Hydro Connect Festival 2008

John D, founder of Glasgow's own indie-tacular Pin-Ups Night, reports on his adventures at the Hydro Connect Festival 2008 in the company of Butcher Cassidy.

It was with mild trepidation that I set off in the company of James "Butcher" Cassidy on Friday afternoon to the Hydro Connect Festival. I don't call him "The Butcher" for nothing and over the months prior to Connect there had been some extremely epic nights out in his company. James kindly drove us up and on the way into the arena we spotted Billy "Shotgun" Sloan. I wanted a picture with the Sloan Ranger but James told me I would hate myself I the morning. To Billy's credit (I'm on first name terms now) he said a picture would smash James' camera. To Billy's discredit - he said the band he was looking forward to seeing was Kasabian. Tut tut tut Mr Sloan. I was intending to steer well clear of the Oyster Stage on the Friday night, considering it would be hosting not just Kasabian, but also Amy McDonald, and those pompous Clash wannabees The Manic Street Preachers.

Before I go any further, I must say that I understand why the organisers chose these acts. The line up for Connect 2007 was out of this world and yet the turn out wasn’t great. I’ve no doubt that some concessions to more middle of the road kind of acts had to be made to balance the books. It’s also rumoured that a big but sadly unsuccessful effort was made to try and get The Cure to shore up Friday’s line up.

So, we left Billy Sloan to his own devices and were delighted to hear upon entering the festival that they were playing the whole of PJ Harvey's "Stories from the city" album, which had soundtracked a weekend of debauchery with the Butcher last month. It was a sign! In these sort of festival camping situations the only rule I stick to is that you shouldn't start scooping until the tent is up. Following some jobsworth antics from campsite staff we finally got the tent up in a location that didn't seem to offend anybody and the first cans of the weekend were cracked open. The chaps camped next to us were older characters who somehow got into a conversation with The Butcher about some sort of ultra rare Celtic scarf that existed in the 70s. It turned out James possessed one. What were the chances? It was another sign! We decanted a bottle of Jack Daniels into a plastic bottle (with a splash of coke) to the strains of Ladytron’s “17” from the “Guitars and other Machines” Stage, and then undertook the slight hike involved from campsite to arena and before we knew it were enjoying some nice apple cider in the Kopparberg tent. The agreeable quality of the DJing involved in this tent (big winners like Bobby Womack’s "Across 110th Street") would make it a base of operations for the duration of the festivities.

I was sorry I had missed terrific local outfit Findo Gask who had been scheduled far too early in the day in the Unknown Pleasures tent, and the same goes for promising Dublin band “Fight Like Apes” on the Oyster Stage. However we decided to catch the tail end of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks at the Guitars stage, and were left a little underwhelmed. I’m a huge fan of Pavement but I don’t think I’ve seen Mr Malkmus hand in a good live performance since I first saw him at V97 in Chelmsford. The highlight of the Friday night had to be Crystal Castles in the Unknown Pleasures tent, which we enjoyed after awarding ourselves some Mojitos at the Havana Rum stand. We tried watching Sparks after Crystal Castles' sensational show but by this point our attention span was absolutely shot and we preferred instead to dance about yet another tent - the Red Bull one. At some point we haggled at a stall for pairs of wellies and won, getting them to half the price simply by pretending we were too drunk to do arithmetic (we were very convincing). Inevitably we ended up back in the Kopparberg tent where we generally harassed the rest of the crowd before retiring for a few snatched hours of sleep.

On Saturday the Butcher wasted no time in powering back into the cider, and before we knew it we were at the Oyster stage, being underwhelmed by the much hyped Late of the Pier (Klaxons–lite) and then harassed by Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band. Bright Eyes seemed to think it was very amusing to repeatedly kick his guitarist's guitar mid-song. Presumably the only reason the guitarist didn’t knock his block off was because he didn’t want to upset his employer.

