TOUR ARCHIVE

Date: 2008-08-22
Location: Leeds - England [3 shows here]
Venue: Bramham Park [3 shows here]
Info: Leeds Festival
Fan reviews: 1 - Add yours!
Author: Phil
Setlist: Yes

Leeds and Reading U.K. - 08/2008

Table of Contents

Preface
Friday -- 08/22/08 -- Leeds Festvial
Saturday -- 08/23/08 -- Chill
Sunday -- 08/24/08 -- Reading Festival
Monday -- 08/25/08 -- Travel
Closing Words

Preface

Like my Switzerland shows I had bought tickets to Leeds and Reading before I even moved to Zurich. I had gambled on being able to take two days off of work and hopefully finding someone to go with me.

As it turned out the time off wasn't a problem but finding someone to go with was. Being a good clubber I headed to the club forums and looked for people needing a single ticket. Tor, a guy from Norway, had won a meet-n-greet pass for Leeds but needed a ticket, so I was happy to sell the extra Leeds ticket to him. And Chris, a guy from somewhere in England, was looking for a Reading ticket. So I had a way to sell both tickets which was good since European concert tickets are vastly more expensive than US concert tickets.

Hotels were also a problem. My Leeds hotel was fairly expensive and my Reading hotel was un-Godly expensive. There were some cheaper hotels but none easily accessable at night and even those weren't cheap. Fortunately Tor needed a place to stay in Leeds and was split one night of the hotel with me.

Friday -- 08/22/08 -- Leeds Festvial

I had booked the flight from Zurich to London and back. Most places in Europe trains are easy to buy and the same price whether you buy them just before you get on the train or in advance, so I hadn't purchased my train tickets for London to Leeds, Leeds to Reading, or Reading to London.

I got to Heathrow and took the Heathrow express into town, and then went to purchase train tickets. As it turns out, train tickets in England are not the same as as train tickets elsewhere in Europe. They're generally more expensive and they're vastly more expensive if you don't buy them in advance. So the train ticket to Leeds was going to be 87 pounds (at the time that was about $174)! I had looked online and this ticket should have been under $100. I flew into Heathrow because it was cheaper, I'd not counted on a $200 fucking train ticket! If all the tickets were this expensive, I was going to be in trouble. But I was already here, nothing I could do now. I purchased the tickets and waited for my train.

The train was delayed due to two separate events: a fire on the tracks and a broken train. I was having fantastic luck so far. So I ended up actually catching the train before the train I had purchased a ticket for - that's how late it was.

I met Tor in the train station as arranged and we headed to the hotel I'd booked. We checked in, I dropped my stuff off, and we headed to the festival shuttle. Since he'd been in town for a while he had already found out where the shuttle was, how much it cost, etc. We got there and found a ticket booth. Seeing people exiting the festival covered in mud from chest down was intimidating. I had not brought full-mud gear with me and wasn't prepared to be covered in mud. We found a ticket line but when I showed them my ticket confirmation we got redirected to another line. When when we found the right line she pointed out I'd brough my Reading Festival confirmation with me instead of my Leeds Festival confirmation with me. She thought I'd shown up to the wrong show in the wrong town but I explained that I had tickets for both and she said "well there's nothing I can do." My heart stopped for a second but she quickly said she was kidding and looked me up and then handed me our tickets. I handed Tor his ticket and walked through a snake of paths of mud until we got to a guy who took our tickets and gave us a wristband.

The first order of business was to find the meet-n-greet meeting point for Tor. As with most festivals this can be a challenge. There aren't a lot of unique spots in a big field. The description in his email from MetClub was under a certain poster on the left of the stage. Of course that poster was in a million places, but we found the most likely candidate and waited around. Eventually Kat and Adrian showed up and we exchanged hugs and caught up on our respective recent pasts. I waited with them all until Kat brought Tor and the other M&Gers backstage. Adrian and I hung out and watched the show. It started raining and got quite cold. I was only wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt which made the weather fairly miserable. Tenacious D was the only opening act I was interested in, so it made for quite a long wait. We eventually decided to go get some food and burger and fries. The burger was bad but the fries were probably the worst fries I've ever had in my entire life. Back near the M&G meet-up/drop-off point we met a cool guy named Ben and chatted. At some point I realizedl Tenacious D was playing and watched the last few songs of their set. From what I caught, they put on a good (if somewhat odd) show. Eventually Kat and the gang came out and we all headed into the crowd for the show - except Kat who went climbing into the scaffolding to film the show.

