If you were there, you will know.
If you weren't, you will soon.
T in the Park owes as much, if not more, to its crowd as to its artists. If you're looking for inspiration or strangeness, you don't need to travel far or pay to get it.
Maybe it's being perched on the end of the country with unpredictable, volatile skies, maybe it's in the water (there was plenty of that), maybe it's the absence of Tesco's, maybe it's just being intensely immersed in the random collisions, mishaps and destinies that make up the T in the Park world. Maybe it's waking up to find you're lying in a swamp with floating pans, packets of crisps, socks and a pair of illuminous pink wellies next to your head which suddenly makes standing in the rain for twelve hours watching bands the best thing in the world.
As to why T in the Park is the event of the year for any real music lover, the reasons are as myriad as the music presented. It's because you suddenly realise you have so much. And you need so little. For those three days, you stop thinking about reality and let new thoughts become reality. That's why T in the Park this year beats any other festival. It collected the most diverse musical acts into one corner of the land, from hip hop superstars to electronic, dance, rock, folk, ska and everything inbetween and beyond. The explosive reaction between half-formed dreams and such creativity gives birth to new ideas and new realities. This is how you kickstart a new world.
Nature and art belong to the eyes that can see them.
And, last but not least, let's hear it for the fluorescent army!
by the Editor
photos by Steve Gunn