo seems constantly bewildered, as if he thinks the band's Glastonbury success was just a fluke brought on by mud and hallucinogens. We even begin to suspect that he's being slightly disingenuous in his flattered surprise, until - during 'Love Me Like You' - the crowd starts clapping in unison, and he breaks out of the chorus to yell "Fucking hell!" in astonishment.

One new song, left until the end and apparently called 'Beard' (a title chosen by fans in Manchester, who heard it first), is a rollicking country pop number during which Romeo yells: "Come on MIchelle, rock the V festival" at his bass-wielding sister. Someone throws an inflatable chair in the air like they've decided they never need to sit down again. The Magic Numbers could be headlining the main stage tonight, and no-one - except the Gallaghers - would complain.




We went to see Leaves play, and liked them so much that we arrnanged to meet them by a lake. We then chatted for a bit before asking them to leave. Which they did. With much cheery indulgence.

Leaves are fron Iceland, which is why they are so free and easy with their 'mana-a-mano' relations, as you will see, and also why they talk a bit funny. Amazing.

Watch them for yourselves right here!




Here is a list of acts on the V bill, alongside a convoluted explanation of how much we think they should have been paid to appear at the festival.



Well that was fun. But that's just our opinion! More important to us is your opinion, readers. So we asked unsuspecting festival-goers what they thought Oasis, Rooster and The Magic Numbers pocketed for their V appearances. Read their answers here!




There are few bands on Planet Earth more brilliant than the Scissor Sisters. But we've all seen and heard the songs from the debut album more times than we've had hot chips and gravy dinners. And you can have too much a of good thing [burp!]. However, being brilliant, the Sisters have written new material and are playing it live at V. Hooray!

First new song 'I Can't Decide' arrives just one song into the set and is a gay, hillbilly ABBA number - if you can imagine such a thing. The kind of song those men from 'Deliverance' might enjoy if only they were more comfortable with their feelings. Next up is 'Hairbaby' which registers an 8.5 on the new-ometer. At festivals, the general rule is that unfamiliar material is greeted by chatting, shuffling and trips to the bar. 'Hairbaby' provokes wild dancing with its Stevie Wonder-esque wah-wah boogie. This could be because everyone at V is liver-damagingly drunk or because it's really good. We've not touched a drop so it must be the latter.

And the not-yet-hits keep coming. 'Paul McCartney' (Ringo must be furious) was written after a dream and is an absolute funky Prince-esque corker. Should be a single. Probably will be a single. The dancing is making the ground vibrate which is a bit scary. Earth shouldn't vibrate unless tectonic plates are shifting. Maybe they are. Jake has his top off, looking very defined. The phrase 'gym-bunny' springs to mind.

Then after a bit, or a few bits anyway, we get 'Magnifique'. Blimey this is good. Very much an Ana Matronic song, this one. We're in such a dancing frenzy by this point that taking notes sort of goes out the window. But we wrote something about seeing three young children dancing like demons on their respective dads' shoulders - or perhaps it was our dad dancing on some children's shoulders. Anyway, there were definitely demons involved. 'Everybody Wants', the one the Scissors debuted at Live 8, is received like an old favourite. The band are joined on stage by Muppety things for the finale and it all goes off. All hail the newness.




It's the mid-afternoon tussle that literally no-one was talking about. In one corner resides henna-topped grizzle-monkey Tony Christie, who, until about six months ago, was forced to feed himself from foul scraps he pulled out of the bins behind his local Netto (probably).

Now, after '(Is This The Way To) Amarillo', he's bloody minted. Of course, with all that dosh comes a crowd who only want to hear The Hit and goad him mercilessly until they get it. Which they do, after a set so long and winding that actually doing a version of The Beatles' 'Long And Winding Road' smacks rather of Christie taking the piss.

In the other corner, stands the willowy figure of starry-eyed star child (and child star), Joss 'Weighs About Six' Stone. Until earlier today, we thought that she was from Devon, England. Then she introduces her new (i.e. it's only been on the radio for eleven years) single, you know, the one about having, "the Hummer for the summer, baby," in a voice so hilarious in its approximation of America's deep south that we literally fall off the earth and land on the moon or something.

As far as a winner goes, it's all about La Stone, after all, she has plenty of time to change and, well, we do kind of like her for having the sheer balls to talk in that kerr-azy way.




While wandering around the VIP area, we bumped into Preston from The Ordinary Boys. We asked him what he thought of the V Festival and he went right off 'on one'. This is what he had to say:

"We did fucking loads of festivals last year, but I always slag them off in interviews because I think it’s really funny to make jokes about friendship bracelets and fucking hair braiding and people doing Diablo. I overuse that joke and we’ll end up not getting invited back, which would be a bit of a shame because it’s just lovely to play for people.

I can’t help thinking, when we do festivals, that not everyone’s there to see you. There’s always a little group of people at the back going “These are fucking shit!” I have that in the back of mind so I find it hard to get really into it.

I think bands try too much to be epic these days and I think that’s often just an excuse for being really boring. That’s something we shy away from. I can’t do false sincerity and the things that I’m sincere about make me a bit pissed off. If I want to sing about something it’s usually something that moves me enough to make me angry about it. We’re a bit of an angry band.

I think we’ve got the most hardcore fans out of anyone. We’re really lucky for that. We’ve got people with our logo tattooed on them. They call themselves The Ordinary Army and the make flags and go mental. It’s fantastic.

