Festivality
Hello!!! As has been pointed out by missdeathmetal (noted! :o), I have been consistently slack in updating this here journal thingy, mostly because nothing particularly remarkable has happened to me lately. So by way of a filler until something screamingly interesting happens in my life, I am going to have a bit of a rose-tinted, sentimental rant about...
WHY FESTIVALS ARE SO DAMN GOOD.
It's all the little things you do when you're at a festival that you wouldn't dream of doing in normal life that make them so different and so memorable. I have been to Reading five times in my life - 97, 98, 00, 02 and 03 - I think - and it looks fairly likely that I will go again this year, if the rumours are true and TOOL actually are playing there. And we can get tickets. And although most people would ask why I cared so much about going if there is only one band I wanted to see likely to be there and exactly what is it that has me yearning every summer and winter as well for a piece of the festival action? It's something to do with the following... (Some of these are personal or Reading-specific memories but I think most of them will ring a bell with anyone who has ever been to any festival).
Why I Love the Reading Festival: Many (many, many) Small Memories...
The smell on the first day of grass and mud and sun and feeling ridiculously happy because the sky is blue... putting up a £15 Woolworths tent whilst drinking cider out of a 2 litre bottle as if it were water... eating overpriced yet surprisingly tasteless burgers and little greasy donuts at 3:00 in the morning... weeing using only the power of your thighs to stop you touching the seat... other people walking into the campsites with 24 packs of beer they've bought off the back of a lorry... getting 3 hours sleep a night but feeling great anyway... not showering for 5 days... eating the best meal of the weekend off a disposable barbecue on the first night... listening to specially prepared mix tapes on a crappy battery-powered stereo (mainly to advertise your music tastes to any surrounding cool people)... talking about life at 4:00 in the morning looking at the stars... meeting random Germans with beer... watching crappy bands in tiny tents because you're too exhausted to walk any further... putting contact lenses in using a suspect bowl of campsite water that you've queued for 20 minutes to get... spitting toothpaste behind your tent... making a fire from random bits of (mostly toxic) rubbish... panicking about tents with holes in getting rain-soaked or broken into or burnt down... the annual shouting competitions - 'bollocks' and 'timmy' and 'I am Tiger Woods'... herding like sheep along the lumpy pathways to get to the arena because you've camped about 8 miles away... laughing at the clean people who've only come for the day... laughing at the tiny goths and punks and the guys who have been every year for, like, ever with their massive open-plan tent... watching the spaces around your tent fill up with others until there is nothing BUT tents... spending all night trying to navigate back to your own tent even though they look all the same and falling over guy ropes and police tape used to mark out people's 'areas' on the way... buying pee-mates from German lesbians and being encouraged to 'pee like a guy'... trying to poo during the day because the campsite toilets smell so completely disgusting... having emotional 'moments' in the steaming dusk with random bands that you didn't know you liked mostly through the influence of light stimulants or basic lack of sleep... wanting every piece of tat you see on all the stalls... the inevitable emotional breakdown halfway through where you suggest moving to a hotel room even though it will blatantly never happen... getting over it with some warm flat cider... giving up on the average selection of bands on and going back to the campsite for an afternoon nap outside your tent... going to the school disco equivalent of a rock club on the first night and getting sweaty enough to last the whole week... feeling a bit lost the first time you realise you're outside in the dark with thousands of other nutters and then having a drink and forgetting about it... mixing up your toothpaste water and your drinking water... being herded into a bottle-necked sheep-dipping style tent to get your wristbands on the first day... eating broken things from packets that have been at the bottom of your bag since day one and are now crushed and warm... digging through your bag from top to bottom every time you need something only to find the thing you were looking for 3 hours ago... putting make-up over sunburn and