Extreme? Not flipping likely! (Extreme 2001/City In The Park)

Member Name: RiotGrrly

Product:	Extreme 2001/City In The Park
Date:	02/11/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Less Than Jake, Pitchshifter, Weather

Disadvantages: Sound quality, Prices

The Extreme festival took place in three locations: London, Nottingham and Glasgow, during August. I went to the Nottingham one, on August Bank Holiday Monday. It was dubbed "City In The Park" due to some collaboration with Rock City.

So, at nine am that morning we got up, showered and departed for Nottingham. This was no mean feat, given that we had been at Leeds Festival all weekend. All things considered, no one was in any mood for driving round Nottingham, trying to follow road signs - or lack of them. The journey took an extra half an hour because the road signs directing us to the car park kept leading us into residential areas and dead ends.

Hmm. Tickets were still available when we had been ripped off for parking (£5!) The tickets were priced at £18 when bought 'on the door'. Given that there were so many bands playing, this could be considered good value but when Leeds was £85 with camping... How naive am I? I thought the food would be relatively cheap here but no. You can expect to pay festival prices. eg. £3.50 for a bacon baguette. But they were mighty tasty. The process for buying alcohol was so complex and expensive we didn't bother.

As Extreme was held in a field, it was relatively easy to either watch the bands or curl up and go to sleep. I must confess I did the latter. King Prawn opened the proceedings, which were later closed by Less Than Jake. Highlights for me included [spunge] and Pitchshifter. Pitchshifter unfortunately met with some hostility from the crowd but dealt with it very well. They seemed a little out of place on the bill and way too low for my liking. Less Than Jake were, of course, blinding, with the whole crowd skanking along to songs that are so familiar. The day was boiling hot but it was a really nice vibe in the Summer night, seeing so many people enjoying the same thing.

Other bands playing included The Ataris and The Voodoo Glow Skulls. The day before, at Leeds (wher

e else), it had been 'The Punk Day' and two days of punk was just too much. The sound quality was pretty awful but it was a good effort and line up on behalf of the organisers. It's just a shame that the memory of Leeds influenced the day so much.

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