Modern festivals.
I did a lot of free festies in the 80s, Stonehenge, Ribblehead, Bristol and Avon and a few others. I did Glasto too, but it was still pretty anarchic, you could get over teh fence and Old Bill weren't allowed on site, so the drugs were pretty in your face. The hot knife bus was good, 20p a hit or 6 for a quid. Through a gas mask, superb!
I didn't go for a number of years, till I went to Reading in the late 90s. What a bummer. Place crawling with cops and security, not allowed to take your own beer into the arena, and overpriced food, that was crap. Blah blah, moaning old hippy. Is the Wicker Man on this year, that sounds pretty old school?
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Mon 8 Jun 2009, 10:11, 3 replies)

Hare Krishna crew.
Top bunch of nutters, who give away free curry and rice. Course you have to do a bit of singing and dancing, it just adds to teh fun.
Do they still do teh festival circuit?
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Mon 8 Jun 2009, 9:37, 2 replies)

Driffield
A smallish town about 20 miles out of Hull is the home to an annual festival called "Tribfest".

Disappointingly it features tribute acts and the like rather than the girl-on-girl action that I expected.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 8 Jun 2009, 9:29, 1 reply)

Jingle Bells
I spent Christmas with Alan, Alison, Alex and Albert - and I have to say that they looked splendid in their yuletide clothing. They were wearing novelty knitted jumpers with reindeer, snowmen and suchlike decorating them; on their heads they had the traditional paper crowns; and they spent the evening singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" around the piano.

You know where this is going, don't you?

I don't think I've ever seen such festive Als.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 8 Jun 2009, 9:23, 5 replies)

The Can Can

Many moons ago, when Reading Rock Festival was still good, I was in the crowd waiting as the band changed over. On stage was a lone technician fiddling with a bank of amps.

Then, out of the middle of the crowd someone threw a can at the tech.

It tumbled lazily over the heads of the crowd in a big arc and fell towards the lone technician. He glanced up.

The can was heading down towards him and was going to miss him by a gnats chuff. Just before it was about to hit the ground, the tech deftly backheeled it and it spun across the stage.

The crowd went wild.

They cheered, they clapped and then..........

buried the flash bastard under 10 000 cans.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Mon 8 Jun 2009, 3:39, 1 reply)

The Gathering of the Thousands
Milton Keynes.

Animal rights type gets on the stage between bands and informs the audience that there is a fast food van outside selling meat in the form of burgers, hot dogs and bacon sandwiches. A lecture was directed at the appreciative crowd on how we should stand up to this capitalist oppression. The angry crowd went outside to fight the good fight and send the murderer on his way.

Meanwhile I had slipped out and bought myself a bacon butty, a hotdog and a cup of tea, bloody starving was I.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 21:39, 2 replies)

Quiet Riot on the Island
In the army, anything can happen...

Weekend arrives, one of the other soldiers knows of an outdoor all day rock concert 50 miles away and as I have the only car...

Cue new guy (Joe) to the unit asking if he can join us. Five crammed into my car and Mike on his motorcycle we get there under cloudy skys. Mike immediately flips his motorcycle climbing the hill (mountain) to the campsites. We spend the night on a steep hillside during a torrential downpour in a tent with a 6 inch river running through it. Next day the show starts and we begin accelerated intoxication.

Midway through the day the new guy causes some trouble. Mike walks up behind the new guy to yell at him and he turns around and delivers the most perfect punch right on the jaw of Mike who then fell backwards and cracks his head (I can still hear it) against the corner of a two foot stone wall. Blood everywhere and our first thought is, yep dead. However Mike is instantly on his feet and delivers a beating like you never saw to the new guy, who we then drag behind some trees.

Fifteen awesome bands later Quiet Riot (the headliner) is set to begin playing, however the police show up and tells them the concert permit has expired and the show is over. Cue the cops and the bands management engaged in some animated discussion while we prepare for disappointment.

Five minutes later as police drive away, lead singer announces that though they were scheduled to play a 20 minute set, they were ordered to stop or pay a $10,000 fine, he then says in his rock star voice, "We didn't come all the way out here for nothing, Fuck the $10,000, Fuck the Police".

Then on this little island in a lake in Tennessee, they played three hours of the most headbanging rock I have ever heard, called previous bands in to join them, invited and got girls to dance topless on the stage, shot dozens of towers of flame 30 feet high, smashed guitars and threw them into the water. Awesome Event!



