Festivals are ace, aren’t they? They’re like proper gigs, but you have to spend a weekend in a smelly tent and buy beer for £4 a can from a crusty trust fund hippy in order to see your favourite band perform their popular hits from half a mile away while you hold in eight pints of urine because you don’t want to go to the horrible, horrible toilets.

Anyway, Leeds/Reading have had their lineups ‘leaked’ to the press, which has had the unfortunate side effect of making it ‘news’.

So yay! We can find out which bands we’re going to see as unremarkable dots in the distance this year. Would it surprise you to note that most of them are awful? No? In that case, read on.

So, the line up has been released. If you go to Reading, you’ll see the Strokes – just in time to catch them on their tenth anniversary of being at all relevant. And if you go to Leeds, you’ll see Pulp, who are pretty damn awesome, even if they are doing it for the money (sod off, even my hate glands can’t say anything bad about Jarvis Cocker. It’s not possible. I want his babies).

The other bands headlining are My Chemical Romance, which is good news for all you teenagers who can’t be arsed listening to anything half decent, and Muse, which is good news for all you deaf people who like to go to festivals.

To be fair (and to lay my music preferences bare) there are a couple of gems in the gigantic turd pile – Elbow and The National are playing – but you have to wade through 30 Seconds To Mars, The Offspring, Interpol, Beady Eye, The Streets, Noah And The Whale, Panic At The Disco (formerly known as Panic! At the Disco, formerly known at outright trash) and Patrick Wolf.

Not only that, you have to put up with parades of people wearing fashionable wellies and monged out hippies in rubbish jumpers ‘from Tibet’ in order to experience it.

Makes you mourn for the good old days of Blink 182 and Guns And Roses, doesn’t it? Nah, just kidding, they are terrible bands too. Serves you right for spending £250 for a campsite that will guarantee rubbish music, draconian alcohol laws and dysentery.

You can buy tickets from your local HMV – if it’s deemed worthy – or you can just stay at home and laugh at the muddy tossers who’ve spent vast amounts of money to experience life as a refuge from Kosovo.

Ah, who are kidding, it’s still better than Glastonbury.

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The subject of filesharing never fails to create debate, but the basic theme is that most people know it’s wrong but like having free-stuff anyway. Guy Garvey, singer in Elbow, is now throwing his tuppence in the ring.

Garvey has said that people who file-share are going to hell. He’s thinking specifically of those who can afford to buy music in the first place, but decide not to.

He would say that though wouldn’t he because… well… you’re stealing from him.

He conceded that, if you’re broke as shit, then he understands why you would “rip it” but that for others there is “no excuse”.

He said:

“Without the live side nobody’s making any money,”

Of course, most musicians don’t make any money on gigs either, so they are fucked as well. It’s alright for those bands who have sold 600,000+ copies on the back of a Mercury Music Prize win, isn’t it?

He continued:

“If you genuinely can’t afford music then of course you’re going to rip it,

“If you can afford it and you don’t pay for it then you’re going to hell and you’ve got your own room. Especially when it’s a smaller band. There’s no excuse.”

Naturally, Garvey knows what it’s like to be in a band making no money, as Elbow weren’t exactly massive before they released Seldom Seen Kid and creamed loads of money from having their tunes used on TV shows.

In fact, for a while, they kept getting dropped by labels.

“You come across people [record labels] who’ve dropped Elbow all the time. If you throw a rock in London you’ll hit one.

“We’re lucky to have a paymaster in the current climate. It’s not lost on us.”

Paymaster? It sounds like he’s working in a mill!

Anyway, he’s right. Filesharers are scumbags. If you can’t afford to buy music, then you can listen to it for free on Spotify (or if you’re in the States, use MySpace, YouTube or Cloudsounds or whatever).

And if you want to take it around with you on your MP3 player, then tough shit.

You don’t have an automatic right to own music. Save up and stop spending so much money on those terrible clothes you wear.

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Well, just be glad you don’t come running to us for advice and guidance on the more trivial matters in life.

If you asked us the best way to meet a girl and maintain it in to a relationship, we may just say something inappropriate like “get her drunk first”. So it may be a good thing our decisions aren’t always right. Last night saw Elbow win the Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid.

