Balado | Every road leads somewhere

Finally, only a month after the event, this post is dedicated to my time at T in the park, 2013.

Ahhh… memories!

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For anyone who doesn’t know, T in the park is a Scottish music festival which is named after its main sponsor; brewing company – Tennents lager. The festival is held in an unused airfield in Kinross-shire and lasts for 3 days; Friday through to Sunday although campers can pay extra to gain early access to the campsite on the Thursday. Alongside the main stage and Radio1 stage there are stages that specifically promote upcoming, home-grown talent such as the T break stage and the Ceilidh tent. This year saw the 20^th anniversary of the festival which was surprisingly drenched in glorious sunshine and saw acts such as Calvin Harris, Mumford and Sons, Rihanna, David Guetta and The Killers headline the main stages.

Accompanying me to T was my little sister, Lou (also a first time festival-goer!) and my friend, Linzi (who had been to T before and whose job it was to keep Lou and I on the right track – erm.. good luck with that one!). So, off we set, bright and early (5:15am to be exact) on the Friday morning in order to miss the traffic on our way to Balado and to get into the campsite early enough to pick a good spot for our tent – dubbed the mansion! It was pretty big! J

Lou and Linzi in our ‘garden’ 🙂

Outside our home for the weekend!!

Home! ❤

After a gruelling mile or so trek from the drop off point in the roasting hot sun with all our rucksacks and trolleys – which may I add felt like a stint in the SAS or something – we finally arrived in the campsite! Yay!! Fast-forward about twenty minutes (impressive or what?!) and we were relaxing outside the mansion – guy ropes pitched and all!- on our neon camping chairs, soaking up the sun with a delicious Kopparberg in hand (It had never tasted so good!) and getting into the festival spirit. We were so chuffed with ourselves especially as we looked over at our two male neighbours who were struggling with a smaller tent and were being assisted by two of the campsite helpers (awww, bless!).

At 4pm the Arena opened and we rushed over to the main stage to catch The Proclaimers opening the festival. The atmosphere was brilliant as everyone cheered and sang along to their songs – no prizes for guessing which song got the crowd going mental- and the fact that it was so warm and sunny just made it even better! Following on from the Proclaimers were acts such as Kendrick Lamar and Emeli Sande – who performed her new song ‘Lifted’ with Naughty Boy. Then, as Chase and Status took over the main stage, the atmosphere was cranked up a notch or ten and the crowd went even wilder, jumping around to songs including ‘Hypest hype’, ‘Time’, ‘Blind faith’ and ‘End credits’. Oh my, the energy radiating around that stage was electric; everyone was going crazy and I think there was even a mosh pit going on down the front! Chase and Status were definitely one of the highlights of T in the park – can’t wait to see them again at Leeds!

Finally, after jumping around like crazy fools along with thousands of other people at Chase and status, it was time to move over to the Radio1 stage to catch the Calvin Harris who was headlining. After a quick detour past the cocktail bar to sample some strawberry daiquiris, we managed to squish ourselves into the back of the mahoosive crowd in time for Calvin starting. To say it was madness was an understatement; Being squeezed into a sea of people all jumping around and going wild as Calvin dropped hit after hit was a truly fitting end to an amazing day! You can check out his set list at the link below;

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/calvin-harris/2013/balado-kinross-scotland-63d952e3.html

Getting mad with it 😉

Fist pumpin’ ??

Wine o’clock 🙂

Saturday saw more amazing acts perform as well as some acts which have been out of the spotlight for some time. Kicking things off on the main stage was James Arthur from the Xfactor who we missed but we made it just in time for The Fratelli’s who I haven’t seen play live in years! Memories of chilling at college playing pool in the student union came flooding back as I listened to ‘Henrietta’, ‘Cuntry boys & city girls’ and of course, ‘Chelsea dagger’ – always a crowd pleaser! The Lumineers came on after The View and gave an outstanding performance, singing songs including the instantly recognisable ‘Ho hey’. Next to entertain us, was Paloma Faith who was wearing a glamorous sparkly long-length gown and matching sparkly platform shoes. Such a great voice and a great entertainer, Paloma put on a great show and sang hits ‘New York’ and ‘Picking up the pieces’ and even stopped between songs to sip tea from a flask.

The gorgeous Paloma

Her beautiful set

I had been advised by quite a few people before I went to T to go and check out Snoop Dogg even if I wasn’t particularly into his music and they were completely spot on! From the minute he stepped on stage on the Saturday night, he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand and he really smashed it with favourites including; ‘Sweat’, ‘Young and wild and free’ and ‘I wanna f**k you’. I would definitely recommend going to see him… boy did that man have some stage presence!!

Following on from Snoop Dogg/ Lion or whatever name he’s going by now, was headliner; Rihanna who I was most looking forward to seeing. I had wanted to see her live for years and couldn’t believe it when I saw she was added to the 2013 line-up. Give the girl her dues, she had the crowd going wild and as always, she looked amazing but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed when most of the singing was coming from the backing tape as she was too busy grinding and dancing on stage.

Before we knew it, the weekend had flown by and it was the last day of the festival. L Along with a sadness that it was all nearly over, Sunday also brought another tough decision; David Guetta or The Killers?!? Arghhh! My mind was pickled as I would of loved to have seen both but after realising this was not physically possible, I thought about it sensibly and decided to see the Killers as I have never seen them live whereas I had seen David Guetta once before. In hindsight I can say I definitely made the right decision. Not only did Brandon Flowers look extra extra hot rocking a black leather jacket and a sleek side parting but he really gave it 100% as he performed the illustrious Killers classics; ‘Somebody told me’, ‘All these things that I’ve done’, ‘Human’, and ‘Mr Brightside’. Add to that, covers of Travis’ ‘Side’ and Tommy James and the Shondells ‘I think we’re alone now’ and you have all the ingredients needed for the perfect closing set for T in the Park…I was one happy camper!

❤

To sum it up; the experience of sleeping in a tent for the weekend, having hot piss thrown at you (nice!) and drinking warmish vodka wasn’t as bad as I had imagined at all! Listening to people outside cursing as they tried and failed to manoeuvre around our guy ropes was actually hilarious (we witnessed a few ouch moments!) as was Lou handing out an unlimited supply of face wipes to not only the crowd but also the security team every time hot liquid was thrown our way! The weekend was EPIC! And I hardly ever use that word! 😉 Definitely going to book up for next year!! J