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V2000 (Chelmsford) 2000

Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th August 2000
Hylands Park, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 8WQ, England MAP
weekend around £75 (with camping)

I nearly busted a gut running to catch the last half of Travis. I'd given up the chance to see them at Glasto, due to a minor [shouldn't that be major?! - ed] addiction to the Flaming Lips and I was determined to put an end to all this Travis are crap nonsense. I want to just reel off the "Ah, but if you'd seen them live...".

This is the thing. Travis are like Marmite. You either love them or you hate them. It's certain that the thousands that had crammed into the main field at V loved them. But did I? I loved Why Does It Always Rain On Me? (songs of misery always get my vote for moments of self-pity). Wasn't so keen on Turn Turn Turn though. Fran's whining was starting to get to me. Oh but Fran! Isn't he a sweetie? Bless his cotton socks. You just want to feed him Scotch Broth to pudge out those skinny limbs of his...

I got to the main stage 20 minutes before the end of the set. They were plodding through Travis stuff. It was all pretty basic and mediocre. No amazing sense of greatness. Fran wasn't displaying much stage presence.

Aha! But they'll have something up their sleeve, yes? Erm, well sort of. They plonked out the Baby One More Time. It was well played, but seems to have evolved from a cheeky Britney parody to another typical Travis track (are we sure they didn't write it?).

The audience were standing watching. Not a huge reaction from them, bar some of the die-hards at the front. If you'd filmed them, you could have mistaken them for a bunch of people watching a giant telly. I gave up waiting for the man next to me to pipe up "Fancy a cuppa in the ad break" and plodded off to feed my body with noodles (infinitely more interesting).

Mmm. Love Marmite. Hate Travis.