Bloodstock '08
This is where i saw possibly the saddest thing I have ever seen.

A boy about 16, with soup in his hair and holding a sign saying, and I qoute:

"I will do anything for beer! (Except male sexual favours)"

And then written below in slightly shaky smaller writing :

"Or getting kicked in the nuts again"

Makes me glad I took enough booze with me so I didn't have to resort to that.
(Charlietron Still can't think of anything witty to put here, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 21:41, 4 replies)

Small university music festival
On the lawn outside the students' union on May Bank Holiday. It was chucking it down so we went back to mine and pitched up my tent and became Mr Popular.

The rain stopped and the sun came out but there was tons of mud and puddles left behind.

For some reason, me and my friend decided to have a mud wrestle in front of the main stage. It was like when there was a fight at school and a massive crowd would gather cheering one side on.

The stains never did wash out of my shorts.
( thistle, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 21:11, Reply)

Desperate times
call for desperate measures, and also bring forth resourcefulness...

I found myself in the unhappy position of having to use a Glastonbury festival toilet that had been gathering sewage and fermenting it in warm sunshine for three days in one of the busiest areas of the site.

This was the type of toilet that you stand nearby (although not too near) for a while, watching people pluck up the courage to enter, backing out again, shoulders heaving as they retch... trying not to look, but unable to stop looking, at the glistening mounds of multi-brown hued poo which quiver all over and crawl and buzz with their own little ecosystems of flies and maggots. The floor a self-perpetuating buildup of slimy substances, some part digested and deposited by stomachs too weak for festival toilets, some simply dropped by people as they recoil in horror before running screaming away. The smell of industrial strength ammonia catching in the throat and stinging as it peels layers off the eyes and lungs.

The type of toilet that you anticipate, and take a deep breath from a safe distance, and hold it while you forcefully squeeze the pee out as hard as you can in terror at the thought that your gas exchange isn't up to standard after all that smoking and you might actually have to take a deep breath of solid toilet air.

Eventually my need became too great to consider other options, such as Billy Connolly-esque incontinence trousers fashioned crudely from my shorts and some string.

There was no question of there being any toilet paper in it. There was a fascinating array of substances (which may have included toilet paper, but presented rather differently from the usual way) and I didn't dwell too long on them as I hovered as high over the "seat" as I could without merely remaining upright and pissing on my feet, balancing precariously on the toes of one foot and the heel of the other to maximise my use of the least soiled areas of "floor", trying to ignore the distressing tickling sensation as the flies buzzed my ladyparts.

So what's a girl to do?

Men, you don't realise how lucky you are to have a penis.* This was before the invention of the SheWee, remember.

I would have actually considered wiping my flange on a fiver, if I'd had any money.

But Lo! I had an actual moment of gleeful eureka as I thought of the one item I had about my person. Hurrah for smoking!

And so it happened that I found myself grateful to be rubbing the inner piece of foil paper from a packet of Camel on my bits.**

*Actually I suspect you do.
**What, did you think I used a Rizla?***
***Of course I would, if I'd had one.
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 21:04, 4 replies)

Last 5 years at Reading
-Catapulting dead pigeons across campsite.

-Waking up from a drunken stupor to find two young punks drawing swastikas on my shins, only to tell them to fuck off cos I'm not Hindu.

-Having your mates sitting in the campsite for 2 days constantly shouting, " ELLO MAAAAYTE!! SHOW US YOUR COCK MAAAYTE!! FLOP IT OUT MAAAYTE!! " at anyone who walked within 20 metres of where we were camped.

-Getting more fucked up on substances Thursday night than any other night that weekend, it's tradition.

-Being bound in gaffer tape and rolled down a metal walkway with my arse out, while passers by gathered to slap it.

My friends have far more harsh tales to tell from the five years before. I'm hoping not to have any more as I'm not staying on the campsite this year....
(Grobie, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 20:23, 1 reply)

reading festival 2007
The year is 2007 and i am throughly enjoying my first ever music festival.

Me and two of my friends are walking along the campsite to our tents, when a young lady of about the same age bumps into me pretty hard, almost knocking me over, and making me drop my beer.

"watch where your going love"...and sauntered off....rather cooly if i do say so myself.

she went mental. Started yelling at me about how it was my fault for not looking where i was going, and that i was a complete dickhead. I cowered in shame as she literally went red in the face screaming at me, the occasional wimper escaping from my frightened mouth. Eventually the abuse stopped and she stormed off.

At this stage my friends were absolutely pissing themselves laughing at me. So as she walked off, I thought i'd yell something at her to save what little dignity i had left.