Quiet Riot one month after the release of their first album playing 50 feet from shore on a little island on a fresh water lake in Tennesee in Spring.
(OMG-Hilarious, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 21:28, 3 replies)

Grantstock
Someone at the local told me that Ross Kemp of Eastenders, Ultimate Force and Gangs fame, lives down the road.

Naturally I tried to find corroboration for this story on teh interwebs, so I Googled "Ross Kemp" and the name of the town I live in.

It appears that someone else had the same idea, for seven months ago someone posted to Yahoo Answers with the query "is it true that Ross Kemp has a house in Woodstock?".

And of the two replies, this was selected as the best answer:

"That would be top secret info giving his affiliation with different gangs. However property is not too expensive there so why not. Then on the other hand why would he as there is nothing to do or see there now except some OAP Hippies making jewellery."

Hmmm.

One is a former royal manor and lovely market town in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, home to Blenheim Palace and the sort of place where an actor/TV personality might decide to have a country bolt-hole away from, yet still close to, London.

The other is a small town (and thriving arts centre) in New York state some 40-odd miles from a farm where a music festival that epitomised the flower power movement took place in 1969.

I think I can see where the confusion crept in here ;o)

(And that's leaving aside the property value issue - we're renting before anyone assumes we won the Lottery).
(Capo, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 21:23, Reply)

accidental scores and other nonsense
where do i begin? we did lots and lots of festivals and parties in the late 80's to mid 90's... when it was still good... anyhoo... 1991, 50th anniversary of the discovery of LSD me and pal went to london town for the hyde park gathering to celebrate said discovery with a bag of ready rolled and no idea about what we were doing.. we wandered about the city wide eyed.. eventually at 3am the SPG grabbed us at marble arch and pointed guns at us!! it was surreal, it was over before we had a chance to even think about what had happened and all they wanted was to know if we were football fans?? thank feck they never bothered to search our bag which was full o stuff to warp the head....
1993 hitched to london on space cake and landed a lift from some half pissed plasterers from essex.. despite extreme fear in the back of their van it was a good lift all the way into london!! that was for the anti criminal justice bill do at hampstead heath... it was fun.. we were twatted on a number of substances but mostly hash fudge, special brew and acid, which incidentally was strawberrys.. the real ones at that, after i scored it i took it back to my gfriend and looked at it.. two of em but bugger, they were blank on both sides!! till i opened em up and we had not 2 but 4 result i think i danced to an alex patterson set, and people were asking me to sell them drugs!! that afternoon there was some altercation in a local pub and the police arrived en masse, i watched a proper riot!! for real with paving slabs thrown and people getting twatted etc.on acid..tripping my tits off and what was really weird was it never got a mention in the local or national news! censorship or what..

glasto90/91/92/93/94/95 acid acid acid... buying off the travellers who're all wasted on the stuff, animal as was his moniker was dipping football pools sheets with his bare fingers in liquid lsd!!
then there was geremy punting acid but so fucked that he couldn't even speak, sat on one of those foldy camping chairs with no bottom in so his knees were up by his chin with his arse on the floor stuck in the chair what a picture...

and there's us walking round shouting 'cash for hash' in an effort to score a weed

and that time i was giving one to my then sexy g'friend with the tent open with people watching, i was too smashed to care and i think she enjoyed exhibitionism.... fucking on mdma!! very intense.. and waking up in the morning washing down a trip with warm spesh'for breakfast

i really love the freaks though at festivals those stalwarts who have spent good time planning what they would dress up as, i have seen the jackson 5, one dude with a wig on and either side of him supported on timber is cut outs of the rest of the band.. genious, and Sandy Beaches, she was lovely i think she was meant to be a holiday rep or something.. you had to be there.... and the years we made good money selling wrist bands in pilton to ticketless and scared looking kids...

but mostly i remember being smashed a lot but in a nice happy hippy kinda way, while nasty stuff just seemed to miss us completely, i did make a point of smiling at everyone i saw who made eye contact with me, so if some saucer eyed new age mullet sporting tattooed pikey looking yorkshireman ever put the weirds up you it was an accident, i was trying to be pleasent..

