It was the opening night of T In The Park 2011, and what a welcome to Balado: a sun-kissed corner of the Scottish countryside where the clouds cleared, Healthy T did a roaring trade, two Thunderbirds enjoyed The View, blue Smurfs rocked to White Lies, glorious sunshine heated up Arctic Monkeys fans, and thousands of T in the Parkers had the time of their lives.
Fancy Dress Friday at T witnessed the now traditional phantasmagorical display of inventive costumery: a burly bloke dressed as a bride, a Slash (from Guns N’ Roses), an explosion of day-glo zinc make-up, and a chipper man who looked suspiciously like Welsh music legend Sir Tom Jones. No, wait, actually, it was Sir Tom – the sprightliest, rock’n’rollest, 71-year-old knight of the realm that Balado has ever seen. Delilah, the Welsh anthem, encouraged Friday evening’s loudest main stage singalong.
But T in the Park 2011’s first singalong came courtesy of one of Scotland’s greatest ever rock bands. Big Country opened proceedings on the main stage with a punchy, 30-minute greatest hits set. Fields Of Fire? It was fields on fire as the Eighties heroes played their first ever T set. For guitarist Bruce Watson, it was especially poignant to be playing on home turf without his old Dunfermline friend and bandmate, the late Stuart Adamson.
“I played here with The Skids in 2007,” said Watson, who was joined on stage with his guitarist son Jamie. “T in the Park is my back garden really – I’m only ten minutes down the road in Dunfermline, so I’m here every year. This feels like a homecoming show for Big Country – especially ‘cause we never played here the first time round.”
As the sun continued to beat down well into the evening, T in the Parkers were treated to a terrific volley of Day 1 closing acts. Eliza Doolittle rocked her trademark shorts, the pummelling beats of Aussie drum’n’metal heroes Pendulum caused their now-traditional festival earthquake (measuring eight on the rock-ter scale…)? And Arctic Monkeys, firm favourites of the Balado masses, topped their previous, triumphant sets at T with a thundering performance, bringing the first day of T in the Park to an almighty end.
Sir Tom Jones only had good things to say about his debut T experience.
“I’d heard a lot about T in the Park, and as we were driving in I saw all the punters – who looked very interesting!” laughed the living legend – clearly he’d caught sight of the chap dressed as The A Team's Mr T pushing a woman in a wheelchair dressed as Margaret Thatcher. “They all looked the part anyway! For me this is fantastic – I don’t play many festivals, or haven’t done in the past. But this is great – you see all sorts of people. And nine times out of ten it’s a younger crowd. Last year I played Latitude, and I had the Praise & Blame album out, so all I did was songs from that album. And sometimes people could get a bit upset about that, and rightfully so – they wanna hear some hits as well. This time, at T in the Park, I wasn’t gonna make that mistake!”
Well, it’s not unusual to hear hit songs from hit artists at Balado. T in the Park 2011 has lift off.
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