andyrhodes24

They had a massive rise between 2014-2017 but dropped off after The Ride came out. Instead it was cool to dislike Catfish, unlike Fender. Their 2014 FR tent set was one of those where you could tell they’d go on to big things. Hope they do come back as rumoured.

R&L will book something for everyone, that’s what they do now with headliners. If Olivia Rodrigo caters for the kids and QOTSA are there yer da, who cares? She’d be a massive coup for R&L whether the boomers like her or not.

£210 is the discounted weekend ticket price for next year. Wow

Just got mine now

Yeah a totally relevant artist but there were plenty who were waiting at MSE with nothing better to do. With us setting up base there we sat through some right garbage this year

My group have absolutely zero interest in acts like Becky Hill but found ourselves watching her because there was no alternative. It happened so many times this year where we sat at the other main stage while there was no one on. Bring it back!

I caught on after I hit send 🤣 even early afternoon there must be someone on worth going to see. People are too busy queuing up for the Co-op all day!

Blows my mind that people go to Leeds just for the night stuff, just go into town or something 😂

There isn’t much wriggle room at all for arena changed at Leeds, the positioning of MSW is already questionable in my mind. All the more reason to bin it!

Interesting couple of questions on the survey currently on the apps: 1. Did you take your tent home with you? 2. Did you buy your ticket yourself or did someone gift it to you?

Problem you’ve got is that at 16/17 mummy and daddy will be buying a lot of the tickets and camping gear so the actual attendee couldn’t care less if they leave their stuff, they’ll get a fresh tent next year and the cycle will continue. FR need to get through to the attendee in a way that will benefit them if they recycle or impact them if they don’t

It will be much much harder in reality than this but: 1. Before the event, use ticketmaster to say if you’ll be bringing a tent. If yes, pay a deposit. 2. If you said you wouldn’t be bringing a tent but turn up to the festival with one, you pay a deposit. If you don’t have a tent with you, you get a refund. 3. If you brought a tent and take it home, you get your deposit back. If you leave it, you forfeit your deposit. 4. Offer quality incentives to take rubbish to the bins in the campsites; discounts, merch, side of stage, upgrades. There were recycle points around the camps but no one is arsed. The difficulty would be in checking/proving that you did/didn’t have a tent post event.

If they change, go back to loosely doing themed days with counter programming on the R1 stage. MCR on main stage vs AJ Tracey, Post Malone vs Idles etc etc. It doesn’t have to be rock all day on the main stage but offer people the choice instead of subjecting 40 year old day trippers to the likes of Central Cee as a warm up to The Killers. If they stick as they are, get a decent sized opener on a main stage each day, persuade people to get down early. A lot will go back to camp after but a lot will stay and spend money. With the discount scheme it’s obviously hit home that they’ve got to win people back.

Half my problem with the current setup at Leeds is that it’s not worth the effort wading though the MSW crowd to get to the smaller stages, especially if the FR lineup isn’t particularly strong. The tent is like nothing else though and would persuade me to walk through the traffic. As mentioned, if they’re putting dance, pop and rap on the main stages it makes little sense to keep these going as they are while neglecting rock and indie so much.

Laughing at my mate who met Melvin on Saturday, he’s been going 25 years and has a bucket hat with all the wristbands on. Cheekily asked for a lifetime pass but got told to prove he’d been every year. This discount will have to do 🤣

We could walk straight up to the bar at Leeds anytime before 8pm, not complaining!

Yeah it just doesn’t work - what’s the point in having mixed genre days if it can’t do it’s job of enticing people into the arena for longer than half an hour. It’s trying to be too many things and failing at all of them with this set up (bar the headliners which turned out to be a solid bunch). Clearly pre-2019 Melvin had near heard the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Poor undercards are half the problem, didn’t see many Sunday wristbands about about probably because Central Cee and Knucks were subbing. If they’d done something like The Killers > The 1975 > Courteeners > Blossoms it would’ve done miles better, even if it is uninspiring. What business does Central Cee have subbing The Killers? It was a proper shambles this year.

Top and bottom five from this year FWIW: Top: Billie Eilish, NBT, Games We Play, Yard Act, Inhaler Bottom: Central Cee (genuinely baffling), Muna, Declan McKenna, Hot Milk, Steve Lacy Special mentions to Soft Play (love them but sound quality was shocking, guitar sounded like it was being played though a pocket amp) and Wet Leg (like them but a completely forgettable performance, Radio 6 da’s need to stay off the sherry)

Even The 1975 was quiet towards the back. Plenty of space to move around from the sound tower backwards to the food stalls, shocked me did that

This is exactly it. R&L draws in so many people who just want to go to say they’ve been but couldn’t care less about the music beyond one or two current acts. These days it’s a starter festival and not much else.

As big a crowd as most MSW headliners I’d say. The only MSW headline sets I’ve missed in the three years have been Disclosure and MTS and, across those sets, Catfish was the only one where I’ve struggled the move about where we stand by the sound tower.

I went into the pit stage for two bands: Soft Play and Games We Play. There just wasn’t anything else for me. Games We Play was a good example. Great set but poor attendance, then he played Mr Brightside and it filled up. He then asked he came in because he played it and most of the crowd stuck their hands up.

Okay so Leeds thoughts 2023. 1. It was really quiet. There was so much space even in red and blue camps, no one camping next to the path by the shops. The arena was also quiet for the headliners. Plenty of space last night for the Killers. I left at about 22:10 and there weren’t many people hanging round the campsites either, just no one about. 2. Nice to see five solid bands headline. Imagine Dragons weren’t as shite as expected. 3. Stop putting acts like Muna, Mimi Webb, Baby Queen on the main stage, they’re all the same and all shite. Pathetic crowds. 4. Give the FR tent some love, especially when clashing with pop/rap main stage acts. It was packed for Soft Play and Sleep Token and more decent bands would bring it back to life. 5. Banning disposable vapes was pointless. Instead people just chucked the packaging of the reusable ones all over the place alongside the disposables that got through. There was tonnes of it. 6. Way too many people happily paid £10.50 a Four Loko. 2024: Travis Scott, Liam Gallagher, Dua Lipa, Machine Gun Kelly, Kasabian, Olivia Rodrigo.

She was flawless at Leeds, so polished and effortless. One of my top headliner performances that