By Saturday we were beyond exhausted and our feet were a mess and so of course it was the perfect day to spend pretty much all of it on our feet in a crowd somewhere! Leaving Elly to her beauty sleep, myself and Megan took to the main arena to see
Lower Than Atlantis. Having previously seen these guys twice before we knew we were in for a good set. Opening with
"Love Someone Else" the crowd took straight to them, belting the lyrics right along with vocalist Mike Duce. Their ten song set list was made up of the very best of their blend of punk rock/melodic hardcore music that extracted the punk rock attitude from Duce, who told us he was going to smash up his guitar, but instead gave it to the crowd. Cue a mad dash and brawl between Jesus and several other large guys. He couldn't keep up the attitude for long though as he grabbed his acoustic and reduced the majority to near tears with hard hitting
"Another Sad Song." Reunited with the rest of the band and a further three belters later,
Lower Than Atlantis completed their main stage debut and after their fantastic performance and the eagerness of the crowd it's safe to say they'll be invited back again in the future.
Somewhere between
Lower Than Atlantis finishing their set and
The Blackout coming on, it decided to piss it down. Feet aching, we retreated to the barrier and sat in a puddle to watch the welsh tear up the stage like I knew they would. Again, i've seen them more times than I can even remember due to my dad (yes, my
dad) being a super fan and completely in love with Sean Smith. In typical
Blackout style they came on to an old hit, this time
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" before running out to
"Start The Party" in enough rain for us to feel like we'd had a bath... if only we'd remembered shampoo. Blasting their way through hit after hit,
"Higher And Higher" "The Storm," no one expected quite what was to come half way through their set when they claimed they were a "hip-hop" band and proceeded to play a hip-hop mash up of
"Jump Around," "Paris" and
"Fight For Your Right To Party." Possibly one of the most hilarious moments of my life I actually found myself a tiny bit disappointed when it finished and they went back to playing their own hits.
Still raining, we grabbed food and went to sit under a tree where we waited for Elly, and if it weren't for the fact we saw
Russell Kane that afternoon,
The Blackout would have won comedy title for sure. The Alternative tent filled up with people who left crying with laughter after his set. What makes a good comedian to me is someone who tells it true and can be self-deprecating too - making
Russell Kane pretty much perfect. Running 20 minutes late we missed half of
Twin Atlantic but made it in time for them to play their now mega famous single
"Free." Sam McTrusty wore his bright orange raincoat adorably which matched their performance. Humbled to be even playing the festival, they entertained the main stage crowd with their Scottish charm and brilliant rock songs such as
"What Is Light? Where Is Laughter?" and
"Yes, I Was Drunk" but for me the stand out performance was of acoustic
"Crash Land" which sounded even more beautiful with the crowd singing along.
Next up, we went to the NME stage which was packed to the point of over fill. People were spilling out the sides and all for
Imagine Dragons. In a similar manner to
Bastille there's something different about these guys and intense. Fantastic to listen too and to watch every single person seemed to be having a good time - whether they were being crushed in the tent or one of hundreds outside it. And, obviously, when they closed with chart topping
"Radioactive" it was all the more wild. Future main stagers for sure.
Finishing off the exhausting day was
Chase And Status and then rap legend himself,
Eminem. As you can probably imagine - or if you were there, as you know - the amount of people gathered was somewhat insane. It came as no surprise when midway through
C+S's set everything was unplugged and we were told to move back as their were A LOT of people passing out and getting pretty badly hurt. And this was
before Eminem was even on.
C+S well and truly warmed the crowd up for
The Real Slim Shady who rapped - or did he? Rumours are he mimed... - his way to most people's best memories.
