Going with the flow

Everyone sits nice.

On the M74 heading to Strathclyde Country Park off junction six, you'll see them - battered vans, flat-bed trucks, company cars, vehicles arriving from Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, the Borders and beyond, some bearing flags and T-shirts and drivers with Cheshire grins; the stamp of a common destination.

And soon you arrive in car parks packed with people, some standing on tip-toe to catch a glimpse of beyond the ringed steel fences. Through the security lies the fun fair, the tents, the bars, toilets (most important), the flags, the movie screen, the buzz of anticipation, and, of course, the bands.

At the centre sits the stage, a giant platform covered in a white rain-hood. Congratulations! You've arrived!

Maybe it's the baby-bonnet canopy with the twin 60ft speaker stacks, but T in the Park sure walks tall for a three-year-old. A toddler beside Glastonbury's Old Father Time, the Scottish music festival tucked inside Strathclyde Park now seems destined to relieve rock'n'roll's elder statesman of any credentials of hipness, now NME has christened it in a font of lager as ``encapsulating the essence of British music more than any other home-grown festival''. That, and 66,000 people decided this weekend they'd help blow out its birthday candles.

Quite a growth for a two-day music festival, from 50,000 unsold tickets for the first weekend to a total sell-out six weeks before the first band even plug in. From three stages to six stages, from a few dozen bands to 80, from a bit of a bath for promoter Stuart Clumpas to showering in a #1.5m turnover. From Primal Scream to Radiohead - nah, that doesn't work. The music was always top notch. At T in the Park, a la Spinal Tap, all the amps and bands go up to 11.

And so the promoters DF Concerts play it loud, while walking successfully between the branches of cutting-edge cool and mainstream popularity, picking at the ripest fruit. So Alanis Morissette, the Canadian Prozac popster, can slip in beside Shakespeare's Sister, Ricky Ross and the Saw Doctors on the easy-reach shelves of pop's larder, while hardened fans of Pulp and Radiohead can dive from the top.

Dance music has procured its own pond for the second year running, with the stars of repetitive beats such as The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, and Lord of the Jungle - Bjork's man - Goldie. Meanwhile, the NME tent re-profiles the best of the underdogs; Beck, Frank Black, Scotland's finest Teenage Fanclub and, curiously, the US band Dogstar. Now the sole reason for any interest in Dogstar, with no album in the shops as yet, is a glimpse of their bassist Keanu Reeves, with the star of Speed going under-Grunge.

Hindsight has always offered 20-20 vision, but a glance over the short path T in the Park has successfully marched finds it winding through bog-patches in which the guitar whine can still be heard from festivals that sank on their feet. Fife Aid and Loch Rock were not a success and Glasgow's Battle Of The Bands stumbled on for years, a bland zombie annoying everyone. So, though it's easy on a fine day to question the delay in raising a successful Scottish music festival, the triumph was never guaranteed.

The genesis of the festival formed in the brain of Stuart Clumpas, owner of King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, who worked formerly as an accountant in London before returning to Dundee to set up Dance Factory, and promote a number of bands. The former manager of Love and Money was eventually asked by Tennents a few years ago how they could raise their product profile through using the music industry.

While Tennents had the idea of backing high-profile gigs by the likes of Rod Stewart, Clumpas turned them round to investing in a giant, two-day festival bearing their name and drawing a mixture of bands, which though possessing headliners and big names would not be over-balanced, turning those under them into mere support slots. Tennents agreed, stumped up some money and Clumpas began to work.

The first festival in 1994 seemed set for disaster. Clumpas says: ``We'd only sold 11,000 tickets for each day and as I arrived I did suddenly think maybe I had made the biggest mistake of my life.'' However the attendance rose to 36,000 on each day which still meant a financial loss, but one which offered encouragement. On a side note, Tennents almost ran out of lager with only the intervention of a fleet of trucks from the Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow separating the sponsors from a dose of red faces - not drink-induced. It's a problem Tennents have sorted, with the facilities now in place to pour more than 17,000 pints per hour.

Ironically, there was little trouble at the debut concert with only minor offences, while the heat of last year's event drove almost 1000 people into the arms of the first aid-volunteers, an increase of more than 500 casualties from the previous year. In 1995, Kermit of Black Grape broke his ankle tripping over a tent pole and went on stage in a wheelchair, while The Shamen's drummer took an asthma attack three songs into the band's set and had to be replaced by Rat Scabies of The Damned.

While rain poured down during Primal Scream's set in 1994, turning glasses into prisms for the stage lights, it was dust clouds which affected the view in 1995, as one of the hottest days of the year generated its own smoke screen.

Generosity was also a fine factor during the gig. Menswear threw #1000 in cash into the crowd with the advice ``have a drink on Menswear'' scrawled on the back, and Converse offered free trainers to all the bands. Robbie Williams, ever the chancer, collected a pair though never performed.

A pantomime performance can be seen through-out the tented city after dark. In 1995, over 10,000 camped on the sites provided, with some pitching tents within sight of their own homes in Motherwell and Hamilton. The view of thousands of drunken, stoned or simply exhausted ravers stumbling over guy-lines in pursuit of their own sleeping bag is one to roll up and take home with you.

It's one of many. T in the Park, for all its miles of metal fences, tonnes of sound equipment, acres of tents, lucky-bag of entertainment, flood of bands and swamp of Chinese noodles, is about an audience. It's about 66,000 music fans bound in a harmonious mass, trading songs and smokes, queuing for toilets and beer tokens, eyeing up each other and copping off at the first opportunity.

It's about looking your best in a bikini top or tight T-shirt and guys with guitars playing acoustic Oasis songs. It's about weaving your way to the front as the crowd starts to jump and finding yourself carried off your feet in a wave of movement. It's about fearing you'll drown, then finding a stranger's hand as they haul you back and simply grin.

It's a two-day festival of community care where chemical highs mingle with the real thing.

A big buzz is hauling through the crowds, taking in the scene and then bumping into old friends unexpectedly. The surprise is sweeter for the circumstances, where everyone is geared for fun, even the six-year-olds, piled on their parents' shoulders.

T in the Park after just a couple of years now feels like a true tradition. This year, the Scottish element is pumped up. Though previously the event showcased home-grown bands by introducing the Caledonia stage, the idea was dumped in favour of mingling new acts on all four main stages. And, as if in a strange fit of national pride, movies such as Gregory's Girl and Highlander are on show for the aurally exhausted.

No dark cloud hangs over the future of T in the Park, only its location. Whether it will be held in Strathclyde Park is under review in the light of sell-out figures and hints from Stuart Clumpas that they may be looking for a venue which can comfortably handle more than 50,000 fans each day.

Yet it's no concern to those who have risen this morning, clutched tickets and headed for the Buchanan bus depot. Instead, in tribute to previous events, to future fun, and today and tomorrow's musical mayhem, it's time to crack open a lager can and say: ``Cheers!''