Paolo Nutini, Stornoway, Ellen and the Escapades and more: my Pilton Party Review

As usual, the first Friday evening of September found me rushing back from work before heading to Pilton for the annual Pilton Party that takes place just outside Glastonbury. Luckily the weather looked like it was going to hold out for the evening so it wasn't going to be a repeat of the damp reception that met Dizzie Rascal last year, in fact by the time we'd driven in the large circle as directed by the parking attendants in order to park up the car was already covered in a layer of dust [but luckily it wasn't my car so it didn't matter anyway].

Gripe number one arose at the gate - I'm not some kind of train-spotting gig nerd but I do quite like being able to retain a ticket stub or something as a reminder of a concert I've been too [although I find people who continue to wear their Glastonbury/Reading/V Festival wristbands for months afterwards like some kind of status symbol exceptionally annoying]. The fact that the ticket staff at the gate took the whole ticket irritated me.

Gripe number two arose once inside the gate. A sea of rugs, picnics and the obligatory low-backed chairs greeted me. Glastonbury Extravaganza has been and gone, the RPO have packed up their instruments and moved on. Admittedly Paolo Nutini may be a steady fixture on Radio 2 but I didn't really expect the accoutrements of the beige slip-on brigade to be littering the place up. Tutting and sighing in order to express my annoyance in the only way English people know how, I made my way through the assorted Emma Bridgwater picnic sets in the direction of the stage only to find groups of people gathered on tartan picnic rugs less than 3 metres from the stage. I felt the desire to stamp on their sandwiches and kick over their jugs of Pimms rising within me, but then again they had paid their admission price as much as I had so who was I to judge just because their activities were not better than those of our European sun-lounger reserving friends? Putting such worries out of my mind, my attention turned to the stage, after all I had gone to watch some bands. No idea who was on first, as I missed them but by this time Ellen and the Escapades were playing some music. Not bad really - the vocals were a little on the quiet side, but musically proficient and their tunes weren't aurally offensive. It was at some point during their set that gripe number 3 arose though.

Gripe number three was the demographic of the crowd. I've already moaned about the older attendees but a larger percentage of the crowd consisted of teenagers. Not just teenagers, but drunken under-age teenagers. Not just drunken under-age teenagers, but drunken under-age teenage girls with stupid long hair that they insisted on flicking around as they drank themselves stupid whilst simultaneously playing with their mobile phones to either ensure their FaceBook status stayed current [OMG, am sooooo drunk @ Pilton Party wiv my m8s - it's gr8 etc etc] or nearly punching you in the face as they randomly extended their arms to take self-portrait mobile phone photo's of their drunken selves wiv their m8s in order to post on FaceBook to prove how much fun they were having. Talking of punching in the face, that was pretty what I found myself thinking about the drunken under-age teenage girl that had barged her way through the crowd far enough to stop less than 5 inches away from me as she proceeded to flick her hair around whilst talking to her fellow under-age drinkers. With pretty much every flick it ended up hitting me in the face, which again links nicely back to the reciprocal action I was having to restrain myself from doing.

After Ellen and the Escapades came Stornaway. My tip for them is simple - stop talking between songs. I could only make out about 5% of whatever the singer was talking about between songs because he was mumbling, but what I could make out was nonsensical. They played one song that I recognised, the rest weren't the most catchy ditties I've ever heard and in fact I found myself thinking that whilst E&TE were better than Stornaway, neither seemed a particularly inspired choice of support acts as in reality they weren't much like Paolo and to be honest just weren't that good. Maybe I should have shouted my thoughts out loud so that Jay Zeavis could have heard them, as for some reason he appeared on stage for a short while during the Stornaway set and just stood at the back, grinning like some shiny-headed retard that's found a new window to lick.

Eventually Mr Nutini made his way to the stage. His band were good [even the Phil Collins look-a-like that was playing bass], their performance easily outshining the previous acts and a smooth set with lots of crowd pleasing songs. Quite possibly this is the least relevant event review ever as I've barely mentioned the acts themselves but to be honest if you wanted to know what they were like you should have gone yourself, at least that's what I told Monty Oxymoron when I saw him on the High Street over the weekend. Don't get me wrong though, it was a good evening!