Reading Festival!

If I said this was my first festival experience, I would be lying. I’ve done V Festival and LeeFest (see my post on volunteering). But I’ve done nothing like Reading Festival.

So first off I spent way too much on essentials, tent and clothes – obviously. I’m a girl.

I finally learnt how to pitch my tent like two days before from my mother who came to get me beyond excited as I was sulking that I couldn’t figure out how to pitch a tent, to see said tent standing upright and looking how it actually should look. I haven’t been that surprised in a LONG time.

Deaf Havana

Packed, excited, said all my goodbyes at work, I sat at Clapham Junction for an hour waiting for my little cousin. I love that girl with all my heart – she makes me laugh and she’s bloody great but OMG. I wanted to throttle her. I people watched for a while though (sorry to say all the fit blokes were taken).

We couldn’t really agree on food. I think that’s one of the worst things about festivals. Food. What the hell do you eat – if you even eat (we all know most of the time you’re drinking). I personally think we had a good idea going (apart from the doughnuts and maybe the cereal choice… And of course the sausage and tuna pasta, that wasn’t the best idea).

Alt-J

Getting there was fine. It all went downhill from the moment we started walking from the cab to the festival. Because as girls going to a festival we bought too much. We stopped all the time – no, my cousin stopped all of the time. In my head once I stopped it became clear that I was in serious pain. I had four heavy bags plus two bags filled with food, before I offered to hold more because my cousin was trailing behind. It took near enough and hour and fifteen until we reached the White camp from Red. Now if any of my readers know Reading Festival, they’ll know that that’s a long ass walk. And that was made thrice as long because there were drunks and other people walking just as slow. So you can imagine I was not happy. I got the tent up only to find the vodka had spilled. THE VODKA HAD SPILLED. My night was ruined. My poor cousin having to put up with me and I’m trying to be as nice as possible without being rude but I’d already had a long day and it was like nearly 10pm and now the vodka had spilt all the way down my back and on my clothes.

Our Food

Another little thing… why are tents so small? Why can we not stand up in tents and I am so glad ours was waterproof. If I do another festival with tents I am making sure I can stand up because getting changed and moving around is an absolute chore. Plus, the bigger ones are so much cooler. Yes, heavier but cooler.

FRIDAY

Friday was different. I had to get used to the coldness of being in a tent, the feel of the festival, what we’d do for the day etc. Also, using the disgusting toilets. I walked into a shack like cubicle and for unknown reason looked back (I can vomit just thinking about it. That image will never ever leave my mind). I have a question for all festival-goers and festival organisers… how? And more importantly, WHY??? There must be another way surely!? If you have ever seen the scene in Slumdog Millionaire with the toilets… it was EXACTLY like that.

We saw about 13 different bands from Hadouken!, Friends, Palma Violets, Random Hand (they were the biggest surprise of the festival – so good), Deaf Havana, some Coheed and Cambria, Angels and Airwaves, You Me At Six, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Courteeners, Foster The People (had a mini panic attack no biggie) Paramore and The Maccabees (who were better than expected).

I was involved in a crowd Avalanche where you feel a whole load of force push you to the ground and when you finally realise you’re not watching Paramore anymore but on the floor crushing some girl’s legs. It’s pretty weird instantly helping others around you to get up before you can actually get up yourself. When it happens again though, you do freak out a little especially when everyone else is getting up apart from you. You’re still on the floor as you see others help each other up bar you. Yeah, peed my pants a little at that.

SATURDAY

Saturday I was more in the swing of things. I was used to just casually walking around – I felt that you had to know who were going to see so you didn’t miss anything but that feeling went pretty quickly. I could relax, drink even. But whoever gets used to those horrific toilets? I swear I watched a man walk to the toilet shack, take a deep breath looked at me and crossed his fingers. I laughed for about ten minutes waiting for my cousin to come out of the toilets who herself was trying not to be sick from the stench. God awful things.

At Lower Than Atlantis!