promptly sweating it all off again... having a festival 'song' that everyone is singing, ALL the time... standing on your own in the pouring rain, watching steam rise off the crowd, and being completely at one with the world... feeling like the world is totally OVER on your way home... always being surprised about which bands were the best... worrying that anyone who is travelling home with you in the car/bus/train can smell you even though you can't smell yourself because your nostrils are so clogged up with bonfire smoke and you've just got used to it anyway... wearing a binbag as rain protection... wearing hats from the third day onwards even if it's 90 degrees because your hair is such a disgrace... considering whether to use the campsite showers but always deciding against it because the only time they don't have queues is at like 6:00 in the morning and it's cold then and about the only hour of the day likely to involve sleep of some kind... sitting on picnic stools... being at one with the dirt... going for a pub lunch because you want some 'proper food' and unashamedly using the bathrooms for as much washing and bowel movements as you can manage... constantly wondering if the thick black smoke billowing round the campsite that smells of burning toxic substances will harm your lungs or not... the pain and frustration of carrying all your stuff (which is twice as heavy as you thought when you left home) through the campsites until you find a space big enough to fit your entire group as well as being near the arena, far enough away from a toilet not to have to smell it but close enough so that it's not a trek in the night, far enough off the path not to get trodden on but not so far off the path that you'll never find your way home etc etc... wearing numerous band-branded items of clothing in the hope of finding like-minded people... then walking straight past the person you see wearing exactly the same band top as you... then being drunk enough to introduce yourself three hours later... getting a sore back from sleeping on all the lumps you pitched your tent on... going swimming in a pool three miles away from the campsite after realising it's a roundabout way of having a shower... going into the arena in the middle of the night to go to a half decent toilet and walking across a carpet of squashed cardboard pint glasses... the amazing drops in your standards - a tent with separate areas for sleeping becomes pure luxury... laughing at all the precious twats that spend half the festival in the ridiculously long queue for the mobile phone charging point... feeling slightly on edge on the last night when more things than usual appear to be on fire... taking enough clothes to last a month in all kinds of weather conditions and wearing the same pair of shorts throughout... observing the wars between campsite officials and people who have foolishly parked their tents in the middle of a road... losing a shoe whilst crowd-surfing and buying a pair of ex-army steel toe-capped boots as a replacement... the culinary treats on offer - should you have a swill-like curry or some dodgy-looking pasta? Or a pizza that's about 4 inches wide and costs a fiver?... or a piece of genuine spit-roasted wild boar... people rolling their friends down the pathways in giant oil drums and making a noise like an oversized washboard... the inevitable group of wankers with an acoustic guitar who can't even play the thing... sitting round your campfire, in your sleeping bag, trying to put off going to bed even though you can barely hold your eyes open... ach, can't think of any more right now
Yeah yeah, it was long, I know... with lots of dots... but I had fun writing it, and it might make up for my absence a bit? Haway.
WHY FESTIVALS ARE SO DAMN GOOD.
It's all the little things you do when you're at a festival that you wouldn't dream of doing in normal life that make them so different and so memorable. I have been to Reading five times in my life - 97, 98, 00, 02 and 03 - I think - and it looks fairly likely that I will go again this year, if the rumours are true and TOOL actually are playing there. And we can get tickets. And although most people would ask why I cared so much about going if there is only one band I wanted to see likely to be there and exactly what is it that has me yearning every summer and winter as well for a piece of the festival action? It's something to do with the following... (Some of these are personal or Reading-specific memories but I think most of them will ring a bell with anyone who has ever been to any festival).
Why I Love the Reading Festival: Many (many, many) Small Memories...