I'm sure many people know the feeling of trying to think up an insult on the spot and it failing miserably. So in as loud a voice as i could muster I yelled at her:

"well.....you've got rubbish hair!!"

Even the bloke in the fucking angels and airwaves t-shirt shook his head at me.
(apo-dap, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 20:15, 2 replies)

Well this is what happened to me at Leeds last year





Also our gazebo broke so we turned the structure poles into a flag pole with some boxers.
Which I then later went to the dj stage with and made everyone limbo with it,
it was great.
(King Baby Duck more than a ceiling, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 20:13, Reply)

Glastonbury
In the early nineties. It was the year Tom Jones headlined, but before he was cool. I was 16, wide-eyed as it was my first Glastonbury, and I was there for five days.

Me and the guy I was with wrote on our tent in big letters as follows:

Day 1 - TOM JONES IS NUMBER 1
Day 2 - TOM JONES IS GOD
Day 3 - TOM JONES IS THE DEVIL
Day 4 - TOM JONES IS MY LOVER
Day 5 - TOM JONES IS MY DAD

On Day 4 (I think) a woman came up to me at the tent with a camera.

"I love your tent!" she said "Can I take a photo of it?" (she'd made a special trip with her camera to do so).

"Are you going to watch him?" she asked. "I am. I'm going to throw my knickers at him, and I've been saving my dirtiest ones so they stick".

Good times.
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 20:07, 2 replies)

Some sort of Beetle festival, (the car), many years ago.
We all turned up in an estate car as none of us owned a Beetle but no-one seemed to mind. We then spent the first day getting sunburned apart from my ex who's car it was and who had red hair and pale skin and sat in the tent most of the day. The next day we spent approximatley 4 solid hours in the car singing along to Alanis Morrisette on the car stereo, and we weren't even on drugs.

Crazy!
( girlinthehole, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 19:19, 2 replies)

Reading '95
I found a sign written on a piece of card. It said:

"Dear Police,
Please can you take this guy away because I think he might actually be dead and its really starting to freak me out. Thanks!"

Apologies for length.
(DownhillGardener no-one does it like that anymore, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 19:11, 2 replies)

Glastonbury, early 90s
We arrived without any herbal refreshments, so went off to purchase some from all the friendly people who used to frequent the bridges (Yeah I know...we were young).

My friend buys a lump of some indeterminable substance and we walk on. He is a few steps in front of me, and to test his new purchase burns a bit and shoves it up his nose for the good old smell test.

Unbenown to him, behind him is a copper on a horse. The horse decides to nuzzle his shoulder, and my friend turns around thinking its me, still trying to get a good sniff of his herbals, looks up, sees a horse staring at him, looks up a bit further, sees a copper staring at him. Looks at me, by this time I'm nearly dieing with laughter, especially when I see the look on my poor friends face.

Luckily the copper wasn't bothered about the lump of dope protuding from my friends left nostril (probably because it was an oxo cube or something similar).

I will never forgot it.
(kohoutec, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 19:05, Reply)

The tale of Kurt the cyborg and the last time L ever took acid
Reading festival 1992 and a group of us were by the main stage waiting for Nirvana to come on. There'd been rumours that they wouldn't play and L was beyond anxious, considering himself their number one fan. Imagine if you will a fat, spotty, greasy haired wannabe metal head who secretly loves Queen and makes no bones about his fanboy hero worship of Kurt Cobain. Practically drooling when they finally came out on stage. That was L.

The only problem was Kurt came on in a wheelchair. Oh and L had dropped enough acid to fell a Tyrannosaurus Rex. So to him, Kurt was in fact fused to the wheelchair and had now become a cyborg. The fact that he bounced out of the chair and played an amazing set was lost on him. Kurt Cobain was a cyborg.

This train of thought which he expounded on the rest of us continued for the next few hours until he noticed an ant crawling up his leg talking to him. He conversed with the ant and all of its friends for a few minutes, so we left him to it by the campfire and went to meet the guys we'd hooked up with earlier in the day.

Twelve hours later we come back and he's still in the same position, still talking to the ant which has now long gone and sets about introducing all of us. He swears he has no memory of this, but is sure that someone was speaking back to him the whole time.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 18:43, 3 replies)

Firefest V
(Do indoor things count?)
If you were in the Tap and Tumbler and freaked out at the three pissed blokes staring at you, loudly wondering what band you were in... Sorry.

If you were the barmaid in the Speakeasy whom my mate hit on with all the subtlety of a rhino... Sorry. (Although he's right. You are very pretty.)

