Me in the Park

I'M WALKING on a sea of crushed chips. Yes, welcome to T In The Park. The discarded comestibles might form interesting fodder for the Grumpy Old Man act I suspect I've been sent here to do. But I'm going to resist that temptation, though I'm not sure the temptation will resist me.

I take the bus from Edinburgh to Balado. At the station, we're herded like sheep into a pen. Someone behind me says he's "up for a totally f****n', jumpin' about time". Oh, dear. I hope people aren't going to lose control.

After an hour on the bus, we see the first signs of the festival: a girl in pink wellies, bearing a tambourine; a police "search and rescue" Land Rover; an empty bottle of Buckfast by a perimeter fence. This bottle is just a scout for the main army of litter, which washes up against the walls and, inside, is everywhere underfoot.

Experienced T-ers wear wellies, green ones being de rigueur. The weather is cold and grey, and these pop-pickers are well wrapped up. In my checked shirt and white T-shirt, modelled after Clark Kent's father in Smallville (though I still tuck the shirt in), I feel underdressed.

Inside the massive site, crowds stravaig from stage to stage. It's lunchtime, and nearly everyone is carrying a plastic pint of Tennent's lager or a can of cider. Disappointingly, the first song I hear, from the PA at the main stage, is Who Are You? by the Who. It was a crap song then and remains so now.

At the NME stage, I catch a Welsh heavy metal band, all black T-shirts and wide-legged guitar poses. The singer says: "This song is about dancing and not being like these f*****s standing around looking bored all day." Who, me? The next song was about "how girls are f****n' liars". It's arguable, I suppose.

Back at the main stage, Eddy Grant resurrects his reggae. Never liked it much. Too cheerful. But, already, people are dancing, and it's only 1pm. Health squads are giving out condoms. Bastards don't even offer me one. One drunk says: "Do I put it on my head?" A disconsolate youth looks at the pack and says: "I'll never, ever have that much sex."

There are food stands galore, which makes me regret bringing tuna sandwiches in a plastic container. I eat them surreptitiously, reaching my hand into my backpack so I don't have to bring out the container. One stand is called Herbal Highs. But I don't see a sign of proper drugs all day. I've smelled more cannabis at Easter Road on a Saturday. This is a Festival of Drink.

I decide to investigate the camp site, a canvas Soweto. It's more edgy here. Tins of Tennent's sit wedged in ridges of mud, and folk flounder among their own detritus. Gulls fly overhead like vultures. I even see a John Lewis bag among crushed tins of Magners and Strongbow. I feel like rescuing it and giving it a good home.

A young woman shouts that I'm "just a big square man". Another repeatedly tries to draw the attention of her fellows to "the guy in the checked shirt". I had my notebook out, which felt vaguely suicidal. Perhaps they feared I was a bourgeois bowdleriser from the London Times rather than a hep cat from the Hootsmon. Later that night, there was a near-fatal stabbing on the site. But it isn't all grim. A big boy with a bovine face blows on a squeaker. A burst of song rings out: "Mikey is the captain of our ship/Mikey is a w****r." An amusing banner reads: "Carnoustie Massive."

I join a Mad Max throng heading down a broad avenue of crushed grass back to the site. Outside King Tut's Wah Wah Tent, I hear a decent cover version of The Stranglers' No More Heroes. I can't get in. I ask a security guard who's playing. "The Stranglers," he says. By mid-afternoon, the site is mobbed. A row of chaps urinates against a billboard that says: "Have a great weekend!"

Even the gents' loo in hospitality is heaving and horrible. Girls are now queuing there and cheers go up when someone flushes, with shouts of "About time too!" I stick to the urinals. One lass standing in the queue behind the male backs opines: "Men are so disgusting."

Back on the NME stage, two thin men and a wee blonde lassie leap around to their chugga-chugga music. "Are you ready to go crazy?" says the singer. "Let's see you f****n' dance." Oh, give it a rest. Revellers regularly throw plastic glasses of lager into the crowd. Urban baldies in shades do stylistic things in the air with their forefingers. The singer says: "Come on, Scottish people, let's hear you chant! I know you can f****n' chant!" After thinking for a nanosecond, the mob chants: "Hoy-hoy-hoy!" Talk about setting the world to rights.

Rejuvenated by cold Lipton's tea from a bottle in my bag, I catch a couple of good bands: The Feeling – presence, integrity and harmonic sense – and We Are Scientists, intelligent American ironists who admire the international flags and declare: "The nation of Visa and Mastercard is here!" The flags are fun. As well as those of various countries, there are the skull'n'crossbones, Che, Tao, smiley face, and my favourite, a banner saying: "Rage Against Yor Mum."

Another wire-thin drunk goes by spilling lager, pointing rhythmically in my face, and singing: "If you want to use my body." Yeah, I'll let you know the next time my U-bend is blocked. As the alcohol kicks in, there are more potentially dangerous nutters staggering around. But the vast majority of folk are fine.