The smell on the first day of grass and mud and sun and feeling ridiculously happy because the sky is blue... putting up a £15 Woolworths tent whilst drinking cider out of a 2 litre bottle as if it were water... eating overpriced yet surprisingly tasteless burgers and little greasy donuts at 3:00 in the morning... weeing using only the power of your thighs to stop you touching the seat... other people walking into the campsites with 24 packs of beer they've bought off the back of a lorry... getting 3 hours sleep a night but feeling great anyway... not showering for 5 days... eating the best meal of the weekend off a disposable barbecue on the first night... listening to specially prepared mix tapes on a crappy battery-powered stereo (mainly to advertise your music tastes to any surrounding cool people)... talking about life at 4:00 in the morning looking at the stars... meeting random Germans with beer... watching crappy bands in tiny tents because you're too exhausted to walk any further... putting contact lenses in using a suspect bowl of campsite water that you've queued for 20 minutes to get... spitting toothpaste behind your tent... making a fire from random bits of (mostly toxic) rubbish... panicking about tents with holes in getting rain-soaked or broken into or burnt down... the annual shouting competitions - 'bollocks' and 'timmy' and 'I am Tiger Woods'... herding like sheep along the lumpy pathways to get to the arena because you've camped about 8 miles away... laughing at the clean people who've only come for the day... laughing at the tiny goths and punks and the guys who have been every year for, like, ever with their massive open-plan tent... watching the spaces around your tent fill up with others until there is nothing BUT tents... spending all night trying to navigate back to your own tent even though they look all the same and falling over guy ropes and police tape used to mark out people's 'areas' on the way... buying pee-mates from German lesbians and being encouraged to 'pee like a guy'... trying to poo during the day because the campsite toilets smell so completely disgusting... having emotional 'moments' in the steaming dusk with random bands that you didn't know you liked mostly through the influence of light stimulants or basic lack of sleep... wanting every piece of tat you see on all the stalls... the inevitable emotional breakdown halfway through where you suggest moving to a hotel room even though it will blatantly never happen... getting over it with some warm flat cider... giving up on the average selection of bands on and going back to the campsite for an afternoon nap outside your tent... going to the school disco equivalent of a rock club on the first night and getting sweaty enough to last the whole week... feeling a bit lost the first time you realise you're outside in the dark with thousands of other nutters and then having a drink and forgetting about it... mixing up your toothpaste water and your drinking water... being herded into a bottle-necked sheep-dipping style tent to get your wristbands on the first day... eating broken things from packets that have been at the bottom of your bag since day one and are now crushed and warm... digging through your bag from top to bottom every time you need something only to find the thing you were looking for 3 hours ago... putting make-up over sunburn and promptly sweating it all off again... having a festival 'song' that everyone is singing, ALL the time... standing on your own in the pouring rain, watching steam rise off the crowd, and being completely at one with the world... feeling like the world is totally OVER on your way home... always being surprised about which bands were the best... worrying that anyone who is travelling home with you in the car/bus/train can smell you even though you can't smell yourself because your nostrils are so clogged up with bonfire smoke and you've just got used to it anyway... wearing a binbag as rain protection... wearing hats from the third day onwards even if it's 90 degrees because your hair is such a disgrace... considering whether to use the campsite showers but always deciding against it because the only time they don't have queues is at like 6:00 in the morning and it's cold then and about the only hour of the day likely to involve sleep of some kind... sitting on picnic stools... being at one with the dirt... going for a pub lunch because you want some 'proper food' and unashamedly using the bathrooms for as much washing and bowel movements as you can manage... constantly wondering if the thick black smoke billowing round the campsite that smells of burning toxic substances will harm your lungs or not... the pain and frustration of carrying all your stuff (which is twice as heavy as you thought when you left home) through the campsites until you find a space big enough to fit your entire group as well as being near the arena, far enough away from a toilet not to have to smell it but close enough so that it's not a trek in the night, far enough off the path not to get trodden on but not so far off the path that you'll never find your way home etc etc... wearing numerous band-branded items of clothing in the hope of finding like-minded people... then walking straight past the person you see wearing exactly the same band top as you... then being drunk enough to introduce yourself three hours later... getting a sore back from sleeping on all the lumps you pitched your tent on... going swimming in a pool three miles away from the campsite after realising it's a roundabout way of having a shower... going into the arena in the middle of the night to go to a half decent toilet and walking across a carpet of squashed cardboard pint glasses... the amazing drops in your standards - a tent with separate areas for sleeping becomes pure luxury... laughing at all the precious twats that spend half the festival in the ridiculously long queue for the mobile phone charging point... feeling slightly on edge on the last night when more things than usual appear to be on fire... taking enough clothes to last a month in all kinds of weather conditions and wearing the same pair of shorts throughout... observing the wars between campsite officials and people who have foolishly parked their tents in the middle of a road... losing a shoe whilst crowd-surfing and buying a pair of ex-army steel toe-capped boots as a replacement... the culinary treats on offer - should you have a swill-like curry or some dodgy-looking pasta? Or a pizza that's about 4 inches wide and costs a fiver?... or a piece of genuine spit-roasted wild boar... people rolling their friends down the pathways in giant oil drums and making a noise like an oversized washboard... the inevitable group of wankers with an acoustic guitar who can't even play the thing... sitting round your campfire, in your sleeping bag, trying to put off going to bed even though you can barely hold your eyes open... ach, can't think of any more right now
Yeah yeah, it was long, I know... with lots of dots... but I had fun writing it, and it might make up for my absence a bit? Haway.