If you were at Firefest and you're wondering who the three pissed up thirty-somethings zorba-dancing to Demon were...That would be us. Sorry.

If you were part of the cleanup crew and you were wondering who had been hiding two-pint buckets of lager behind the curtains...That would be me... Sorry. Being a lightweight in the company of hardened beermonsters drives you to desperate measures.

If you were working at the kebab shop round the corner when we staggered back out... Quit. You make the worst kebabs I have ever tasted. Feel shame.

And if you were part of the Travelodge staff wondering why that particular room smelt like King Kong's tagnuts the next day... Sorry. A days worth of lager and kebabs and a preexisting tendency to flatulence on all our parts does not a pleasant bouquet make.

Going again this year.
(Big D, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 18:39, Reply)

Beaten, trousers stolen and first trip
It was at Reading 1990 I think, the year the Cramps headlined.

Being youthful, I was right at the front getting very sweaty with the wrecking krew. After a few songs I noticed that the wrecking was becomming quite painful, only then did I realise that a group of psychobillys/psychobillies (what is the plural?) had formed in a circle around me and were all quite literally punching me. Hard. So I moved towards the back.

Later that night I returned to my mate John's tent for I was sharing with him. Covered in psychobilly sweat, I did stink a bit apparently so in a gesture of diplomacy I placed my jeans outside on top of the tent. The next morning they were gone. I managed to borrow another pair of jeans, eventually.

On Sunday I bumped into a mate Simon who was at the festival with a geezer called Baggy who was a New Age Traveller (had a bus) and dealt a bit. He was doing a roaring trade selling veggie burgers and magic mushrooms. In return for cooking burgers for a couple of hours I got as much food as I could eat and he gave me my first trip.

I went for a walk with Simon and his bird Emma. After a while I started coming on strong and had to hold her hand as they led me around the site. We came across a procession of people all following this one bloke saying that he was the messiah. He led them down to the river where the quite sizeable crowd chanted "walk on water!" at him until he jumped in.

After that we went back to Baggy's bus and I sat by the fire tripping like a loon. Shan't bore you with the details but I never had such a good trip after that first one. It was like I was watching a movie where anything I wanted to see would appear but then it would start to go weird and dissolve into loads of colours.

Come monday morning, I had no money or train ticket, bit of a mistake leaving my wallet in my jeans in hindsight. Luckily, there were no ticket inspectors on railway or tube and I managed to make my way back to my London home.

One slight problem: I lived in a flat on the second floor with a very heavy duty door and my key had also been in my trouser pocket. I wandered about for a bit and saw a policeman. He advised me to call the fire brigade so I did. They were not impressed and said I should have called the police... but they got me in.

I hadn't been home for a couple of weeks, had been staying at friends prior to the festival and my Israeli (not that I'm saying Israelis are dirty), dirty fucking cunt of a flatmate had left the place in a right state. Big pile of stinking rubbish in the kitchen. Maggots crawling over the floor. He'd been through my stuff in my bedroom looking for anything he could use to eat or drink from rather than wash anything. I found my camping set of aluminium cups and plates were in among the rotten festering pile of filth that used to be the kitchen sink. So I had to clean all that up.

A bit tired, I went to bed around 5pm and slept until 10am.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 18:24, Reply)

Stalked by My Chemical Romance
Leeds Festival 2006. On one of the days, we went to scour some of the stages. My friend Nessa wanted to hang about the NME signing tent? Why? My Chemical Romance were signing autographs, and she wanted to be front of the queue. I checked - they'd be arriving at 3pm, and it had just gone 11am. I left, and she got pissed off, telling her I should wait with her.

So, after four hours of watching, you know, good bands, I walked passed Nessa, still at the front of the queue. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Getting some famous peoples' autographs". "But.. you went off! I've been here four hours!". "Nah, I just told you to hold my place". She was seething, but let me cut in line. She mentioned that I didn't have anything that they could sign. Noticing that an NME Maggot was trying to collect email addresses for subscriptions, I asked to get one of his subscription forms for the band to sign the back of. Problem solved!

The first guy (who Wikipedia tells me is called Gerard Way) took a while to sign mine. So, I did what I usually do, and started small talk. "So, Mr. My Chemical Romance Man, are you enjoying Leeds?"

"Yeah" he screeches, with a very whiny American tone. "Well, we were here last year but we were in a much smaller tent and peopledidn'treallyknowofusbackthen..." - the guy starts talking at the speed of a six year old when she's just seen a rainbow. Noticing that the line had moved along, I had to end the conversation with Gerard and move to the next one.