As with many festival shows there was a barrier after the first few hundered people. But there was no limit on who was in front of or behind the barrier. We went just in front of the barrier (at the back of the "front" section). This turned out to be a great spot: we had some room, no one was pushing on is, and we had a terrific view. Tor, Adrian, and I all chatted while we waited for the show. This was my first show in months and my first European festival. In addition Leeds is a very special show, so I was incredibly excited.

The band finally came out and were in incredible spirits - much like the KROQ Weenie Roast earlier this year but even stronger! They were clearly excited to be here and having a lot of fun. James headbanged throughout the whole show, more than I've ever seen! They're always excited to play but this was clearly something special to them. The setlist was fanstastic. As with Switzerland we got Ride, Justice, and Cyanide. However, with The Day That Never Comes single out, we also got that, which was awesome live! I headbanged like never before. Fuel and Last Caress rounded out the set quite nicely.

James mentioned how special it was to be there and thanked the audience and we waited for Kat to drop off her camera and then headed out. On our way we decided getting food in Leeds after midnight was going to be nearly impossible so we bought another burger from the venue (the only concession stand still open was the burger one). Unfortunately they were serving the leftover burned meat and it was an even worse burger than before. However, we were starving and it was good to have food.

On the way home, we got on the bus and I ended up talking to the folks in front of us: a couple from Melbourne, and a couple from somewhere in the UK. The bus kept slowing and being passed on the highway and we could smell a bit of a burning smell. Everyone noticed, but no one wanted to jinx us. Nobody except Malinda, the wife of the Australian couple, that is. She said "I think the bus is dying" about 25 minutes into the 45 minute trip, and within a minute the bus pulled over and stopped. It's all Malinda's fault! After about 10 minute another bus came and we switched to it and we were on our way again. We got back to town, and went our separate ways from Malinda and her husband whose name I can't remember and got back to the hotel a little after 12:30. Exhausted from an in-ordinately long day of travel (2 hours on a plane, 4 hours on a train, an hour and a half of bus rides) not to mention a festival, I was ready to crash. We got ready for bed and the lights were out before 1am.

Saturday -- 08/23/08 -- Chill

I got up around quarter to twelve the next day (I would have slept later, but Tor had been up for a while). I showered and we headed out to find some lunch. Being in the UK I was looking for one of those fantastic (English) bacon and cheese sandwiches I gorged myself on last time I was in London - oh and a plug adapter. We passed a few sandwhich shops and other restaurants and then eventually an electronics store. I went in and bought a universal plug adapter for under 20 GBP, which is actually quite cheap (that's about $40 and they're about 50 in Zurich)! We decided we'd seen enough places to make a decision and headed back to the area with about 3 sandwich shops. The first one lacked bacon sandwiches (blasphemy!), so we went to the next one, which listed them. Ordered one, and was handed a cold sandwich with American bacon, cheese and a few other things. Very disappointing. Ah well. From there, I headed back to the hotel to make some notes about last night's concert, book train tickets (this confirmed my suspicion that it's a lot cheaper if you book them in advance online rather than buy them day of - at least here in the UK), check email and get other work done. Tor went off to go have a beer (crazy Norweigen! =)).

There was a mini-Scrubs marathon on TV which I watched while I got work done. It was really, really nice to have English television again! After Scrubs there was a distinct lack of things on most of the time. I watched some American Gladiators, and some Malcom in the Middle, and a few other things, but mostly I just ignored the TV.

Having train tickets booked, I finalized all my plans for the next two days, relaxed, read news, checked email, watched TV, etc. and enjoyed a day off.