Many of the worst drunks are my age, and the most dangerous people I see all day are sober: the Four Psychos of the Apocalypse, black-clad with "security" insignia, walking in formation through the crowd like John Waynes with warehouse-sized testes; and, later, an aggressively incompetent security man at the side of the stage during The Fratellis.

I don't like drinking on the job but, at 6:30pm, succumb to a small plastic cup of ice-cold red wine. I drink it in King Tut's, which soon fills up. I stay out of curiosity, but soon feel trapped. This lot are well up for it, and I'm not at my traditional position near an exit.

The singer of whichever band it is shouts: "Make some noise!" Aw Jeezus, here we go again. "Scotland the brave, come on!" Yada-yada. "No one standing still!" I'm not moving for you, mate. I'm an anarchist, me. "Hands up, every last one of you!" Nope. "I don't think peace is crass! Show me a peace sign!" They do: crass en masse. Then there's all that pointing towards the stage.

What's that about? I hate all this synchronised Nuremberg stuff. The glorious conceit of youth: conforming against conformity.

I'm getting grumpy now. I'm uncomfortable. All this aggressive peace stuff. I get out of King Tut's and catch The Fratellis. They're fun, but I'm tired. I've been on my feet for nine hours. I leave before Rage Against The Machine, the day's main act. I've one of their CDs at home – played it once; heard it all before, 20 or 30 years ago.

What bliss to be out, far from the madding crowd.

Across the road from the site, sheep bleat. Music to my ears.

With the site carpeted in litter and everyone a little the worse for wear, the music on the last day needed to lift the spirits – it certainly did, says Craig Brown

IT IS one of the strange facets of T in the Park that the festival is at its best once the site and its inhabitants begin to bear a resemblance to the Playboy Bunny scene in Apocalypse Now. This is usually just after Sunday lunchtime.

Certainly, the line-up for the day was the one that seemed to show the most promise, though the inexplicable presence of Shed Seven on the Main Stage would have suggested otherwise.

The Ting Tings showed precisely why they are rapidly becoming band of the summer. It would be easy to characterise them as an inverted White Stripes – Katie White on vocals, guitar and loops, and Jules De Martino on drums and loops – but that would be to do them an injustice.

Arriving on the site just 20 minutes before they hit the King Tut's stage, they unleashed a ferocious sound with Great DJ, while White tottered around the stage whacking sound effect pedals with wild abandon, and didn't give up until a triumphant That's Not My Name, with added backing vocals by the whole of the tent. It was just about the finest moment of the day.

Slightly further up the King Tut's bill, New York college rockers Vampire Weekend looked disarmingly dishevelled. It was hard to believe that these four white guys have managed to take the sort of Afro-pop last heard on Paul Simon's Graceland and made it sound effortless and cool. They came, they charmed, they left.

Over in the Futures Tent, the much-hyped Black Kids proved there may be some substance behind the hype. Barely out of the traps – their album isn't even out yet – they managed to elicit screams of familiarity from a verging-on-rabid crowd, with their very '00s take on Prince's oeuvre – though that may be down to their use of synth sounds that haven't been heard since Purple Rain.

Bizarrely, while the day's emphasis was on the new, one blast from the past proved a welcome surprise. The Charlatans were, in my books, always an anomaly, as if when the Baggy toybox was being packed up, somebody forgot to put both them and Shaun Ryder away. I stand corrected after seeing this. They looked extremely cool – a sort of combination of Velvet Underground and peak-period Oasis – and sounded even better.

Which in the case of Amy Winehouse is perhaps something we may not get to see. She hit the stage smoking, which is never good for an emphysema sufferer, with a drink in hand, and seemed less than thrilled at being there. And the tea-time slot was never going to suit her particular brand of noir-ish soul. What little banter she indulged in between songs seemed to centre on slightly-slurred expressions of devotion to banged-up husband Blake, and she danced out of time. However, she gave a stunning reggae-fied version of Sam Cooke's Cupid, her backing group were solid as a rock and when Winehouse finally seemed to come to life on You're Wondering Now, it was just in time to save the rest of the gig, ending with a wry stab at Rehab, then a lively take on Mark Ronson's Valerie. Still, this was not the time or place for of music of this sort and there was a feeling of anticlimax among the punters.

The night's headliners, REM are now in their 28th year and on to their 14th record, and the Georgia boys are looking as spritely and energetic as ever. Michael Stipe cut a comically statesman-like image, sporting a shirt and scarf to protect himself from the Scottish summer.

Despite having a new record out, Accelerate, they resisted the urge to play every second song on it, instead plumping for a career-spanning set of crowd-pleasers: Begin the Begin, (Don't Go Back) to Rockville, Orange Crush, Bad Day, Imitation of Life – all played with freshly-minted exuberance.

Stipe risked some gladhanding with the front of the crowd – and hat swapping – and, much to bandmates Mike Mills and Peter Buck's mirth, almost got pulled in as T in the Park claimed him as one of their own.

But as the night drew in and the light show kicked in, you could feel the crowd anticipating the end of the set and wanting more.

But as Stipe yelled as they launched into a concluding Man on the Moon: "I love you so much, T in the Park, that I can't take it!" Perhaps it was better to leave us wanting more.