Let's just say the next one was called Mikey. I'm using that name as Wikipedia lists me the members of MCR, but I can't really remember which one it was. He quickly signed his autograph, but Nessa was still swooning over another member of the band thus holding up the line. So, I made more small talk. "So... any news on the next album?"

Suddenly Gerard - who is currently signing the album owned by a 13 year old - stops what he is doing, pushes Mikey aside, makes eye contact with me and says -

"Well, yeah, we like, totally wanted to release it now but the recordcompanytoldustostarttouringtopromotethealbu-"

"Right! Okay!" I say quite loudly. He seems to be on some sort of speed.

I move onto the third member of the band. I know now not to make any small talk for fear Gerard may start speaking again. The third guy asks me my name. "Friz" I reply. "With one z".

But, I say 'z' like 'zed'. This excites Gerard who stops what he's doing again - leans over Mikey to talk to me to say-

"Ooooohmygod! We've been here three months already and nobody has said "zed" yet! How British! How quaint! Zed! We only ever hear Zee!"

I stare at him with blank eyes. I blink. I move onto #4 and #5 without saying a word.

===

Later that day, I'm off to see Kaiser Chiefs. Gerard Way is eating a burger. He stops me, briefly recalls me for two seconds, forms a smile on his face, and yells...

"FRAZ!".

"Close one, mate" I say, walking off.
(__, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 18:17, 2 replies)

in which Phill Jupitus nearly steals my toy bee.
So, due to a combination of intense poverty, surprising lameness of friends ["what do you MEAN you 'don't want to go'???"] and having an incurable brain disease that made me [not to mention my supremely-worried and protective parents] wary of going more than an hour away from my local hospital I didn't pop my festival cherry until last year, at the creakingly old age of 22.

Did I get wasted and muddy at Glasto? Or spazzed out at Reading? How about writhing in metally hardcority at Download? No, in fact, I opted for the wonderfully genteel and astoundingly middle-class, theatre/comedy/poetry/literature/music festival Latitude. Nice mid-sized festival, still new enough for the arseholes not to have caught on, established enough to have a pretty damn good comedy lineup. Good place for me to cut my naive, crowd-fearing festival teeth.

So, it's Day 3 and there i was, in a happy post-smoke fuzz [i'm quite a lightweight] with some newly-met friends, happy and chilled out enough to get over my usual "shit-shit-you're-in-a-crowd-someone's-gonna-mug-you-someone's-gonna-mug-you" anxiety and blearily discussing 'current affairs' in the astoundingly confident, yet uninformed way that only drugged people can manage. I'm assertively stating my point about fuck-knows-what when, surrounded by a light cluster of hangers-on, a pork-pie-hatted, beponcho'ed and overwhelmingly fucked up rolypoly vision strolls slowly towards me.

I actually manage to finish my sentence before my eyes catch up to my mouth and i interrupt my friend's rebuttal with a casual "Phill Jupitus just walked past." I know that i want to jump up and ask him for an autograph, but somehow i'm not quite sure if i can be bothered. My bag IS all the way down on the floor, after all... We all double-take and confer to make sure. Yes. it absolutely is him. Definitely. and, by all that is stripey and wasted - is he off his TITS...

Digging around for my mascot and camera [i'm an ugly fatto, so take a small stuffed toy to act as a placeholder in photo-taking situations] I wander over to him, trying to work out a way to say "oh my god it's YOU! HI! Sign here and smile while i take a picture!!!" without seeming like a squealing fangirl.

Turns out that I didn't have to. He's already been caught by another fan, and is enthusiastically scrawling his name on a scrap of paper when he stops mid-signature, jawdrops and GRABS for my mascot. His name is BobTheBee.

"WOW!" he chortles, hugging him in delight. "WHO IS THIS???" he shakes the toy at me emphatically, then gently strokes it as if to apologise for the rough treatment.

"Uh, uh, it's my toy. His name's Bob. He's a bee" I wave my camera vaguely. "Can I take a picture?"
"Wooooooooowwwwww....." he gazes lovingly into Bob's button eyes, enthralled as if hit by Cupid's 'Toybestial' arrow. I slyly snap a picture from the shoulder in case he - or his considerably more together friend - refuse to let me take a proper one.

"Bobbbbbb..." he strokes the bee again, grinning to himself.
"Uh, Phill? Can I take a picture?" I wave the camera once more to illustrate.
"OF COURSE!!!" he beams, posting gleefully with the toy. I turn on the flash snap a second picture and as soon as it's done he snuggles up to the bee again. I smile grin, cos it's kinda cute: massive stripey man, tiny stripey bee; then reach to take Bob back.

