The Darkness light up T In the Park

United Kingdom | | 12 July 2004

Filling in for the recovering David Bowie, the Lowestoft rockers provided just one of many highlights at the Scottish festival, with Muse and The Pixies also winning glowing reports.

T in the Park once again took over the Balado site, in Kinross, and treated mad for it music lovers to one of the best festival line-ups of the summer.

The Darkness put on an amazing performance, having taken over the Saturday headline slot from the recuperating David Bowie and they finished the show with a touching get well message for the 'Thin White Duke'.

Elsewhere, The Libertines (back on stage, albeit without Pete Doherty), Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, and the Scissor Sisters all put on storming sets, the latter providing some extra entertainment when Jake Shears' homemade tartan toga fell off during his curtain call. Having already removed his pants, the Scottish sunshine was not the only thing he was left exposed to - giving new meaning to his role as 'frontman'!

The Pixies also wowed the audience, with our reviewer describing the Boston revivalists as playing the set of the festival, closely followed by The Darkness and Muse. Full reviews should be posted online by tomorrow.

Stages and sets aside, the moment of the festival came from Badly Drawn Boy, who played an inpromptu, acoustic sing-along set in front of some astonished but very happy punters in one of the campsites on Saturday night.

Fans were given another opportunity to get up, close, and personal with their favourite stars at a special stall where performers gathered to sign anything and everything, including programmes, wellies, clothes, and bodies parts!

NME's Nick New, who marketed the stall, said: "It's been awesome, we have had queues of up to 3,000 people waiting to meet the bands. The most popular band has been the Libertines, they had some very emotional fans. Many of them were screaming, they were all getting things signed - wellies, flags, clothes, faces - and lots of other body parts. The local crowd went nuts for Snow Patrol, there was around 2,000 people here for them."

There was also a huge cheer for festival faves Orbital, who played their last ever live gig before signing off in style to an appreciative Scottish audience.