Tor came back in the evening and we had dinner at a restaurant in the train station. I had a surprisingly good burger, which was something I'd been missing in Switzerland. We headed back to the hotel and Tor left around 9:15 to catch a 10pm bus to the airport.

Later in the evening I caught the Thomas Crown affair - all-in-all not a bad film.

Around midnight it was off to sleep - tomorrow is more travel and another insane festival!

Sunday -- 08/24/08 -- Reading Festival

I got up around 9, checked email, packed and got ready. I checked out, headed to the trainstation, and picked my my tickets at the self-service machine. Then I headed to Starbucks for coffee and water and McDonalds for breakfast (Starbucks in Leeds is way cheaper than anywhere else in Europe so far, and definitely cheaper than London).

Then I went to find my train. This was painfully confusing. The screens outside the checkpoint showed my train at platform 8 at 11:06am (the same time as the booking said). Once inside the big A-Z screens showed my train on platform 12D at 11:00am. The smaller screens showing only the "upcoming departures" didn't show a Reading train (and the train was actually Reading via Sheffield), but listed a Sheffield train at 11:09am at platform 11C. Perhaps the platform changed again? So I went back to the big A-Z platform which still listed the Sheffield/Reading train as platform 12D at 11:00am. With about half an hour to spare I decided to sit and eat my breakfast and then figure this out. After enjoying a wonderful egg-and-bacon (with english bacon!) McMuffin, I headed to the information booth. The gentleman told me 12D was correct, and didn't offer any explanation for the 11C. Hmm, OK.

Then another odd thing happened. I started to walk back, but decided to find a trash can for my breakfast trash. Not seeing any I asked the gentlemen if there were any rubbish bins around. He said, flatly, "no." I was kinda startled at this, and he told me to just leave it on a table by the starbucks behind me. So I did. That's the first time I've ever been told to litter!

Anyway, back at 12D, the monitor switched to listing a train that went through some 20 stops which included both Sheffield and Reading, and which was arriving at 11:00am. The train rolled up and I got on.

With a 4 hour train ride I had plenty of time to get work done. I got a seat with a table and power and worked on various things. The train was precisely the one I had expcted getting into Reading at 15:44. When the train pulled into the station I could see the stage not far from the station. I followed some folks who had clearly been to the festival the day before. We passed an exit but since they didn't use it, I kept following them. When they got out of the station I saw the direction they were heading off to and it was obvious how to get to the show. With that figured out I turned around to head to my hotel which was also within walking distance. They exit they went out was not only closer to the to the venue but also to my hotel, so that was convenient.

The hotel I was satying it was quite cool! It was clearly extremely old and had a lot of character. Very old-world English. Unfortunately I felt like I was going to fall through the floor most of the time. The hallways and the room were pretty tiny too. I was kinda pissed that while I paid 217/night the standard room rate was 182/night. Being ripped off seems to be the theme of this trip. I put on an extra shirt given I was cold the day before and headed out. I had called Chris and he was waiting for me at the train station. I met up with him, and then we went to Burger King so I could get lunch. Fed and ready for some Metallica we headed to the show.

We got to a gate asked where to the Will Call was and got directed a ticket window, which wasn't the one with club member's tickets. We got redirected to another. Then another. At this point we'd walked about half way around the grounds. We finally got our tickets and headed into the venue. However, just inside the gates was a circle around the entire ground with another set of enterances to the actual concert grounds. So we walked half around the venue again before we could get in the real gates.

At this point Chris went off to find his friends and I went off to find Kat and Aid. I found them and Aid was in the M&G tonight. A friend his had won a trip in from New York through Mission: Metallica. He was going to bring another friend of his from New York as his +1, but the guy apparently didn't get his passport in time. So Aiden was the +1. I helped Kat coral the winners and Aid said he'd text me when they got out of the M&G and they all headed off. I watched the end of Feeder's set, and they covered Nirvana which was pretty cool. I went to buy a shirt, but they were unfortunately out of the good ones. I bought another shirt because I wasn't going to not have a shirt from at least one of Leeds and Reading. I texted Chris to see what he was up to, but he didn't answer me until much later. I wondered around for a while and then headed into the crowd to watch the whole Tenacious D show (I'd only caught pieces of it in Leeds) and was even more impressed. They really put on a good show!