He holds on.

"Um. can i have my bee?" I pull a little harder, not really wanting to enter into a tug of war with him, not with all these people watching, anyway. There's not really any way i'm going to go without him, i love my bee!

His big happy face contorts into heartbroken expression and he clings on for a moment longer, nuzzling up to Bob's none-too-clean fur. Finally, with a tender squeeze, he relinquishes the toy but not before yanking me into a bearhug, pressing my rather confused face into the fuzzy scratchiness of his newly-bought festival poncho.

"BYEEEEE BOB!" he calls, waving sadly, and for a stabbing moment i feel somewhat bad for breaking up what was surely destined to be a beautiful lifelong relationship between large funnyman and small stuffed bee. I mean, who am i to stand in the way of true love? Sure, it's an unconventional relationship, but with his money and fame, it's likely that Phill could show BobTheBee a much better and more glamorous life than i ever could. Could i really bear to live my life knowing i had destroyed what could have been something truly momentous?

I hesitate for a moment, but selfishness wins out. He's MY fucking bee. He's gonna STAY mine! I get Bob to wave a fond farewell to his brief but passionate love, steeling myself for the inevitable sobbing outburst that must surely follow his departure but before i've even turned to leave, he lets out a huge squeal of delight and launches himself joyously at someone else.

Someone who has a big, cool, minty, refreshing Cornetto.

Ah, how quickly love is forgotten....



As for Bob, he still has his memories, and a fucking fantastic photo to look back on:



Click for bigger (121 kb)



[HOGROAST!]
( Seventh is somewhat subdued, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:49, 11 replies)

V Festival - 2005 - Hygiene
After queuing for a portaloo for what seemed an eternity, I finally reached the front of the queue.

I saw the door of the next available Khazi open, and out walked a bloke.

Not at all strange you may think, except he was holding a baguette in his hand...

Filth, utter filth.
( addickted has attained freedom, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:47, Reply)

Pulp but no fiction
V97 or V98. One of the two but cant remember which.

This was back when summers were hot every year. Wandering around V festival at Chelmsford with a mate, we spotted a bloke dressed in a full monkey costume giving out leaflets, but with some kind of security woman with him for some level of protection.

Now this was a hot day, people were melting and it looked like a festival for Lobsters. So I told this bloke fairly vocally that he was a wanker and a twat and obviously desperate for money. He looked at me and wandered off.

Later that night the headline act Pulp came on stage, only for Jarvis Cocker to reveal that he had decided to go around the festival grounds but could only do it in a disguise. That disguise was a monkey costume.

I had insulted the headline act.
(lordofallhesurveys How appropriate you fight like a cow, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:35, Reply)

I don't really go to festivals
However, last year I went to Infest. Not so much a festival, but still.

We stayed in halls of residence at Bradford University, the gigs were indoors and we had running hot water, one person per shower, en suite.

On the way back, we went through Leeds train station. What did we find? Fucking cordoned off areas full of shit-caked people, obviously not going anywhere, no money to get back home and looking like something off an Oxfam appeal video.

Then our train home was disrupted because of them. They were just packed into any tight space available, meaning we couldn't get from our seats to the bar / toilet without having to squeeze, crawl and stagger over them.

Just... what's the point? I HAVE been to festivals, now I don't. I really didn't realise what an utter fucking inconvenience these people are to everybody else.

Sorry for length, but surely some people agree with me?
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:26, 3 replies)

Come and warm yourself by this roaring candle.
A different type of festival to most of the ones here I think. A few years back my missus and I were involved in a local music festival which, rather than being in a field, was a series of traditional Scottish music concerts in various venues around the area.

The closing night was in a hall at the local distillery, and to make it pretty my wife was asked to make some candles with the festival's logo on (she does that sort of thing as a sideline).

The candles were made, put around the place and lit - I did wonder if the whole place would go up in a fireball as the whisky fumes ignited, but there wasn't a sniff of the stuff in the air - and it was all very atmospheric with the lights dimmed.

The place filled up with all sorts of people, including two coachloads of old folks on a tour. And away we went with the music.

Now this was summertime, and we were on an upper floor, and it was pretty well full, so it was all starting to get rather hot. Like quite a few of the people there, I made a bid for some outside air at the half-time whistle and headed downstairs.

Of course the way was blocked by various members of the Blue-Rinse brigade making their way one step at a time down towards the door. So I got a fine opportunity to overhear two of them wittering on about how hot they were.