While we put £10 on Burial to win, he failed to turn up to the event to perform. This probably didn’t do him any favours but who knows and who cares. But fair play to him really, he wants to remain anonymous and not deal with being stalked by NME journalists. At least the award didn’t go to the Last Shadow Puppets who already have a winning connection to the Arctic Monkeys. Looking slightly pissed on stage, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said “it was the best thing to have ever happened to us”. Aww, they are a cracking band who do deserve some fame. We even harped on about them needing a break in a recent gig review.

Now, that’s 2008 out of the way. Who will be up for the 2009 award? With upcoming releases from Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Keane and Snow Patrol, it could be a bland indie-filled ceremony next year. Though we’ll see if our recordings of smashed cups, sawed logs and imitations of badgers will pick up a nomination. Against frontmen who make twigs look fat and poor moonfaced posh boys, we should do OK. Well, in our minds anyway.

Fact One: The Jackson 5 don’t blame it on sunshine, moonlight or bad times. They blame it on the boogie.

Fact two: The Carling Academy are bastards for charging nearly six quid for two shots of vodka.

Fact three: Elbow are the most underrated band in the UK.  

With four albums under their belt, Elbow took their latest offering, The Seldom Seen Kid, on the road to showcase a few of the brilliant tracks that are featured on it, alongside mixing in a few older hits.

While talking to a friend who worked at the bar, she uttered the words “I’ve been told there like one of those miserable Radiohead-style bands, so I knew you’d be here tonight.”

Hmm, great that our music tastes have been pinned down, but slightly wrong about Elbow being the soundtrack to a suicidal cult's last few hours on earth.

After arriving to the venue, it did seem a bit quieter then expected. Maybe the locals were off celebrating the afternoon football result, or more than likely, they were going out on the lash.

It was a Saturday night after all. And this gig, in particular, was moved forward to a very early 6.30pm start. As soon as we’d got our first overpriced drink of the night, we wandered towards the front of the stage in anticipation for the support act to come on.

Two Gallants are one of those bands we’d cover on our badly-maintained Myspace Trawl feature. They’ve been around for a few years, made three albums, toured like fuck and released EPs and singles on top of their albums.

As this San Francisco two-piece gingerly walked on to stage, it was almost like one of The Muppets had come to life. Honestly, the drummer was a spitting image of Animal. And just like his puppet counterpart, he was smashing the hell out of his cymbals and drums. Their melodic mix of bluesy folk music was the right sound to warm up the crowd for the main attraction of the evening.

As the band left the stage, it was only sodden 7.45pm. The venue, obviously keen to get everyone out so they could lure in all the indie kids for the repetitive club night, quickly got the roadies to set up shop for Elbow. It all looked like the standard band affair: racks of guitars, drums pushed to the back and all sort of rickety-looking keyboards lining the stage.

But, interestingly, three chairs at the back had also been set up. And when Elbow graced the stage at roughly 8.15pm, it all became apparent.

The set’s opener and first song of the new album, Starlings, featured heavily on a string and brass section. While the band provided the brass part, three ladies who stayed put for the majority of the night, added a layer of music to the night.

While it could be easily added in off a backing track, it made the night feel a lot more realistic. Adding to the fact that all three were frantically looking at sheet music all night, they didn’t seem to have much preparation time for the gig.

Throughout the night, front man Guy Garvey was in high sprits. He frequently asked the crowd how they were doing and told tales of how all the band lost on the Grand National that day. Well that is, apart from the drummer.

Tonight’s set was a mixture of new material and classics that oddly haven’t quite captured the attention of a mainstream audience. New single Grounds For Divorce is such a song. With its catchy guitar riffs and snarling lyrics, its limited success mirrors other hits such as the brilliant Powder Blue, Grace Under Pressure and Mexican Standoff. Tracks that we're all played tonight.

However, the highlight of tonight’s show was the welcome of Richard Hawley on stage. Another apparent miserable bastard from Sheffield, his appearance on stage was a definite surprise. Introduced as a song about horse racing and the apparent fixing that goes on, amazingly called The Fix, he announced that Hawley couldn’t make it, of course before admitting he was lying. He played that song before darting of stage, but later returning for the classic Elbow track, Grace Under Pressure.

Tonight’s show was anything but miserable, with singing, laughter and crap dancing. It was a much better night on the town for a Saturday then watching a gaggle of women falling over pissed in the street.