VIEW FROM THE PLATFORM:

T IN THE PARK 2010

PART TWO - SUNDAY

Published: 16th July 2010

"It's gonna be a party in the Kasabian Camp tonight!” bellowed Gordon Smart (Editor of The Sun's Bizarre page) from side of stage. It's 10.30pm and ABLE2 is huddled away stage right watching the Leicester lads round off this years T in the Park. Of course we are a few steps in front of the tabloid journalist and reminiscing with the bands family members over the day’s events from Scotland's finest festival.

Allow us to rewind twelve hours, guests of the Special Needs campsite are waking up to find bin liners attached to their tent pegs. A gentle urge for us to recycle our weekend rubbish and leave the site as picturesque as the elegant scenery we will view from the main stage later tonight. We are of course talking about the hills & the mountains as opposed to thousands of unwashed festival goers who probably haven't seen a bar of soap since Thursday morning.

For the oldies, The Stranglers open the main stage. For those in their mid-life crises Skunk Anansie play their hits from the TFI Friday-era and for those who are desperate to keep up with today’s music scene, Darwin Deez can be found over at the King Tut's Wah Wah Tent.

Backstage the artist garden is already becoming an epicentre of activity. We catch a quick chat with Ellie Goulding as she relaxes with her band on the comfy sofas nested inside the bar whilst her tour manger loses to another game of fuzz ball a few metres away. For those who are more concerned with real football tournaments the World Cup Final will later be shown on the plasma TV, currently screening the British Grand Prix.

Before Ellie is whisked away to the beauty parlour to be pampered with free gifts and her band take advantage of the hair saloon she tells us that they have just flown in from the Oxygen festival - T's sister musical event which is currently underway over in Ireland. Next week Ellie will find herself in Spain to play Benicassim where, we remind her, she can also take advantage of the backstage swimming pool.

Later the artist garden will be paid a visit by a few more disabled visitors, a kind gesture arranged by the organisers who are currently leading the way in disabled facilities as far as Summer festivals go. Although we discover there's still room for improvement disabled fans of Alex Gardener and Eliza Doolittle, playing over at the T Break stage aren't catered for thanks to the lack of a special needs platform.

With Babyshambles and Biffy Clyo playing the Radio 1/NME and the Main stage respectably there's still a plethora of cracking bands wheelchair users can watch without rubbing shoulders with the 'ordinary' folk and the handy bus service which is still doing the rounds makes life just that little more easier.

Somebody else who is still 'doing the rounds' is Shawn Carter, more commonly referred to as Jay Z. Last week we caught him at Wireless, a month ago he was entertaining crowd over at the Isle Of Wight and today his UK Summer festival tour wraps up here in Scotland. Apparently the only reason Jay Z is a place behind Kasabian on today’s bill is because organisers thought it was a wee too much having two rappers as headline acts. (Eminem played yesterday.)

This brings us to where we started off, on stage with Kasabian. By not taking a leaf out of Eminem's rule book the lads arrive on stage at their allotted time forcing them to miss extra time in the World Cup final.

Luckily Gordon Smart is on hand and hears from his sporting co-workers that Spain has beaten Holland in the footie.

"It's gonna be a party in the Kasabian Camp tonight!” he bellows and as the fireworks close another unbeatable year for T the crowd hold their own celebrations. Scotland may be crap at football but when it comes to laying on a festival the certainly know how to score an own goal!