we survived from trading jewellry and stuff we had made over winter swapping it for food and whatever whenever we could, it's great putting yourself in the hands of chance and relying soley on your wits(when they were about us)

i had some fantastically magical moments in a number of places, i also had some strangely alienating moments where communication with others was all but impossible cos the subtle nuances coursing accross their faces did not match up with the things they were saying,, paranoia or not perception is reality and a warped reality is still reality...

from what i've seen and heard most festivals these days are faceless sanitised corporate events with one singular objective, to seperate the young uns from thier dosh... it's a pity but a logical conclusion....

length... yup too long but loads of memories are flooding back and i am smiling so sod it
(TROLLING AWAY living under a post ironic bridge, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 20:29, Reply)

My first music festival
At my first music festival at 16 my friends and I decided to act the hippy and wander around the campsite making loads of new friends. We encountered a big pack of lads who suggested we wake up their friend in the loudest way possible for the laugh. Queue us peeking into the tent to see their friend completely naked, passed out and lying in his own sick.

We've been less friendly at festivals since.
(WhitieMcPaleface, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 20:12, Reply)

Monsters of Rock 1996.
My second visit to Donington was a bit of a let down. Ozzy was Ok but nothing special and the only other band on the lineup I was really interested in - Paradise Lost - we managed to miss by about three hours.
So, my main memories of the fest are:
1. Spending pretty much the entire day on top of the hill, drinking beer and eating doughnuts. I wandered within hearing distance of Sepultura at one point, then wandered off again.
2. The trip up: Our transport was an elderly van painted to look like a cow. When the engine started playing up, opening the hatch revealed something apparently stolen from a lawnmower. Poking it with a spanner got it going again and we trundled off on our way. Then we got to a roady bit that was single-lane. OK for us. Not so good for the rapidly growing line of cars stuck behind us.
I felt a bit guilty about this so I produced a pair of stuffed toys and gave the chap behind us a puppet show. I like to think he enjoyed it.

3. Kiss. Would Kiss live up to their legendary reputation?

Yes. Sort of.

The entrance was spectacular. A helicopter swooped low over the site, searchlight flashing across the bemused punters. When it came to a hover over the hilltop the downdraught caused one of the stalls to rip itself apart,to many cheers.
"You wanted the best" cried the PA. "You got the best...KISS!"
There were fireworks, there were giant inflatable statues...there was a bunch of old men in makeup who were so shit we fucked off after two songs.

Still I kinda wish I'd seen Cecil. Just so afterwards I could say "Yeah. I saw a band called Cecil once"
(Big D, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 20:02, 2 replies)

2 friends of mine, a couple, went to a big music festival for 4 days, when they got back they both looked distinctly worse for wear for it, and the excitable chat went something like this:
He: Yeh, well we had a bag of skunk with us and some pills on the first day
Her: And then we found that bag of whizz!
He: Oh YEH that was great!
Her: Yeh, we been awake for like the whole 4 days on that shit, huddled over fires, we never took a tent, it's a good job it didn't rain, LOL!
He: And then someone had some shrooms!
Her: Yeehh, ooooooh, they were nice! Went lovely with the Es they did...
He: The whizz was the best one tho, I mean fancy just finding that! BIG bag!
Her: You thought it was coke at first din't you?
He: Aye but it was too rough to snort! Had to rub it under me tongue or add it to water!
Her: Shame nobody had any acid, you can't seem to get acid anymore...

Etc etc etc ad nauseum, until I ventured into this 'discussion', 'Soooo, what bands did you see?

Where upon they looked at each other with somewhat puzzled looks and he stutteringly offered (whilst still looking at her for confirmation), 'Erm, I, I think one of the Rolling Stones was there, wasn't he...?'

Ok...
( ..wil, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 19:50, 1 reply)

Working at Glastonbury last year i found:
A bag of white generic powder
a lighter
A bag of green
£50 (while walking up to the stone circle during the night)
( schizophrenic_sheep, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 19:09, 2 replies)

Gate Crashers
So last year I was working at Sanctuary 2008 at the Matterley Bowl. Good event I'm told (I was shattered having been working all day and went to bed fairly early missing the event itself), but earlier in the evening we'd heard noises in the wood. Having a festival radio, we hopped onto the security channel and reported it. Security surround the wood we backed onto, and swept it, finding a small campsite in the middle the gatecrashers had setup. Security then proceeded to remove said campsite, and the clothes, food, tents and drugs left behind by the gatecrashers in their flight (up trees we reckon). The best bit was when the call came over the radio asking if all the security blokes were out of the wood from one of the dog handlers, the reply was "Yes, but why?" to which he responded "She doesn't like *anyone*, she's not even that keen on *me*". Good luck to the crashers!
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 18:48, Reply)