"OOoch, it's verra hot in there is it no, Etty?"
"Aye, it is Morag, aye, verra hott"
"Are you no' feelin' that it's hot, Etty?"
"Och aye, it's hot alright, aye, verra hott, aye."
"Ach, it'll be all the candles. They put out a Terrrrrible heat, candles"

A terrible heat?

I wanted to rebrand them as OAP Winter Warmers, but apparently this was bad taste because when I rang the Council to suggest they might fund a distribution programme they put the phone down on me. Tight gits.
(richardm, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:12, Reply)

No shit
We all know the bogs at Glastonbury are bad, legendarily so.

One year when a group of us went, Mad Tim and my sort-of-ex managed to last the entire weekend (friday afternoon to monday morning) without doing a poo. On the way home, they got out of the van and into the bogs at the first service station we stopped at pretty damn sharpish.

Can't understand how they managed to do that, if I don't don't have a great big dump in the morning I can't function for the rest of the day.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:09, 6 replies)

Reading 2003
More to follow, but I woke up one morning to find that somebody had squirted an intricate pattern of ketchup-swirls all over my tent.
To top it off, they then sprinkled pasta onto it. Nice touch.

I'm off to Download next weekend... I haven't used the tent since.
I think I should check, before I go there.
( Cawl, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:05, 3 replies)

... and one friend, a Levellers fan
... was dead keen to see them play at Glastonbury on the Friday. It was quite cute to see him getting more and more excited the closer and closer we got to the time. We got down there on the Thursday, and set up camp. Boshed a couple of tabs of acid, and had a smoke. My friend decides - wisely - that he's going to have a shit while the toilets are relatively "clean".

So off he toddles, and a couple of us follow him to go for a slash.

We wait for him.

And we wait for him.

Sitting having a shit, he realised he'd absolutely chosen the wrong bog, as this one was clearly being lifted up by a crane.

But he's on acid. Silly boy - of course it's not moving!

Except it bloody is, though!

No its not, lad. You're tripping. YOU'RE TRIPPING!

It bloody is ... sure it is ...

He finishes his shit, pulls his trousers up, and ... well ...

Just in case, you understand ...

Gets down on his hands and knees (in a festival bog!), and very gingerly opens the door ...

To find us - and soon everyone else - laughing, staring and pointing going "What the FUCK are you doing?!"
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:01, 2 replies)

Tenuous, but worth telling (I hope)
A couple of weekends ago, as a favour to my girlfriend, I found myself in Dalton, Cumbria at their annual Medieval Festival, selling her friends chocolate.

While we were setting up, I got chatting to the guy and girl at the stall next to ours who was selling photographs. He looked about 40 and was dressed as a monk. The girl was dressed as a medieval wench, and a buxom one at that, but I stopped myself thinking about her breasts when I saw her childlike face as I didn’t want to be ‘that’ kind of person.

The festival started to get underway so for the next few hours, I did little than sell chocolate because despite being £1.95 for a tiny bar people seemed to love it meaning we were always busy. Then lunchtime came around and we started to quieten down, as people went off to eat or watch the street entertainment or (in huge numbers) congregate at the beer garden and get quite royally drunk, much to my envy.

So, in a quiet moment, I wandered off to look at the Monk and Wenches photos, although only the monk was there at the time, the wench must have been off doing whatever it is that young wenches do.

(By the way, I am becoming increasingly aware that you are probably expecting this to be some awful pun, but I assure you it’s not going to be)

Anyway, I was mightily impressed with the photos, and said as much to the monk, adding ‘Did your daughter take them all?’

Only to hear the angry words

‘Molly is my girlfriend’

And I spluttered some apologies and fled back to my stall and my barely able to control her hysterics other half.

You’ve never known discomfort until you have spent two hours being glared at by an angry, fake, possibly paedophile monk.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 17:01, 1 reply)

Whiting out...
A word of advice: if you are going to take recreational drugs at a festival, be very careful where you choose to enjoy them...

Reading 2005. Main stage. About 15 meters from the front. I'd been working my way forwards for quite a while, with the aim of being at the very front when the Pixies would grace the stage, and despite there being only one band left (the Killers, if you care) before them, I was confident. I was also carrying several joints, which I had been merrily smoking by myself (having lost my mates some time back). Just as the Killers came on, I thought I'd light up another one. One toke. Fine. Two tokes. Ooohh, spacey. Three tokes.

WHITE OUT!!!

Head rush, feeling sick, need to sit down. But I can't cos I'm in the middle of a huge fucking crowd. So I turn to escape. But I don't decide to head for the side, oh no. In my confused mind, the best way out is BACK THROUGH THE ENTIRE CROWD.

