My T in the Park 2006 experience started around 3pm on the Saturday afternoon. With dark, threatening clouds looming over head, we made our way through the gates and joined the thousands of T in the Parkers who had already made the trip to Balado for Scotland's greatest outdoor music festival!
After a quick trip to the hospitality area, we made our way over to the T Break Stage to catch Futuro who were on their second last song when we got there. The tent was mobbed and the young Glasgow band gave their all for the eager crowd; they could easily have played a couple of encores and the fans would still have asked for more.
Checking out some brand new unsigned talent was a great way to kick start the day, a quick look at the most important tool of the weekend - the festival timetable - told us that The Kooks were starting in five minutes over at the Radio 1/NME Stage. We didn't have to walk far to find it but we had no hope of actually getting within earshot of the stage! Hitting a brick wall of fans next to the merchandising stand right in front of the stage, we couldn't move anywhere and our view was of a screen far off in the distance.
Shaken and a little stirred by our near-death experience trying to see The Kooks, we decided that the only way forward was to check out one or two bands in the tents.
Electro band White Rose Movement were our more low-key band of choice at the Futures Stage at around 5pm. The darkened, more relaxed atmosphere in the tent was a much welcome change. Scraggly, long legged front man Finn Vane spent a lot of time perched on top of the speakers at the front of the stage, he reminded me a lot of Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker but with less charisma.
Our tent hopping adventure continued with a few trips between the Futures Stage and the T Break Stage. There wasn't any activity at the Red Bull skateboard ramps when we walked past, maybe it was because of the horrible stench that was coming from the chicken farm behind the ramp; it was a surprisingly quiet part of the festival!
With peg on nose, we tripped over to the King Tuts Tent to get as close to the legend of Bob Marley as is possible in 2006; his son Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley. We got in just in time to see a Jamaican looking guy with a Rasta hat and long dreads take to the stage - oh great this must be Damian Marley?
He came on and proceeded to check the sound - 'one two, one two' - for twenty minutes, in that time the crowd went through various degrees of boredom, excitement and frustrated 'boos'. The final straw came when one exasperated Marley fan threw his half full pint at the head of the guy (we still didn't know if it was a very pretentious Damian Marley or his sound engineer) on stage; missing him by inches!
A few minutes later Damian's band (who had been on stage all this time, hence why we thought the sound engineer was Damian) started playing an instrumental version of the Bob Marley classic Jammin'. Maybe all the microphone tweaking was worth it - the sound was excellent!
