Well, well, well...As you might be aware, there was a pretty big football match on last night and Newsbeat had their crack team on the case. David Garrido from sport, Early Breakfast's Duncan Middleton and Andy Brownstone who was doing the videos.
There is some fantastic stuff from the last few days done by these 3 - have a look here
Here they are looking depressed.
Lad, lads, lads
This morning on the show I spoke to Mark Beaumont who is doing an incredible journey from the top to the bottom of The Americas... on a bicycle... on his own!
You can follow his progress on the big show - as I'll be catching up with him on his travels - and more regularly here on his own blog and you can follow him on Twitter.
Josh and his mates just sent this in to the show. I'd love to be there now. Might be a bit weird as I don't know them - but anyway, you know what I mean
This is Matt's bass - he's just caught it on the Solent. Good effort.
This is Sean's stapler. He's really bored doing revision.
Dappy from N Dubz and Tinchy Stryder popped in to say hello this afternoon. I had a lovely chat with them and learnt some new street language. "Doo Key" to all you dedicated blog readers. Or something like that.
I started at N and will end at Z...
N - NERD - Lapdance
O - Oakenfold - Starry Eyed Surprise
P - Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl
Q - Queens of The Stone Age - No One Knows
R - Razorlight - Vice
S - Salt and Pepper - Push It
T - TATU - All The Things She Said
U - Ultrabeat - Pretty Green Eyes
V - Various Artists - Perfect Day 97
W - White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
X - X-Press 2 - Lazy
Y - Yomanda - Synth and Strings
Z - Zutons - Don't Ever Think
My favourite bit of the show last night...
According to Jo Whiley's producer Stu, who I thought was a mate, I was searching for myself on Google during a gig we were at. He reported this to Queen Jo who mentioned it on air a few times. Now then, we've all done it in the past, but I did not do it at the gig. If you must know, I was on Twitter. Anyway - the Whiley team got me this...
And I got her a special T-Shirt too...
A great website that I stumbled across thanks to a bloke called Thomas who emailed me.
It will make you laugh
And welcome along to it...
Busy old weekend again. Friendly Fires were amazing on Friday night. They are a quality band. On Saturday it was yet another visit to Swindon! This time though, I was just passing through on the way to Cheltenham to DJ at The University of Gloucestershire's Summer Ball type affair. Zane Lowe was on as well and it was a really great fun night. I stuck around after I'd finished to have a little dance to Zane's set - and yes indeed, he is so good. Have a look at his blog here...
In other news, England won the cricket today in Durham which was good. An easy victory, but a victory all the same. I'll be chatting to Arlo White from Test Match Special on the show a bit later on.
Took my mum and dad for lunch yesterday after they installed a new bookshelf in my flat. It's funny, I (just about) hold down a daily Radio 1 show but I'm still unable to organise the mundane aspects of life. My sister is the same, very good at her job, but not great at getting stuff done, and she's got a kid now too! It's the way I like it though. My mind is very rarely on cleaning up, organising, filing, paying bills, washing etc. so I need all the help I can get!
Anyway, off down to the depths of the basement now for the bigger big show...
More soon...
I decided to change the Wonder Years slightly today. I went from A-M and did half the alphabet of quality records:
Here's the list:
A - Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
B - Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
C - Cam'ron - Hey Ma
D - DK and Epsilon - Barcelona
E - Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
F - Fatboy Slim - Rockafella Skank
G - Guns n Roses - Paradise City
H - Hanson - Mmmm Bop
I - Ian Van Dahl - Castles In The Sky
J - Jamiroquoi - Canned Heat
K - Kings Of Leon - Four Kicks
L - Lostprophets - Last Train Home
M - Mylo - In My Arms
Well, you may have heard that I caused a bit of a scene yesterday when I placed a stinkbomb in in Newsbeat during the entertainment news at 6:30 last night. Ooops. Made me laugh though.
What about you?
Well, as everyone is contractually obliged to say, Radio 1's Big Weekend in Swindon was absolutely incredible. But seriously, it was top notch. Everyone in the building works incredibly hard to make sure that some of the biggest acts in the world perform just for you and we pulled it off again. I think everyone who works here, even those who've done this for years, get that tingly feeling when they see the thousands of people cramming into the tents to watch the event. Pretty cool. I cannot wait for next year.