Ah, finally.
Gambling? Nope. Impulse buys? Not really. Unexpected nudity? A little, yes. But here, at last, is a subject upon which I feel I can speak with some authority. Having discarded my festival V plates* at the tender age of 17, I am now a veteran of God knows how many mud-strafed, pharmaceutically irresponsible weekend jaunts, spanning two decades and both hemispheres.**

There are just so many stories to tell. Like the time at Glasto when my mate R lost his virginity to a girl who, I was euphemistically assured, “had a lovely personality”, who was seemingly unfamiliar with the sound-proofing qualities (or lack thereof) inherent in Argos’s range of camping & outdoor requisites, and who made a noise like a cat being ironed when she got into the swing of things. The following morning he pinned his previous day’s underpants to the floor with a tent peg, then set fire to them, either as some sort of sacrificial thanksgiving or a rudimentary exorcism.

Or the time when, approximately 40 hours into a weekend bender that the late Hunter S Thomson would probably describe as “a bit fucking much, to be honest”, I decided that the best and safest course of action would be to propose to my then girlfriend. I staggered into the market area at Reading at 1am, barely able to gurn convincingly, let alone speak, accosted a deeply unimpressed stallholder, and announced my intention to purchase a ring. He fixed me with an expression, doubtless honed from years of dealing with semi-conscious twatbaskets such as myself, that said “however much you believe in your heart, right now, that you need to buy a ring, please trust me that you absolutely don’t.” The cunt still sold me one though. The engagement lasted 3 weeks, and I don’t take drugs any more…***

Or the time we got arrested in the middle of the day for smoking a casual lunchtime spliff in the doorway of our tent, by two of HM’s finest who looked like they’d graduated from Cop School that morning. Seriously, the male one looked like he hadn’t quite begun shaving yet, however his female counterpart was definitely ensconced in the ‘comfortable footwear’ enclosure, and gave off the impression that she’d castrate any one of us in a fucking heartbeat if the urge took her. They even had a crack at ‘good-cop-bad-cop’, with the work experience kid chatting amiably about the best food stalls on site while his colleague searched my mate’s bag (thank Jehovah she’d been holding the doobie when the constabulary showed up – if they’d searched my bag, we’d all have gone to jail). We did what I considered at the time to be an Oscar-worthy performance of wide-eyed naivety, claiming to have purchased a ready-rolled spliff from some random crusty the previous evening, because “none of us had taken drugs before and we fancied trying it”. Arf. The best bit, and I swear this is true, is that while this was happening, the compilation tape on our little stereo was playing ‘I Fought The Law’ by The Clash, followed by ‘Get Myself Arrested’ by Gomez.

Or the time my mate Paul came to Reading specifically to see Nirvana and nobody else, spent the entire weekend telling anyone who’d listen that he was there to see Nirvana, then drank a litre of supermarket vodka on the afternoon they were headlining, and passed out in the main field an hour before they came on stage. Subsequent attempts to kick him awake proved fruitless, but during one briefly lucid moment he did manage to utter the immortal words “Ah, fuck it, they’ll be on next year”. Oddly enough, they weren’t.

And then there’s been the music. I’ve seen some of the greatest bands in history perform some of the finest sets of their careers. I’ve seen virtual unknowns blow away an entire festival, and established megastars who turned out to be a staggering disappointment.

I couldn’t tell you my favourite – there are just too many. But I once saw The Levellers stop a headline show at Glastonbury, in front of 150,000 people, and announce that they weren’t playing another note until my mates and I (and about a dozen others) got down off the sound tower. Which is pretty cool, I reckon.


*Not at an actual ‘V’ festival, thank fuck. V Festivals are effectively a crowded barbecue/corporate branding exercise with Dido playing in the distance. For all eternity.

**The British do festivals way better than the Australians. I have never been able to figure out why.

***…than Motley Crue did on the Dr Feelgood tour.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 18:21, 1 reply)

Reading '99
On the first night, round our campfire, some young men stopped by who may have partaken in various intoxicating substances that day. They were kind enough to introduce us to their pet, "Bobby". Bobby, I must disclose now, was a small wood-and-metal fold-up chair.