We walked around everywhere. We even sat and watched Green Day make an appearance through sheer luck! We didn’t exactly make it inside the tent but we heard them from outside and watched them on the big screens!

So that day we watched some Modestep, Doc Brown (he’s amazing), Max Raptor (new band, quite good), Jaguar Skills (so so good), OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), Lower Than Atlantis (love!), The Vaccines, At The Drive In, Florence and The Machine (accidently got a guy on my shoulders – don’t ask), Katy B, Metronomy (also better than expected).

During Flo & The Machine

We were meant to watch The Hunger Games and then Chronicle the film when they turned one of the tents into a small film tent but the amount of energy that is taken out of you - when we got into the tent I was out like a light!! I hadn’t even had a proper drink!

SUNDAY

We made it our business to do everything on Sunday. Ate loads, drank more (but not lots because the toilets just ain’t worth that), even made it to the Silent Disco tent which was a hell of a lot better and emptier than anticipated.

We experienced Holly Walsh, Stephen K Amos (in tears crying he was so funny), some of Gaslight Anthem, Bullet for my Valentine, Good Riddance, Kaiser Chiefs, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters.

Another thing I’m not too keen on is being in the middle of a crowd. I’m not technically claustrophobic because I can be in tight spaces but when everyone is pushing everyone for no god damn reason it gets tiring and you get so agitated. Another crowd avalanche happened during Black Keys which meant even though I was near the front of the crowd and I could see Patrick and Dan (so cool!!) it also meant I wasn’t really paying attention because I had idiots around me pushing. And a silly Welsh girl who talked too much and who also liked to fists pump to The Black Keys, nearly punching me in the face. Little bit gutted I couldn’t really enjoy The Black Keys as much as I wanted, but that just means I have to see them again. Also I had a go at some 18year old that was pushing his butt into my side and I meant, really? It’s never that.

But then again, we did push ourselves to the front-ish on purpose so we could see the Foo Fighters up close. Unfortunately only one of us really got to see the Foo Fighters up close because I decided that being in the middle of the crowd being pushed in every direction was just not worth it. So I pushed my way out – to everyone’s dismay. Until finally I found a good enough spot by the huge screen and speakers that I could sing loudly and dance around a bit.

Damm Foo Fighters were amazing.

I’d just like to say an apology to Daniel also for being kind off-ish but you caught my attention as I was coming out of the toilets. I was in such a shock from the toilets (I will never forget the sound *shudders*) and from seeing you at 11am in the morning when I have make up all the way down my face that I didn’t even consider getting my hand sanitiser out of my bag. Which is wrong. So wrong. So yeah… Next time I might actually hug you back and not tell you not to touch me…

I had a drunken cousin Sunday night which was funny and I completely rinsed out my phone battery life through playing music shuffle, which I’m delighted I won, then using the Flashlight on my phone to have a rave in the tent. Good idea at the time…

No idea who he is..

Silent disco dancing

We talked to some of the others around us but we mostly kept to ourselves. My cousin is so much better at talking to strangers than me as I sort of go into defence mode and can be rude (because you know, they’re strangers… Stranger Danger and all that… it’s what they teach you in Primary School) so I left talking to people to her but we did have small talk with everyone and of course smiled at funny little things that happened around us. And there was always funny things happening from the costumes to people shouting to “FENTON!! JESUS CHRIST FENTONNNN!!” or the usual favourites, “ALAN?? STEVEE??!! ALAAAANNNN”

So just to say I had an amazing time. I saw bands that surprised me, that I loved and that I didn’t ever think I would ever see live.

However, if I do that again, bigger tent or V.I.P (not kidding), prepare for the coldness at night and I always forget a pillow. Plus, I will invent something feasible as a toilet situation other than a she-pee and human cat litter called the Travel John Disposable Toilet so it’s got to be better than that (honestly have a research, it’s a brilliant idea).

