Crazy Celts.

Got to Glasgow via Amsterdam. Lost 11 pieces of luggage on the way. I felt guilty that none of it was mine – just for a minute until I changed out of my dirty clothes and into my clean ones. Mmmmm, yes, fresh socks….

Glasgow Airport still smelled of fires. When I saw inside the airport where the car had crashed I was horrified. If they had driven through the doors successfully hundreds would have been injured. The doors led into the main international check-in area. It was a Saturday, the airport would have been running at full speed. I felt angry and indignant and full of cheer when I heard the stories of brave and hard Glaswegians who tackled the bombers. One guy called John Smeaton is a local hero for tackling them and in true Glaswegian style you can buy him a pint online. He has over 1000 pints bought for him at his local pub. Another guy, a cabbie, saw the bomber who was on fire after they’d just rammed his cab. He got out and kicked the bomber in the balls. After the incident the police took his sneakers for forensic evidence so the local paper took him shopping for a new pair of Nike’s. The way the airport has recovered and the business-as-usual attitude of the people I met working there was inspiring. And hearing more about how these dickheads are operating now that I’m in the UK just makes me angry and intolerant. Fuckwits, the lot of them.

This was the scene less than a week after the attack. Nuff 'sect to everyone at Glasgow airport.



I spent four hours at Glasgow Airport later trying to get the bags back in a cycle of well-intentioned futility. 200 bags had gone missing on flights from Amsterdam to Glasgow alone that day so our 11 were part of something greater….and consequently not a huge priority for anyone else but me. I got 9 back before we left for the first show, with visions of random pieces of luggage (including the drums) following us around Europe for 2 1/2 weeks.

The luggage that did arrive in the hotel lobby with Marc and Albert.



There were apparently no Wellingtons to buy in the whole of Glasgow. I bought some cheap knock-off Timberlands instead. They worked. The mud at T in the Park was a bit of a drag. At the Oxegen Festival in Ireland it was a soup.

After Albert’s set at Oxegen, and once everyone had got back to the dressing room – giving Connor Oberst a ride on the way as he was trudging along the service road by himself (he’d seen some of CSS and we were discussing the praises of their singer’s glittery spandex which reminded me I’d wanted to see them too)—I set off into the public areas to see CSS. They’d finished by the time I got near their stage, which was a drag, but I couldn’t believe the mud. And more to the point, I couldn’t believe that people were so completely at ease in the mud. I walked across the site a couple of times to see The Hours and Brian Wilson and The Killers and a bit of Daft Punk and in the course of it I saw:


The Oxegen Refugee camp. This is general public's campsite as viewed from artist's catering. The red cross were due to visit with soap later that afternoon...




Sinking boots.




People passed out (this guy had to be stretchered away by Medics). Some people tried to help him, others just took photo's of him with their camera phones. It was sad. He was in a coma. Security heckled him with a loudhailer, laughing at their own jokes like a bunch of wankers.





People dancing to My Chemical Romance – it seems that if you like a band you get to kick mud up in the air at people – see the back of my jacket for reference. Check out the guy in the centre of the picture. It was mid-afternoon and he could barely walk and was content to fall over in the mud, so much so he's invisible here. This wasn't the exception to the rule...



Some people were so covered in mud that they’d abandoned all pretense of hygiene and were throwing themselves, and each other into the mud (Brian, our tech’, saw a pond of mud with 6 guys in it – if you got too close to them, they jumped you and rolled you in the mud). In fact, covering each other with shit seemed to be the order of the day and an accepted hazard of being at the festival. I guess I missed that memo. I can’t figure out why you’d spend all that money to roll in shit. It can’t be comfortable. Maybe it’s fun? Either way, I made a good target.

But at night, it’s strange sight to see. I liked watching Daft Punk’s amazing light show – I think it’s difficult to be witty and awesome all at once, which they were. The Killers were a bit bleh, Brian Wilson's set sounded great although it wasn't such a spectacle. The Hours were great - Anthony looking like a Sheffield Springsteen all through his set.

I watched, stood in a slurry of mud, as drunk people who could stagger at best had no chance and were falling like flies. There was an otherworldliness to the place at night as the damp truly settled in; people stood spaced-out staring glassy-eyed at nothing, the Ferris Wheel looked pretty, although it was surrounded by a legion of muddy starey-eyed zomboids. The end is nigh.