Our idea for when we started the band was just to be really honest and wear what we were wearing when we were 15 and not try and be anything that we’re not and I think we attract people who respect that. They like us because we’re normal. In the words of Chris Morris: 'It’s not cool to be weird.'"

Crivens! Thank you, Preston!




God bless Estelle. Like the Freddie Mercury of this V-branded retread of Live Aid [Are you sure etc? - Ed] she does a storming job of warming up a fairly nonplussed audience with love-fuelled warblings and chirpy between-song banter, revealing a strong and confident performer behind the persona of That Boring Woman Who Did '1980'.

(She does '1980' for V, of course, blowing the roof off the JJB Arena. Obviously the JJB Arena's roof is only quite flimsy, what with it being a tent and everything, but the overall effect of the set really is like popping in to see your mate for tea. MEMO TO V ORGANISERS: More of this next year please thank you.)




We've sifted through the terrifyingly large volume of photos we took of you lot 'larging' it at V, and we've put together a lovely gallery. Are you in any of our pictures? Perhaps you're the man with the sunburn and the T-shirt round his head, or you're the woman clapping politely in the front row for the Magic Numbers. You could even be the pink space alien. But we doubt it.

Clicky here and go find yourself!




Old people and bishops might think festivals are all anarchic, bacchanalian chaos, but no amount of booze, rock music and sunshine can interfere with the great British art of politely queuing for stuff.

We spoke to one punter named Gary about the queues at V2005 and he told us this:

"We got to the site at about lunchtime but there was a hour-long queue for the car park, then there was about half an hour standing outside as security went through everyone's bags looking for disco biscuits and flick knives. By the time we got in, I was desperate for a drink but you had to queue up for booze tokens so that took half an hour followed by half an hour more at the actual bar.

Course, everyone's starving now so we line up in the burger van queue which moves really slowly. Then Tony spots the chips and gravy stall so we all go there and that's taking ages cause people can't decide whether they want peas or not.

An hour later and I'm touching cloth, but the queue for the lavs is about a mile long. It took me an hour and a half before I could drop the kids off at the pool, and by then I'm gasping for a pint so, well, you get the idea. After that, we spotted Ian Brown at the signing tent and my bird loves him so I got in line for another hour and a half to get the monkey man's autograph.

I managed to see a bit of the Scissor Sisters from the queue at the Bacardi tent before we had to get in the car and join the ten mile tailback on the motorway. Still, it was brilliant. Can't wait for next year!"





They predict a riot. They are, quite literally, The Kaiser 'WHOOOAHH!! WHOAHHHHHH!!! WHOAHAAHAHAHA!!!' Chiefs, and we are loving their work. Especially the Dolly Parton intro music.

It has to be said - indeed it has already been said, but if something's worth saying it's worth saying twice - that Ricky Wilson is one of the best performers on the current live circuit. Whether it's on stage this weekend at V, or on some random weekend pop telly show, he just hurls himself into it, even when injured.

Could do with sorting out the mad woogly eyes, though. They're beginning to scare us.




At this stage, Slashmusic would like to pay tribute to a small group of V-goers, henceforth known as The Amazing Men, who on Saturday afternoon took it upon themselves to spend twenty minutes picking up paper beer beakers and slotting them into each other in order to create what can only be described as a huge snake.

With their friendly although slightly unsavoury bellows of "Feed the snake! Feed the snake!" they convinced their fellow festival-goers to extend the snake even further - perhaps, by Sunday night, even to Chelmsford. Who knows?!?!?




While supping cider and figuring out where the best place would be to get chips from, we bumped into that Roddy Woomble from Idlewild. We asked him if - seeing as the sun was shining, the music was pumping and the drinks were flowing - he was excited about playing V. This is what he said:

"It’s too early to be excited about anything. We’ve got the graveyard slot. It’s the band equivalent of when you work in Alldays and sell crisps and cigarettes to drunk people all night. What are we gonna play? Do we have any greatest hits? We have one. We’re gonna play our greatest hit. A few times.

We have a lot of fans but I don’t think they’ll be here. They all stay at home. We attract the kind of fans who prefer to stay at home. I’m only kidding. It’s gonna be fun."

Crikey! Cheer up Roddy, it might never happen!




Gawd bless The Prodigy, or 'Prodigy' as they were known until they added a 'The' to their name for that last campaign. Things were so much better in Prodigyland before that 'The' came along, were they not? It is almost as if the 'The' cursed them. Perhaps we should now refer to it as 'The curse of seeing all the popular indie beat combos whose names begin with "The" and ill-advisedly trying to have a bit of the action'.

We digress.

Fortunately for this weekend's V crowd, Liam Howlett's posse of noisy beat merchants are promoting a soon-to-hit-the-shelves Greatest Hits compilation, meaning that it's hit after hit for most of the show, which sends the V audience absolutely mental from beginning to end.

No, we're not sure what Keith's doing in that picture. And we're not sure we want an answer.




So that's what we got up to at V - but what about your experiences? We spoke to some 'punters' while we were there, and asked them: How's your V been so far? We never knew you were such a kerr-azy bunch!

Also, why not email us now and tell us what 'went down'? We'll publish the best. Send us pictures too, if you like, but no filth please.

THAT WAS A BRILLIANT V FESTIVAL! SEE YOU ALL, SAME TIME AND PLACE NEXT YEAR!

Slashmusic
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