My 2011 Summer

Hands up if when you look back on your summer, you had a good time!?
Because I know I did.

From the end of May until mid-September I’ve been on holiday. So there were days at home rummaging through Virgin Media TV choice on demand, scouring through the various channels only to spend the whole day on music channels and I might have even had a plan of what I watched when I woke up. If I was up early enough on a weekday I’d watch Home Under The Hammer at 10am, if not I woke up to The Maury Show at 11am, then music channels until E! News at 1pm and then yes, back to the music channels going up and down and up and down every ten minutes.

Or I was at work, with models (men, women, kids), steaming clothes, chatting to different kinds of people, eating really bad canteen food and singing along to out-dated 80's music that I love. Or, I was wristbanding random strangers outside the BBC studios in White City, London, getting them into some of my favourite shows.

Aren't they pretty?!

At one point in my summer, I was managing a gate at Pride London Parade in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.
Picking up (for the first time) a speaker and getting near a thousand people to do the Mexican wave up and down each side of the barriers while the rest of my group, people I had only met a half an hour before, cheered me on. A gay guy asked me for a hug after as well as some girls asking me to take a picture with their Pride Teddy-bear; I’ve never felt so wanted before in my life.
Switch to, telling randomers that they couldn’t cross the road because if they didn’t notice there was a parade going on and though I understood that they had to go to their theatre showing, the parade stopped in a couple of minutes and only then could I let them through. Insert here the swear words, the pushing and the crushing of poor little me. Oh, and a transvestite called Tina who reminded me of a Army captain by the barks of ordering when things got a little too hard for me to manage myself. I did mean to say me to manage because in the middle of Piccadilly Circus at my first ever Pride I was managing a team of five to guard the gates, the ‘manager’ was sitting on the floor without a care in the world.
A day of volunteering meant a night time of parties and at 7.30am the next day I strolled into my house.

I went out quite a bit; I went to a Single Launch in London Bridge. Again, the best friend and I unlocked her door at nearly 6am that Sunday. A couple of birthday parties, drinking pitchers for myself and I may have forgotten that they were meant for sharing, house parties with rows and arguments, girly nights in talking nonsense until one in the morning.
BBQ's, family parties, hungover days, football matches... you get the jist.

Another volunteering experience of the summer was at a brilliant festival called LEEFEST. Started by a young 17year old (named Lee obviously) who, after his parents told him not to have a house party decided to stage a festival in his back garden in 2006. Now he has the likes of Fenech – Soler, DJ Fresh, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly (who waved at me!), The National, The Holloways and The Young Knifes and also, a ton of unsigned acts that will explode onto the music scene soon! By The Rivers were my favourite by far, look on their Myspace, they’re touring with The Specials.

A new friend and I at Leefest!

If you can imagine, a gorgeous budget festival with wonderful people walking around, free Nandos, joking around with bubbly girls I met that day, not being too friendly with the Event Management girls (who decided to boss us around and didn’t realise who she was talking to, AKA Me. I had managed the car park the day before without her I think I could do it again).

A group of volunteering girls who thought that volunteering meant not doing any work and left our group of six to do all their shifts; gawping at Lee himself for being utterly cool riding on the back of a mini open top 4x4 (no doubt about it this guy oozed coolness without trying but the 4x4 helped) and end the weekend by discovering two 11year olds at the front of DJ Fresh and barricading ourselves around them from being washed away into the huge mosh-pit.

Fast forward a few weeks as I travel up to Bournemouth to check out my brand new house (a post on that later)! Two days later, a 10am start at IKEA to buy cool stuff to go with the house. I wonder the whole way around IKEA thinking of whether the colour scheme this year should be purple or black, white and orange…

However, news got round to my work that I wasn’t leaving just yet and so now, it’s one week of partying, another week of full on work. More cash for the partying I guess…

Now, who else wants to share?


LINKS: http://www.pridelondon.org/
http://www.leefest.org.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bytherivers

Survival of a University Student =)

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