They shared their enormous bottle of irn-bru with us then left to make more campfire companions.

Three days later, it's the morning we all have to leave, i'm lying in my tent thinking about all the reasons i don't want to have to get up and take it down, and I hear a piercing, truly anguished cry,

"NO! Someone's put bobby on the FIRE!!"

That gave me enough of a guffaw to help me out of my sleeping bag that morning. My condolences to Bobby's "parents" whoever you were.
( greenish, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 18:12, Reply)

Big Day Out '99
I'm a massive Metallica fan so the moment I heard they were playin that year tickets were rapidly purchased.

So off me and a mate toddle to the depression in the countryside known as the Milton Keynes Bowl and a thoroughly good day was had by all, well when I say all there was an exception that springs to mind.
Firstly the rock festival tradition of human pyramids, the one performed on this day was one of the highest I've seen in over 15 years of festivalling for those that haven't seen this beautiful monstrosity think a rugby scum turned on its end (in this case both in height and constituent parts) this was made all the more impressive by the fact that the ground is at a 40 degree angle!!

So this things about 25 feet high and all around are pleasantly high/pissed and are enjoying the feat then a young girl I can only describe as slight (it would've taken 5 of her to make one of the monsters in the pyramid) she then proceeds to scale the outside of the structure all the way to the top then raises her hands in triumph and falls head first to the ground below.

The Paramedics were quick to arrive as they could see the pyramid from quite a way away so a pile of bodies descends on her and 20 mins later she emerges cling-filmed to a spinal board never saw or heard what happened to her after that but let that be a warning kids when there's a lot of booze and drugs around ignore there person who says the words "I've got a great idea" in my experience it usually ends up in A&E
(Womble Lover Is in the corner kicking the cat, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 17:17, 1 reply)

Got told off by a Scottish bloke
for dancing to the Proclaimers at the wicker man.

'F'ckn Wee puffs'

?

Oh and the 30 man queue of Scottish geezers outside the 'MDMA tent'.

Priceless.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 16:41, Reply)

A mate of mine
Once told me that his mate, many years ago had taken too many fly agaric mushrooms at Glastonbury festival.

A few days later he came around.

Pushing a volkswagon beetle on the hard shoulder of a motorway.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 16:35, Reply)

Loudest rig ever.
The Boom festival. Portugal.

So loud, that even camping two hills away, it still sounded like we were trying to catch some shut eye in a night club.

Added risks:

* Deceptively deep lake. Great for swimming in when high.

* Far too hot. Our beer cans were extremely hot to the touch. I was the cheeky fucker who managed to blag a HUGE block of ice from the beer stall,for our food and drinks. 'Twas a proud moment walking my white, lanky ass back amongst all the beautifuly tanned europeans. They might have looked sexy, but i had fucking ice baby!

* Scorpions.

* Giant ants. Luckily they weren't posionous (as i fell asleep on their nest and woke up covered in them).

* Deceptively sharp grass. Don't swim round the festival barefooted and then walk all the way back barefooted (see scorpions and giant ants again).

* Far too many varieties of drugs.

* Deciding it would be a good idea to sleep in the cool chill out tent, and then falling into some strange kind of feverish nightmare (when the DJ started playing dark ambient stuff)

* The pink naked guy. Full body paint. Off his nut on acid or something.

* Don't leave your spare trainers under your car, thinking 'they'll be safe here, cost it's a hippy festival and everyone is really nice'. They will get stolen and presumably sold for drugs.

Kudos to the people who couldn't get into the festival and set up their own illegal 'anti-boom' across the lake.

Further Kudos to the bloke who sneaked into the Boom festival after swimming over the lake from the Anti-Boom.


:)
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 16:29, Reply)

Danny filth
Ozzfest many years ago.

It was my birthday, the sun was shining, i was merrily drunk and in a generally boisterous mood.

I found a blue sticker on the floor, lo and behold it was a staff backstage ticket. RESULT!!!!!!

I proudly waved my way past the security and decided to have a mooch in the performers bar/tent.

Inside i spotted cradle of filth, that bloke from drowning pool who later died and strangely enough... Faye from steps! (WTF!)

Anyhow, i bought myself a pair of beers and decided to have a chat with Cradle of filth.
Now please bear in mind that i didn't look like a typical Goth, or rocker.... in fact i've always been a scrawny, lanky type, and it just so happened i was dressed as colourful as possible (bright shorts, hawaiian shirt and bleached blond hair that had erupted into some form of afro)*.