So I turn and start pushing my way, quite forcefully, through the mass of people trying to dance and jump around. You know that bit in a zombie film where there's one person desperately trying to fight their way out of a crowd of hundreds of the fuckers? I felt like that. Wave after wave after wave - no matter how many people I passed, more instantly took their place. I was freaking out. I felt like I was going to faint, my limbs were going numb, and I'm fairly sure that after about 30 seconds I was no longer walking - rather, I was continually falling, with each new set of people knocking me into an upright position, at which point I would fall through two of them and be pushed back upright by the next lot. I knew that if I were to hit the ground, I wouldn't be able to get back up again. Utterly terrifying.

After what felt like an hour (but it all happened within the timeframe of 'Jenny Was a Friend of Mine') the crowd thinned and I fell into a little clearing, landing face-first on the dirt and proceeded to desperately dry-heave, retching hard enough that the spasms were making my entire body bounce up and down. I must have looked like I was dying. Not that anyone came to help. No, they all just stared at the druggy freak.

After a while, I felt strong enough to crawl away from the site of shame, at which point I saw some friends I hadn't even known were at the festival camped out on a blanket. So I joined them, and eventually watched the Pixies from a nice, calm spot behind the chaotic crowd.

And had my last joint.
(HarryTheMole whatever's on my finger is going in your mouth, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:59, 1 reply)

Reading 06
Ending up shagging some random girl one evening while my friends proceded to hurl raw burger at my tent. I didnt care, I was rather intoxicated.
( epiphany coming live from sweden, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:56, Reply)

Glastonbury idiocy
First time, so be gentle with me. EDIT: Actually, sod that. Rough me up a bit.

Stumbling around one of the drier Glastonbury festivals at about 3am my mate Dave comes across an attractive young lady holding a pair of handcuffs. ‘Let me cuff you to the flag pole and we can play for a bit’ she asks with a seductive wink that suggests naughtiness and much shenanigans. Now Dave is not a smart cookie at the best of times, but when he’s got so many illicit substances in him that he rattles like a bottle of paracetamol, he’s the kind of guy that jumps into the Thames or climbs a building for a laugh. Even so, he still declines the generous offer, figuring at best his girlfriend will cut his nuts off.

Staggering back the same way at 6am he sees a very forlorn looking chap, shoulders slumped and trouserless, handcuffed to the very same flagpole. ‘Can you let me out of here please mate? Some bitch stole my wallet.’

What a muppet.
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:55, Reply)

Flaming Fucker
My mates and I were sat on the perimeter hill that lines the edge of the Download site; the bit just before you get to the racetrack, where you can sit and mong out and watch the tiny speck of the band in the distance on the main stage while I relax after a heavy day trudging about and queueing for:

a) a piss
b) some beer
c) some more beer after a big hairy cunt spills my pints on the way back to where my mates are sitting
d) a portion of under-cooked noodles smeared in watered down brown sauce for the princely sum of £6–50
e) another piss
f) a novelty giant sized top hat made out of bright red felt
g) oddly, a Calipo – just because I really fancied one
e) even more beer

So, my mates and I spent our day wandering about, listening to various bands and saying to random emo kids: “Cheer up, mate – might never happen.”

We’re sat on this big steep hill, drinking the contents of a big paper carrier bag full of booze we’d managed to smuggle in with us, passing round the now nearly empty bottles of bacardi, JD, and Teachers (blurchh!). I have absolutely no idea who was playing. It was the year System of a Down headlined, so it was probably them. Though in all honesty it could’ve been Britney-fucking-Spears on stage as far as we were concerned. We were – I think the phrase goes – absolutely fucking shitfaced wankered.

Steve goes to finish off the bacardi, swigging it back and taking a deep pull on the bottle; he looked like an eager calf greedily suckling at a set of engorged cow-boobies. Mike, my other mate, playfully knocked the bottle out of his gob and it fell to the ground and rolled down the hill, gathering speed, bobbling and bouncing until it hit some goth bird on the arse. She turned and shot us a nasty look, called us a “load of wankers.” We apologised.

The band droned on on stage, the sound lost in the slight swell of the wind – it made whoever it was sound like they were in a tumble dryer. I sat and watched the crowd – the ground at the foot of the hill for as far as the eye could see was littered with thousands of festival-goers, mostly dressed in black, some dancing a bit, others relaxing laying on the ground, munching on something overpriced and undercooked.

Mike finished off the teachers, then he started absently searching for some stones and pebbles which he placed inside the bottle. After ten minutes or so he’d filled it up to the bottom of the teachers label, about a quarter full of stones and various bits of crap.