Lars was apparently quite late tonight (I know from experience this is somewhat common), and thus the M&Gers didn't get back until late. Finally Aid texted me and I met up with him and a friend of his. We headed into the crowd and got a spot about 100 feet closer than in Leeds and a bit more to the left. The crowd was a bit odd that night: two or three times there would all of a sudden be a huge gap in front of us and everyone would move forward several steps, but it never got any more packed. I'm not sure where all these people kept disappearing to, but I had no complaints. I was

Again the band was in top-form. James was once again headbanging and smiling all night. The set was fantastic. We of course got Day and Cyanide again, but we also got Harvester, and Motorbreath! I was pretty tired so I wasn't as active as Friday, but I did a bit of headbanging and had metal horns in the air most of the time. Day continues to be an amazing live song, and it's no surprise Cyanide is already a classic live song.

At some point a friend of Kat and Aid, Jenna, caught up with us. The mix tonight was even worse, but this may be a factor of how close we were. I find at big festivals the sound is really bad if you're too close. Tons of revert and massive base. Still not quite as bad as KMFA Day, but worse than Leeds.

At the end James spoke about how legendary the Reading Festival is, how they saw their idols perform there years ago, and how much of an honor it was to play there. They were clearly excited and humbled to be there. It was a very, very cool site!

After the show we caught up with Kat and walked an insanely long way to their car. It was hard to find our way around the insane camping grounds which looked the same in every direction. We ended up walking too far in one direction, turning around, snaking through tents - it was nuts. Being the last night people were burning everything in site. The smell of burning plastic was thick and horrible. It took us an hour to find their car and they Kat dropped me off at the train station which was as close to my hotel as she could get since the streets leading to my hotel were pedestrian streets. I stopped at a kebab place and get a bacon sandwich (a real bacon sandwich) and "chips" (fries). English bacon rules. I was thrilled I'd managed to completely avoid venue food this time.

Monday -- 08/25/08 -- Travel

I got up the next morning, checked out, and was going to get some good but saw lines outside the trainstation wrapping all the way around the building. I got quite worried and ran up to ask someone what was going on. They said there was a shorter line for people who already had tickets. I explained that I'd purchased tickets online but still had to pick them up. They said I could get in the same line. I found this line, but it was still uncomfortably long. Finally I got inside but the ticket counter was outside with the obscenely long line. I asked a guy where to pick up tickets and he directed me to a ticket counter inside. He said not to wait in line but to go straight to the farthest left counter. So I did but she told me I had to go the "exit" of security where people were coming off of trains, tell the gaurd I needed to pick up tickets then he'd let me go in the exit and I could go to the "Group ticket" counter just inside the exit. The guard wasn't thrilled with this but let me in. Despite how odd this sounded it turned out to be correct. I got my tickets, and then had to leave out the exit and go in the proper enterance. At this point I was quiet late and ran to catch my train without food. The train was packed but I somehow managed to get a seat. The isles were packed full of people. It was only an hour or so and I got off in London. At this point I was famished and got food at a Burger King in the station. Having plenty of time before my plane I wondered around London looking for a pharmacy I could buy some Listerine at since it's hard to find in Zurich. Unfortunately it was some bank holiday and everything was closed. Annoyed I headed back to the station and took the Heathrow express to the airport. There was some confusion and the stopped me from getting on some part of the train for some reason I don't understand, but I finally got on the train and to the airport. I ran into the guy from New York who took Aiden backstage with him and we chatted until it was time for my flight. In Heathrow they don't put up gate assignments until just before the flight so I had just picked a random place to sit. Fortunately the guy heard my flight announcement because I didn't and would have missed my flight.

Closing Words

This weekend of 2 shows over 3 days in two cities was about half the price of 6 weeks on tour with the band in the US seeing ~20 shows. Touring in Europe is much more difficult, much more complicated, and much more expensive. That said, these two shows were incredibly special and I'm really thrilled I got to see Metallica perform at these legendary and historical festivals.