the set lasted approximately 75 mins.

with ligament. the yummy fur were billed as second support but did not play.

reviews

from adam clark:

this was going to be my first viewing of mogwai whilst conscious (i was witnessed staggering in to the melody maker stage just as they were coming on at reading '98, however this was amongst some of the hours "missing" from my recollection of the festival. it is only now i appreciate that drinking a bottle of whiskey through arab straps' set earlier that day was not the best idea i've ever had.)

the yummy fur did not play in the end. apparently john's up to his old tricks of getting scagged up to the eyeballs again, probably quite literally. with the absence of the yummy fur, ligament were up first. they rocked as hard, and as heavy as any other band i've seen to date, only it tended to get a little grating just past the half- way mark.

so, on come mogwai. well john and stuart at first. lulling us into 'mogwai fear satan'. no matter i've heard it a thousand times before, i still feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand- up throught the crescendo of noise 3/4 through. stuart finishes '...satan' as with 'like herod', back to the crowd on a minimal drum kit in front of martin. it should be noted that stuart wore a t-shirt for some presumably horrendous swedish death metal outfit.

all in all, no real surprises. all the tinnitus-inducing loud bits i'd expected were there, along with a couple of beautiful new songs from 'ep'. marvellous stuff.

oh, and on my way for a taxi afterwards, filth burger in hand, who should i bump into but barry burns on his way to the tour bus. in a pique of alcoholic frenzy i kissed his beard. the de- lousing programme is coming on a treat you'll be no doubt pleased to hear...

from graeme:

i saw mogwai in leeds last monday. amazing as usual. although i was very disappointed that they didn't open with superheroes of bmx like on most of the dates, but fear satan soon cheered me up. helicon 1 was definitely the highlight.

from tomu (writing in august 2001):

absolutely go and see this band if you have a chance. it'll give you a whole new level to rate other things against.

i saw mogwai when they were touring "young team", in leeds (uk), in october 1999. it was i think the best gig i've ever been to. since then, other gigs have come close, such as radiohead, grandaddy, sigur ros and the orb, but nothing was quite as massive an assault upon my senses as mogwai. i can't really remember the set list, but in a way it wasn't relevant. like the albums, this was more about the whole thing than about the individual songs within it. i remember that they started with mogwai fear satan, and that from the moment they began, the audience, about a thousand or so, were just planted, in stunned silence. the whole gig, everyone stood, still, with their mouths open, shocked and unable to move. this wasn't like, in raptures at the beauty, and it wasn't intellectually stroking our chins at the cleverness of it. it felt like the top of my head was blasted off by the sheer noise and the violence of the lightshow. they had the most amazing lightshow i've ever seen: the back of the stage was lined with huge strobe bars that must have been two feet by eight inches or so, pointed at the audience; all the lights were pointed at the audience. wave after wave of flashes bombarded us, and we all stood there awestruck.

and the whole set was like this. there were quiet parts, where the audience got its breath back, but then they would utterly let rip again, well, you know what young team was like... quiet, then loud! quiet, then... guess what? gradually throughout the course of the gig the quiet bits got shorter and rarer; by the end, we were confronted by a constant, relentless wall of thrashing lights and noise. at the end of the last song, they put down their instruments and left, leaving the delay pedals turned up to maximum, working off other delay and feedback, roaring out this great pile of rhythmic white noise and guitar screams.

and nobody moved. really, nobody. everyone was still shellshocked; we all just stood there in the middle of this pile of noise and white light for ten or fifteen minutes after the band had left. then they suddenly turned it off and put the lights on, and there was about ten seconds of silence i remember vividly, while everyone blinked and got their senses back. and then the crowd went wild, etc etc.

in terms of all out power, nothing comes close. the sigur ros gig i saw was the only thing that really challenges this as "best gig ever", but that was a different thing. this was just massive, awesome, sort of violent, and very, very stunning.

rob dillam's tour diary, first published on mogwai's official website

wake and work and home and pretty much straight out to drive to leeds metropolitan university for mogwai. drive up listening to mogwai and stuff, swervedriver and get to leeds for about like 8.30 ish and i kinda can't find the place. i see a bunch of punky kids and stop to ask them for directions. turns out they're going and i offer them a lift so they can take me there.

park the car in the car park opposite to the student union and head in. walk right in which is cool and i have graham's sh 101 keyboard with me as well, so that comes in with me. i kinda look for melanie and in the end there's mobile phone calls of i'm by the door in the bar and i walk around for a while and fail to see her. meet her in the end and her friend. chat w/ them for a while.

watch from the balcony and that and there's a load of people back stage and andy dimmack arrives as well. keith is dj-ing on the balcony and i watch some of ligament as well. they're an english 3 piece, kinda jon spencer but with added guitar volume and slow power. good and loud and nice guys. good drumming, heavy guitar and bass sound. good tunes.

watch mogwai from the balcony and it's right overlooking the side of the stage and i get the sound of the backline. fucking loud. in fact it was about the loudest gig of the tour.

the p.a fills the place with volume tonight. christmas steps was really chilling to listen to. they sounded excellent. chill in the dressing room and stuff and they have a new bus for the rest of the tour (the other one needs to go for tests (ministry of transport bus stuff) so i sit in the new bus for a while as well.

help with the load out and stuff and generally walk around and keep on my toes. soon it's time to go. drive home again to the rocking sounds of a couple of cd's played again and again (and it's usually mogwai) and home at about 3.00 ish and sleep. good night, loud gig.

http://web.archive.org/....mogwai.clara.net/ukdiary2.htm