“What the fuck are you doing, Mike?” I asked.

“It’s getting dark... I’m making a light,” he said.

I shrugged. It kept him quiet, I was enjoying a nice little relax. Fuck it. I listened to the music, watched the crowd and glanced occassionally over at Mike as he systematically tore up strips of the paper carrier bag and stuffed it inside the bottle. Eventually, after he’d laboured over this thing for about five minutes, he set fire to the bushy load of paper sticking out the top with his lighter; it looked like a miniature flaming palm tree, and plonked it down between his legs. Sat back with a big stupid grin on twattish face and went to stretch out his legs.

At which point he knocked the bottle over and sent it rolling down the hill, gathering speed, the bright orange flame flashing in the dim light as it mixed with whatever remnants of whisky were left inside the bottle.

“GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY !!!” I screamed.

Then other people screamed as they turned and saw this weapon hurtling towards them, this flaming improvised device of doom and destruction....

I heard more screaming. I heard loads more swearing....

.... but I’d really love to know how that turned out....

...you see, Mike, Steve, and Spanky were legging it as fast as humanly possible in the opposite direction before the flaming fucker hit.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:53, 4 replies)

The foot
We Went to Reading festival in 2007 with a guy that had lived next door to me for years who was a bit green when it came to drugs. This was to be his baptism of fire (quite literally) to a world of druggage to which he would never go back...

Got there on the thursday and set up camp with about 15 others, did the usual in getting everything set up and the fire going which was all good. Being the impatient lot we are, we bosh the acid on the first night but my aforementioned friend decided he did not want acid as it would be too heavy. Fair enough.

After a couple of hours he was getting a bit bored of watching us all stare at the fire making funny noises and laughing so unbeknownst to me asks another of my friends if he can have an E.

he has the E then after it does not work he asks for another, then another, then another.

In the space of an hour. AN HOUR. This man had never taken drugs before in his life. He came up and couldn't speak for about 2 hours, his face looked like it was about to explode and foam was coming out of his mouth. Any attempt to communicate was met with a wild stare and a growling noise through the clenched teeth of a madman, I feared for his life.

After 2 hours of trying to get the poor fucker to tell us what he wanted he shouted in the loudest possible way:

JOOINNT!!

after getting the joint sorted he decided that his feet were cold and wanted to to put them in the fire. Despite this obviously being a bad idea and everyone trying to discourage him from doing so, he kept putting his bloody feet in the fire!

On waking up in the morning it turned out that his foot had actually cooked inside his wellington. Like properly cooked. The flesh had come away from the bones and all you could see was meat and tendons, it was disgusting. I am at work now and don't have the picture, but when I get home you are all in for a treat!

BEHOLD THE FOOT!

This was about 3 months after the date in question. I can't find a more sickening one than this I'm afraid


(Jimmy Large Is huffing Jenkem on, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:46, 8 replies)

Glastonbury
Got there on the Wednesday in glorious sunshine. We'd got tickets, we'd bought a tent, we'd carried it an hour to our campsite.

Nothing was really set up but we wandered round enjoing the sight of it all being built, the campsite fun, etc.

Thursday was spent working out what we were going to see and how much fun it would all be. Saw some craziness, drank lots of Brothers cider and went to bed happy as festival virign could be.

Friday was the worst rain ever. It started at 1am and was still going 10 hours later - it made a monsoon want to hang it's head in shame. Mrs WM was crying her eyes out as she was so unhappy, we had the only waterproof tent so the rest of our mates wanted in.

We tried to get out of our camp area and to the stalls to buy wellies and pretty much needed boats. A decision was made - we left.

We left the tents, the duvet, the sleeping bags and took only what we could reasonably carry with us. Her in her pink wellies, me wrapped in bags muttering the words 'thought i'd be able to get wellies here (I could but by the time you got there you were so muddy and wet it was pointless).

We crossed the entire site in 2 hours, avoiding overflowing cesspits, knocked over toilets, miles of flooded tents and destruction. It was like Paris on steroids - rivers of brown shit and slush everywhere.

Taking the train home (our mates had decided to stay) we heard that half the stages were underwater and damp and everything would be late/cancelled, etc. We both felt terrible, it was like the walk of shame without the sex.

Got home and decided the £500 we'd drawn out would be blown on the best weekend we could manage. We spent the next few days drunk and eating amazing food in a 5 star hotel in London.

A fortune spent on tickets and camping gear and the only music we heard the whole time; Nice weather for ducks by Lemon Jelly.
(Wooden meal is. Or is he?, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 16:45, 2 replies)