Thankfully, this week’s Icon is no longer a thing. Yep, you’ll have had your T in the Park, as one headline nearly put it. T in the Park was a pop festival and, as I’m sure all readers will agree, one fewer festival is one further boost for upright decency.
Shockingly, I attended T in the Park once, purely in the line of duty, and I hated every second of it.
I never made any friends and, indeed, do not remember exchanging one word with anybody, except once to ask if there was anywhere I could get my shoes shined.
Towards evening, I recall walking around a tented area, taking notes for a descriptive exposé that would send shivers down the spine of suburban Scotland.
Because I had washed, was sensibly dressed in a trilby and cravat, and had my notebook out, the assembled deranged cannabis addicts mistook me for a policeman in disguise, and a mob formed with aggressive intent.
Sensing I was among irresponsible hedonists who doubtless rode bicycles and voted Green, I exited stage right with alacrity and hailed an omnibus to get me out of Dodge Hygiene. Never was I so happy to get home and inject a massive dose of Lagavulin into my grateful veins.
As for the music, its only saving grace was its loudness, which enabled me to relieve unheard the pressure of persistent build-ups of wind, occasioned by a massive, fortifying fry-up for breakfast. This had the double-advantage of creating a decent amount of space around me.
So, T in the Park – latterly a Woodstock for neds – is no more. To be uncharacteristically honest, I’d assumed the wretched event was still going and was delighted to learn that it had packed up in 2016, since when Kinross-shire has known a decade of relative peace.
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The T stood for main sponsor Tennent’s, a once-respected lager brand whose name has remained tarnished ever since, and the event actually began in 1994 in Lanarkshire, at Strathclyde Park near the River Clyde between Hamilton and Motherwell on the so-called “Scottish Riviera”.
It says here that, in its first year, a band called Glass Onion played over the weekend and that they would later become Travis. Which must mean something to someone.
Go for broke
IN 1995, Kermit from the Black Grape broke his ankle and performed while seated. Is this code or something? I’ve no idea what’s going on.
In 1997, T in the P moved to a disused airfield at Balado, in Kinross-shire, where it remained until 2015, when health and safety inspectors – not all heroes wear capes – raised substantial concerns about an oil pipeline, a “ticking time bomb”, according to one report, underneath the site.
After that, the blighted bacchanalia moved to Strathallan Castle in Perthshire, a venue that now offers
“fairy-tale weddings” as a wholesome means of recovering from the trauma.
A blow for civilisation was struck in 2017 when P in the T was cancelled after problems at the 2016 event, when two teenagers died in separate incidents while, elsewhere, fights broke out between leading intellectuals.
That year, attendees had been warned not to bring the following non-essentials to proceedings: glass, flagpoles, selfie sticks, nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”, ha-ha), laser pens, air horns, multi-tools or flares, the best trousers ever invented, perfectly shaped to the human leg, but now derided by the ugly buzzcut brigade.
In retrospect, the organisers probably wish they’d warned attendees not to bring any neds. Where these youthful barbarians get the wherewithal for top-quality fortified wines has long baffled economists, and the same goes for concert tickets. As usual, prices for these should have ensured that only tradesmen, part-time doctors and people on disability benefit could afford to go.
In 2016, a Thursday weekend with camping ticket was priced at £205, a Friday weekend with camping ticket £194, and a Friday weekend (no camping) £184. Day tickets were £82.50.
Camping it up
IT doesn’t matter how much you put up prices for gigs, glaikit peeps always pay them.
By 2003, T in the Park was attracting up to 255,000 people, including 70,000 campers. Thus we see the scale of the problem. Frequently, the event led to traffic disruption, bringing joy to the Green Party and bicyclists everywhere.
If you believe improbable stories about how much daft events like this contribute to the economy, then T in the Park was supposed to contribute around £10 million annually to Mother Scotia, a figure dwarfed by the GDP that decent householders generate just by staying at home drinking tea and eating Jaffa Cakes.
As for the bands, luminaries who attended over the years included Menswear, Corduroy, The Jesus Lizard, Fluffy, Afghan Whigs, Sneaker Pimps, Beastie Boys, Young Offenders, Monkey Mafia, 60ft Dolls, The Amphetameanies, Indian Ropeman, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Sweaty Palms, and, most outlandish of all, The Bay City Rollers. Pretty sure I have every album made by all these bands.
In 2016, music industry insiders averred that the permanent loss of the festival would make Scotland look like a “cultural backwater”.
According to The Scotsman, promoters warned that abandoning the disturbing event would be a “victory for the neds and the nimbys”, an absurd conflation of the reprehensible with the respectable. But, happily, the loss has remained permanent. As recently as 2024, organisers reassured the nation
T in the Park would not be returning.
T in the P was officially replaced with the TRNSMT festival which takes place at Glasgow Green, the latest just a fortnight ago, with one teenager badly beaten and nine notable aesthetes arrested.
Vanishing vowels
IF you’re wondering what TRNSMT stands for, at first I guessed it must be something like Trans Rock Something Something Trendy, but my researchers inform me it just means “Transmit” with the vowels deleted. Clearly, the organisers have taken the vowel of silence, another symptom of civilisation’s decline.
We – or at least you – should be mindful that T in the Park meant something to some people. An article in the Skinny claimed wildly it brought out “the best in people” and created “a real sense of community and camaraderie … offering those who were so inclined an opportunity to act on their worst instincts”.
That last point at least is a good one. Generally speaking, the moral of this story is that respectable citizens are best avoiding anything that promises “a good time”. It will almost certainly be louche and carry a high probability of ending in pregnancy or other diseases.