Anyway, enough of the gushing...Here's some of my highlights of the weekend:
- Doing the Red Button TV coverage with Jo Whiley
- Having another awkward moment with Taio Cruz as I mis-pronounced his name AGAIN
- Letting stink bombs off in Aled's Surgery tent and inside the Newsbeat portacabin
- Wearing the ridiculous superhero costume on stage to introduce Franz Ferdinand
- Opening the gates to let the happy 20,000 in
- Paying £5 for a burger
- Discussing with Fearne, Reggie, Edith and Jo whether we should go on stage and 'fill' for a bit when the power cut during The Prodigy last night
- Enjoying the fact that Piers (my exec producer who was in charge of the main stage all weekend) left early five minutes before the power failure!
- For a bit of balance, I also enjoyed getting booed at when I had the awful task of telling everyone to 'get out now' after Snow Patrol had finished on Saturday night.
- Chatting to Alesha - she's very funny
- Seeing Vernon in his old man's hat
That's all I can remember for now...
Here's a selection of photos from the weekend.
Alesha:
Gossip:
Yet another award winning photograph from me - this time of Snow Patrol's setlist:
Me as Frequency The Superhero about to introduce Franz Ferdinand:
There are even more ways you can get catch up on any stuff you may have missed over the weekend.
We threw the kitchen sink at Swindon this year. You can watch the live sets from all stages, see webcam highlights from the site, photos, reviews of the sets, backstage videos and interviews, exclusive Live Lounges and so much more. I don't want to link to individual bits as it will take forever but go HERE for all of it!
A very busy day!Interviewed the following: Franz Ferdinand, Gossip, N-Dubz, Tinchy Stryder, Akon and the lovely Alesha Dixon to name drop just a few.
Also went and answered questions in the Surgery tent, bumped into Scouting for Girl and ate some BBC spag bol.I'd give that 5/10.
On stage introducing Franz Ferdinand soon - and I'm thinking of wearing my superhero costume...
Well, what a great day it was - there were a few technical problems with the blog yesterday - I think someone turned off
A view of the Outdoor Stage when Pete Tong and Vernon Kay were on the decks.
Me and a Wombat... spot which one of us is looking at the wrong camera...
A view of the main stage when Nihal and I introduced The Wombats.WOW
Me sat on a climbing frame during one of my wacky BBC Red Button TV links.
It's finally here...Only 30 mins until I open the gates of Lydiard Park for this year's Radio 1 Big Weekend...
Thousands of excited people will be released on the park to watch some of the biggest acts in the world - IN SWINDON!
I'll be going down there with Edith Bowman shortly...
More in a bit...
Oh, by the way, I was on BBC Points West News last night having a little chat ahead of the weekend:
WOW. What a gig. I've wanted to see him live for a while and loved his first album. He's quite an underrated live act I think. Last night he was playing a venue called Scala in London. The crowd were excellent and all very much wishing it was the weekend and not a grotty Tuesday night. His next single is going to be a track called 'Ready For The Weekend' and it is a blinder. I predict another number 1 for that one.
Here is his very cool tour bus that was parked outside the venue. Understated.
Also, here's yet another terrible photo taken on my phone. I always forget a camera.
This was sent in by Tim who has put the well known phrase 'Welcome Along' on the back of his truck in genuine white sticky lettering! Many thanks.
This is what happened live on stage and live on Radio 1 yesterday. What am I doing?!
So, I popped down on the train this morning to do some challenges which you'll hear throughout the day today on Radio 1. Earlier on Grimmy's show, I was challenged to find some people who looked like Big Weekend artists. I only managed to find this guy who I thought resembled Bob from Franz Ferdinand. Turns out, not so much. Made me laugh though.
The problem is that it's Sunday and it was early and no one was up:
Anyway, I then went to the site of BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend - Lydiard Park - which, by the way is very lovely. Set in the countryside, it looked amazing in the sunshine today. Here's a few snaps:
A lovely view of the top of the 'In New Music We Trust' tent which will host The Enemy, Basement Jaxx, Doves, Maximo Park and Gossip amongst others:
The main stage tent is about to be raised up!
The backstage showers...Just imagine - the likes of The Prodigy, Kasabian, and Aled all soaping themselves down in here:
And finally for now...Scott Mills' portacabin. No sign of his wine delivery yet. I imagine they'll be reversing that up to the door mid-week.
Next challenge with Nihal after 1pm today!
Jonathan Blake is Newsbeat's US reporter... this weekend he is in Las Vegas for some boxing or other. He's just been on the big show on Skype live from his hotel balcony.
Technology, eh?
