Squalor, celebration and branding: Tennents, Live Nation, mud and manure

Our friend who had worked in refugee camps across the world was quite definite: “The camps tend to be organised, and for survival, they’re kept clean. They’re nothing like as bad as this.”

‘This’ being the T in the Park campsite on the Friday afternoon: tents pitched on top of one another, some 40,000 people living it larger than large. And dirtier than dirty. Despite the much-vaunted ‘Citizen T’ attempt to make folk more litter-aware, waste from toilet paper to plastic bags to lager tins was simply dumped on what had once been grass. Oh, and the overwhelming aroma of human ordure hung in the damp air, mingling with the eternal niff of Balado: rotting poultry waste from the industrial hen  houses around the site.

The dirt and waste at T in the Park, the smell, the drugs, the incredible binge drinking: no-one talks about it, except in jocular terms (“see the joyful campers cavorting in the mud! It IS just mud…isn’t it?”). Media coverage, generally, is  utterly in thrall to Tennents and the event organisers, partly because all hacks need accreditation, partly because the whole thing is so big every dying media organisation wants or needs to hang onto its demographic coat tails. T covers the mudfront. Tennents (whose lager is generally regarded as a bit of a joke the rest of the year) get coverage other brands can only dream about, including network TV with their name  on every broadcast. On the BBC, no less. And the tragic elements – this year, one death, two stabbings, a sexual assault – drift away on the sweet wind of happy memories, and thoughts of next year.

And yet so many love it so much. For some, it’s their only holiday, an annual transformative experience. A baptism by mud, noise and alcohol, a relaxation of all the rules by which you can be reborn into some kind of coping with the dreadful tedium of normal life.

I was only there this year for the Friday and a few brief moments on Saturday, before being whisked to hospital with excruciating stomach pain (I’ll blog about my splendid experiences at Glasgow’s Western Infirmary in a few days). But this was my fifth T, and wet or dry, dirty or muddy, my feelings are still the same. It’s no place for the likes of me.

This was -maybe – the last time I’ll have to to attend in a parental capacity – after this year, all the offspring are old enough to take it on themselves – and it’s a relief.  Although there’s much great music to enjoy, T is not about individual appreciation of artistic endeavour. It’s about being there, being part of the herd, about The Event. On one level, it’s about money, and  branding; on another, it’s about being  branded: You went to T in the Park. You got drunk. You took weird drugs. You had sex in a tent. You met people from outlandish places like Wick and Greenock. You didn’t sleep. You saw famous acts off YouTube like JayZ, Eminem, Muse, Kasabian. Or at least, you  heard them in the distance. You survived. You were there. It was fantastic.

It’s for the young, basically. Though the elderly were there, too, grimly protecting offspring, goggling at the vast amounts of male public pissing, trying desperately to find a seat. Or pretending that they too were still usefully youthful.

It’s for the young if you’re doing the downmarket camping thing, which is the full-on T-wading-through-shite experience. The elderly and the children should travel back and forth on day tickets, sleeping in proper beds. Remember it’s only an hour from Glasgow. Or try The Residence – brutally expensive luxury camping,  for people who actually want to sleep at night; that’s what we did this year. Good pizza, proper showers, clean toilets, nice Cava, pleasant yurt. Same mud. Privileged access to the VIP hospitality area, a secret access track.We paid the premium and it was worth it.

Our kids absolutely loved the whole damn thing. Their mum, fortunately, was able to oversee both her husband’s hospitalization and the weans’ festivities. T is the centre of their year, and I know Martha (16) will wear her wristband until it rots, or next year’s festival comes along. The wet, the toilets, the mud, the sense , somehow, of a conspiracy by the organisers to create an illusion of  ‘the festival’, as defined by 1970s Glastonbury – love, peace happiness, good vibes –  when this is a multinational money-making concern (£13 million a year), owned by the extraordinary Live Nation behemoth which emanated originally from Clear Channel and, worryingly, possesses almost the entire world of entertainment, from Nickelback to U2 to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, and even part of glorious Glasto – none of that mattters.

For the bairns, T in the Park is a glorious festival of  belonging, of great music, of growing self reliance and survival. For me, the squalor, the filth, my aching feet and the awful smell of chicken farming can’t be overcome.

Face it, I’m too old for this. Next year, I’ll watch it on telly with some cold beer. It won’t be Tennents.

And for an, ahem, more robust view of the whole thing, why not try Limmy?