For more than two decades T in the Park was a rite of passage for Scottish teenagers.
Initially hosted at Strathclyde Park, the festival found a more permanent home at Balado airfield where it ran from 1997 to 2014, welcoming some of the biggest bands and artists on the planet.
From Radiohead to Beyonce, Lady Gaga to Green Day, you name them and they’ve probably played T.
Perhaps though the most memorable came in 1999, with a set from the Manic Street Preachers which would, on September 28 of that year, earn the group a massive fine from the organisers.
The band were in the middle of touring This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and were invited to headline T in the Park on the Sunday – their set would ultimately result in a massive £28,000 fine.
Kicking off with ‘Faster’ and ‘You Stole The Sun From My Heart’ it was clear from after that second song that the Welsh band were in controversial mood.
One fan down the front apparently took a look at his watch, catching the eye of bassist Nicky Wire who implored him to: “f*** off home you p****, get out of my f****** sight! Get back to your f****** Horlicks!”.
Next in the firing line was Billy Bragg. The folk musician had criticised – tongue in cheek, if you believe his version – the fact that toilets backstage at Glastonbury were reserved exclusively for the Manics, something he saw as being at odds with their left-wing political stance.
Ahead of ‘Tsunami’, Wire declared: “This one's for Billy Bragg, the biggest nosed twat in the world. I wouldn't want his d*ck p****** on my toilet for all the money in the f****** world. His voice is so bad... get back in the army you f****** dickwit… and stop stealing Woody Guthrie's songs!"
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La tristesse durera (Scream to a Sigh) and Kevin Carter followed before The Beta Band also came in the firing line.
Wire told the crowd: “If you look very far away there's a special tent, and there's like only four people allowed in because that's all the fans they've got. It's the Beta Band. So if everybody wants to go f*** OFF and see that PILE OF S**** BUNCH OF DRUGGED-UP A***HOLES playing in a tent to one person, f*** off now!".
Singer James Dean Bradfield concurred they were “a true bunch of c****”.
A bit of swearing doesn’t earn you a £28,000 fine though – that came after the set.
Having concluded with ‘A Design For Life’, the Manics set about smashing their equipment – though Bradfield had to admit he was “such a wimp” he couldn’t break his guitar – and telling Stereophonics where to go.
Wire told MTV in September: “I’ve just got the bill for £28,000 for smashing everything up. All the lights, the P.A. The manager’s pretty worried about it.
“It was really funny. Sean pushed his kit over, but then restrained himself. James and Sean then walked off, and about 15 minutes later I was still out there smashing everything, screaming hysterically. I gave my bass away to the audience.
“I gave Sean‘s snare away, and I came into the dressing room and Sean goes, ‘That’s good. I pushed my kit over, but I didn’t break anything.’ And I went, ‘I think you did. Not only did you break it, but I gave half of it away.’ That was amazing.”
However, all may not be as it seems. T in the Park, perhaps not wanting to be seen as party-poopers, denied they had levied the massive fine.
DF Concerts head honcho Geoff Ellis said no such bill had been issued, and the bassist must have got his “Wires crossed”. The band’s people then said the bill referred to V Festival, where no such equipment smashing had taken place.
Confusion? Festival bosses not wanting to look like squares? A bit of Manic myth-making? We may never know. This is my truth, tell me yours indeed.
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