Day 1 - Friday - T in the Park 2009,Stereophonics,Newton Faulkner,KT Tunstall Live Review @ Balado Airfield (Kinross)

T in the Park

Live Review

T in the Park festival is a three day event held in Scotland, Balado. Here's a round up of the Friday which featured The Verve, Stereophonics, Kt Tunstall and Newton Faulkner opening the event.

The Good

Stereophonics played a blistering set on the main stage. The bands thirteen song set opened with 'Bartender and the Thief' and proceeded to roll back the years with the likes of 'Traffic' and 'Thousand Trees'. The crowd were mesmerised by the Welsh rockers, every song being a massive sing along. They finished with indie favourite 'Dakota' and remained arguably the band of the weekend.

Earlier in the day main stage also saw Newton Faulkner open the festival with his inventive breed of acoustic music. He closed with a cover of Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which is slowly becoming one of the most talked about cover versions in recent history. KT Tunstall put on a good show in her homeland too proving popular with the already drunk Scottish crowd.

The Bad

The Verve have one famed album which is the reason they're headlining. And in a set remarkably similar to their returning Glastonbury one, they left classics 'Lucky Man', 'Bittersweet Symphony' and 'Drugs Don't Work' until the end, meaning the middle of their set was remarkably drab. It's not to say they weren't good, just their set choice was a tad disappointing.

The Ugly

KT Tunstall's attempts to speak to the audience were horrific. After attempting to make the whole crowd body-pop [unsuccessfully I might add], the singer rambled on about anything and everything that entered her head. Also, midway through her set a skirmish broke out in the crowd which nearly saw a man hit with a 15ft totem poll. And even though it was a camping only day, the toilets have already made great strides to be as unhygienic as humanly possible.

So that was it from a shortened first day of T. Stereophonics would go on to be band of the weekend and The Verve would be let off with their performing as another headliner would prove to be a shambles.

Tom Crowther