I cannot remember exactly what i was saying to them, but i seem to remember Danny filth looking decidedly perturbed at my invasion of his post-gig beverage. And because i had a pass, there was no way i was leaving.

It's one of those moments that i wish i had viewed from another perspective, as no doubt you would have seen a jolly looking, flamboyantly dressed northerner, towering over this short arse goth and i was the one freaking him out.
They eventually made their excuses and wandered off.

Result.

*The only point in time i ever had an afro. My hair is usually straight, i have no idea why it happened. I guess some things are meant to be.

(Oh and this was the same festival i noticed my mates recently pierced tongue had become infected and bloated and turned a yellow shade of foulness and it stank too. Yurg)

Length. Six foot four vs four foot nowt.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 16:08, 2 replies)

Glade Festival, 2008
The messiest festival ever. Muddy, but I didn't care. Over the four days I spent there all I ate was a veggie burger and a vegetarian chili. Plus about two grams of MDMA a day. Don't remember much, really. £115 well spent though.
(SJH, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 15:24, 3 replies)

Broken heart, LSD, Hitch hiking. Sheds.Psycho lady. Kidnapping.
Okay long story short, i'd recntly split up with my girlfriend but we had tickets booked for the sunrise festival and decided we'd still both go with down there with our mates.

The first day or two wasn't good. Despite the festival being amazingly good, i was unhappy...
It was too much to take, she acted like a total stranger to me, she ignord me and the coldness was what hurt the most. I couldn't really enjoy myself at first. I had too much inner turmoil, and seeing her laughing and joking with other guys, was too much too take.

So i thought, sod her... I'll gobble some acid. And gobble some acid i truly did. Two sugar cubes of LSD and a tab later, i was high as a kite. The day was perfectly sunny, the bands were amazing and i seem to recall dancing like a maniac to some kind of live drum and bass performance, played on strings, drums, keyboard and double bass... Truly the best band i've ever seen, but to this day i have no fucking idea who they were.

The rest of the day was an obscure blur on my brain. Eat static and red wine, manic dancing, befriending a one eyed juggler; sitting wild eyed in a reggae tent and talking absolute shit to anybody that would listen, and generally just having an amazing time.

But then everything went wrong.

I spent the arse of end the main night in an LSD induced state of mental break down in my tent. The love of my life, we'd travelled the world together, lived together and shared a dream.... was ignoring me. It suddenly hurt again.

I can honestly say, i've never cried so much, uncontrollable sobbing, partially due to emotional struggle and mainly due to tha vast quantity of LSD in my system. My friend Libby found me, she was an absolute angel, she didnt even say anything to me, just stroked my head and hugged me. That at least sent me to sleep, to a land of delirious dreams and sun burned restlesness.

Anyway...
The next day. Presumably still high, obviously NOT thinking straight...
In a last ditch effort to win her heart, i decided that i would refuse my mates offer of a lift back from the festival today (Somerset to Merseyside) , instead i would try and woo her.


I thought she would love the fact that i'd stayed down south for her, hoping she would admire my recklessnes, maybe just maybe it would be alright...

But no.... She ignored me.

So here i was. Stuck in a festival that was pretty much over, stuck with my big fucking rucksack and tent and little bags of souveniers, in the baking heat and suddenly realising i'd lost my wallet. The girl i'd stayed for had bugered off, and slowly reality was kicking in.

Fucksocks.

The next three hours i spent looking for my wallet. But it was no use, it was gone. So i thought the next best option would be to hitch hike to glastonbury.
No problemo, a lovely hippy couple picked me up and drove me for thirty minutes and dropped me off in Glastonbury.

Great... I vaguely knew a couple who lived in the town, so i thought i'd pay them a visit and possibly use their phone and sort something out. I wandered to their house and saw a guy in their garden.

It turned out to be their landlord (who happened to live in a shed in the garden), who turned out to be a complete tosser. He didn't believe that i knew the people who lived there and that i should clear off. He didn't listen to my point that i knew the names of the occupants and that i simply wanted to abandon my bags for a few minutes, drink some water and rest up.

The cruel bastard didn't even give me any water.

At this point, i'd had enough. The sun was baking me. I was delirious and simply wanted my bed. Yet here i was on the other side of the country, trying to beg for water.

