Day 2

Aloha Banditos! Carling Weekender day 2 started as most of my mornings do anyway: getting up early and watching a fat bloke dance (only this time I wasn't looking in the mirror!) You may have guessed that the first band of the day was Bowling For Soup, who to be fair have to be seen to be believed (well Chris, the massive guitarist, does anyway). Only saw the last two songs of the set but they were excellent. Fat Chris makes a Gibson Les Paul look like George Formby's yukele but he can certainly play it!! Just in time for The Girl all the Bad Guys Want which you probably all know (contains mullet references) and finishing with This Song Was Written by a God Damn Canadian Bryan Adams Summer of 69 cover. On the whole well worth the walk.

Next up Finch, some hairy Metal Mutha's but not quite what I had in mind at the time so left early to get a good spot in the Radio 1 tent for OK Go. This was a bit of a coup really having only heard 1 of their tracks from a cd free with Q magazine. Absolutely f***in' superb (Claire thought so too!!) Ended their set with a pre-practiced piss take boy band dance routine which was awesome. Verdict: will definitely be buying their album soon and I recommend that you do the same!!
Staying in the Radio 1 big top next up were Alien Ant Farm who were making a comeback after being severely mangled in a nasty bus crash.
Started off well with some tunes from their debut album including Courageous and Movies (probably their best self written tune) but started to suck soon afterwards as they descended the same slippery slope as most of the other US bands so far, so we left early to get mucked in to monster dead pig baguettes - MMMMMMM!! Smooth Criminal at the end was pretty cool though!

Back to the main stage after lunch for The Darkness, having only heard Growing on Me on the radio a couple of times, so I didn't know quite what to expect apart from a guy sounding a bit like Robert Smith from the Cure. What followed was about forty minutes of what can only be described as Status Quo on a bad acid trip! Justin Hawkins (the main man) appeared wearing a black and white stripy spandex jumpsuit from the waist down with the bass player looking like he'd just escaped from a night out in the blue oyster bar. Then it suddenly clicked The Darkness were from the Duke's neck of the woods (Lowestoft), so it all started making sense right down to the references to the local legendary spectral hound with one eye Black Shuck - track 1 on the album. So between speaking with a couple of plums to the extreme cursings of the excellent Get Your Hands off my woman MotherF***er The Darkness are "really growing on meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!" So if they don't clash with the stuffies may well go and see them again in December!

Carlos decides on a solo mission next returning to the Radio 1 tent for The Electric Six: Biggest crowd of the day so far as Carlos enters the tent to mass chantings of "Gay Bar!!" repeatedly. Electric Six look like Sparks and sound like a cross between them and the Bloodhound Gang opening with a classy number called something like Naked Pictures of your Mum. E6 are from Detroit so next comes the piss take of Eminem MC Sucker DJ followed by the classic Danger High Voltage. Almost right at the end they launch into Gay Bar but unfortunately the turtle began to rear it's head at this point, so I had to leave before the end, but could hear the final cover of Queens Radio Ga Ga. Those guys were mental (but in a good way)!!! Back to the main stage to catch the end of Placebo (seen them a few times but always superb - 'nuff said) followed by Fred Durst's mates Staind who were pretty good, but would have benefited from some Bandito merchandise to wear. Had a chemically induced power nap mid-set so felt much better by the time Blink 182 took the stage

The Mark, Tom and Travis show succeeded where all the other similar yankee bands failed by actually being funny and playing the crowd really well - you couldn't fault them at all despite a slight sound glitch early on. All the old favourites, plus some new material and best of all a twenty foot high sign depicting the word 'FUCK' in flames. Awesome. They really should have been headlining!! The Duke was fortunate enough to hear some of the set thanks to a well timed phone call (a not so well timed call later that night meant he missed Linkin Park by 20 minutes).

A bit of a dilemma had been raging after so much intense indie/punk/metal mayhem - should I go and see Death In Vegas to chill out or stay and see Linkin Park? Vicky and Man Mountain Bandito left for the Smirnoff Ice dance arena whilst Claire and I stayed for the start of Linkin Park. LP launched into the first four tracks in a row off their Meteora album followed by Crawling - the sound was superb but LP were a tad too polished and lacked the extra Va Va voom needed for a great live show, so we chipped off early to see D I V. Classy sound and excellent visuals, but by this time just needed to mong out back at base camp Bandito!

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