We ventured to see Friendly Fires, who happily played “Paris” and “Jump in the Pool”, and then I decided I wanted one of the Havana Rum cowboy hats everyone was wearing. The guy at the stand said he had none left, but just 10 minutes later he was dishing out mint new ones to girls. "To get one you'll have to give me a kiss" he said. "Big deal" said I - so he threw one at me. Yes! I had a hat, and was now able to tip my hat to punters - "howdy", "stranger", "ma'am". If James was Butcher Cassidy, I was the Sundance Kid. (Just without Robert Redford's dodgy moustache).

We kicked back in the campsite where the lads next to us again asked after the health of James' scarf. It was possibly around this time that I began to impersonate Cheryl Tweedy, which became a running gag. "John D mon, whaeeet teeime do ya call this, ah've been waitin in this tent all neeet for ya". There was just enough time to decant more Jack Daniels and also introduce a bottle of rum to the equation before getting back into the arena for a spot of Glasvegas at the Guitars stage. They had drawn a very impressive crowd and “Daddy’s Gone” went down a storm. We then repaired to the edge of the Kopparberg tent where we discovered our friend Paul Smith. We accompanied Mr Smith to see a thoroughly enjoyable performance by Gomez of their first album, including a smouldering “Tijuana Lady” - before having some more Mojitos.

Things were now getting a tad “confusing” and I managed to completely miss The Roots, who I had marked as a must see. Damn! Instead I had a chat with Glasvegas along the lines of slurring "good on yers" (the band played gigs I organised years ago and I have been sticking up for them on message boards ever since). Anyway, I couldn’t let such highbrow chat get in the way of the action and so we headed off to see Bloc Party, who continue to be dodgy. I put their lovely first album down to Paul Epworth's magic ears and the subsequent FM radio sludgefest second album followed by the dance-music-ambulance-chasing "new single that wasn’t on the original release of the second album" down to the singer being a deluded twat. In fact they are like a band being run by a fat clueless record company boss. I believe I explained this to Butcher Cassidy - at length - as we once again gravitated towards that damned dangerous Kopparberg Tent. All sorts of hilarity ensued as Kids by MGMT (which James had been humming all weekend) suddenly came on, punters started wanting to try on my silver jacket, I insisted on shouting the lyrics of "Once in a Lifetime" very loudly at randoms (my voice is still croaking) and eventually tried to orchestrate a stage invasion round the DJ when he put on Wiley.

t was then back to the campsite to harass strangers by starting huge debates around several camp fires about whether or not Michael Jackson fiddled with those kids. I have no idea why this became such a hot topic in my head but it was amusing stuff nonetheless. Yes, generally it was just another quiet weekend with the Butcher, and on the Sunday I was a broken man. All The Faint’s songs sounded like they were shouting “FEAR! FEAR!” and after enjoying some songs by great Fanclub-esque local band Endor at the Your Sound stage we cleared back off to the Oyster Stage. Santogold didn’t bounce, Guy Garvey from Elbow seemed to go down very well (but looked too much like Ricky Gervais to take seriously) and Goldfrapp was basically very MOR, which surprised me as I enjoy her records. Her theatrical stage routine would have possibly benefited from playing slightly late,r at dusk. I managed to see a bit of We Were Promised Jetpacks at the Your Sound stage, but I was too knackered to enjoy them properly. We Were Promised A Good Shower And A Sleep seemed a lot more tempting.

It took a trip to see Karl Bartos from Kraftwerk to cheer me up, who was doing his own solo stuff but dropped in “Tour de France”, “Trans Europe Express” and The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”. We were beaten men and the car home awaited. We couldn’t face hanging about for Franz or Sigur Ros or even Chemikal Underground’s Phantom Band, who are excellent live. Incidentally, on the way out we passed the Coral, who had been advertised as playing "acoustic", but were using at least as much electricity as Bob Dylan did that time at the Newport Folk Festival. However I simply didn't have the energy left to discuss this with James. So - same time again next year Butcher?

(A version of this article was originally published - containing substantially less comment on the musical events of Connect - in the Pinup Nights fanzine of September 2008.)