I wandered to the edge of town, knowing that if i headed for a few miles in one direction i would at least be on the right path for the motorway. Easy. Simple.

So i stuck out my thumb and patiently waited for a good samaritan to pick up this bedraggled northerner. My lift arrived in the form of a thirty odd year old woman in a converted ambulance, that looked like she lived in it.

'Where to?' , she asked.

'To the motorway, so i can hitch home, i've just come from the sunrise festival in Somerset'

'Okay no problem, clamber in, you'll have to get in through the back and sit in the front because the door on your side is broken'

'Thankyou'

So at least i was on the right track. Soon i would be home (hopefully).

The nice lady seemed quite chatty. Perhaps a little too chatty. Maybe it's nerves though. She doesn't know me. So why did she pick me up?

Why has she got the fucking heating on full blast on a burning hot day. Why is she talking to me about her friends in an overly-familiar way as though i'm supposed to know them.

Why is she looking at me like that. A kind of vietnam stare.

Why are we driving this way?

Yep, i'd been kidnapped. She totally ignored my request that i wanted to leave the vehicle. She was driving completely the wrong way. God knows where she was taking me. I was already too tired, too hot, and now very, very scared...

She drove me for many miles down lonely roads, even once laughing when she got lost and ended up reversing down a long arse country road, seemingly choosing directions at random.

I couldn't honestly do anything. I couldn't jump out the vehicle because my door was buggered and my bags were in the back, i couldn't wind down the window, i politely asked her to turn the cooling down, but she said she had to leave it on because the engine was overheating and still she was driving me the wrong way.

I asked her if i could get out.

'But you're in the middle of nowhere' was her reply.

She had a point. Nothing but obscure country roads and little towns, and i was without a map.

After maybe and hour and half, of her rabbiting on about her equally strange friends, she finally, finally dropped me off....

At the fucking festival. The same fucking festival i had left many hours ago.

I jumped out the van, thanked her (for not raping or killing me) and
collapsed on the grass for an hour or so, resting and trying to decipher if this was just some kind of strange dream. A lovely lady gave me a bottle of water (which probably saved my life) and then i had to hitch hike back to Glastonbury and try again.

This time hitchhiking back was a problem. Nobody wanted to pick me up. I was wild eyed, sweating, shaking and burned.

It took me at least another two hours to get a lift, and eventually i was back in fucking Glastonbury. It was getting dark and i was completely alone and didn't really fancy my chances of risking another psycho picking me up.

So i did what anybody would do in my circumstance. I walked back to the landlord guys house and waited for his shed light to go out and then i crept into the garden and fell asleep at the back behind a hedge.

The next morning i was awoken by furious swearing, an anger that i had never imagined. The landlord screamed at me to get off his property and never darken his soil with my lanky, northern ways. To hear him, you would have assumed i'd shat in his hat or something....

Bastard.

Anyway, i staggered back into town and decided that i would throw away one of my bags as it had become a burden. I was truly exhausted and simply wanted to get home now.

As i was rooting through my stuff, ready to sacrifice my tent, clothes and what-not, what did i find?

..... My bank card.

After all that fucking about, getting lost, getting shouted at, getting kidnapped and wandering around Somerset and Glastonbury in some dehydrated, drug induced fever...... begging for water and shelter.

I had my bank card all along.

Fuck socks.

Length. Longest day of my life.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 14:24, 12 replies)

Solid Snake goes to Glastonbury... **LONG STORY ALERT**
Can't take any credit for this one as it's not my story but an excellent tale all the same.....

wednesday 4pm: i'm sitting at home, in glastonbury, at the computer as per usual, and a friend phones me from inside the festival site.. 'alright mate, you in yet? we're all here chilling at our site, just cracked open some beers and on the cider'.. he knew i didn't have a ticket but i'd told him i'd be coming anyway. fuck knows how but i hadn't missed a glastonbury for 13 years, and i wasn't about to for lack of a ticket. it was tradition. i was resolute i was going to make the jump. my original plan was to dress like a ninja head to toe and attempt the feat with a grappling hook, leaving my bags and tent for friends to ferry in for me. at least that way if i did get caught, the gorillas...erm...security guards, may see the humour in the situation and laugh 'with' me as opposed 'at' me while they took turns using me as a human punchbag. i'd tried to acquire tickets but to no avail, (i'd spent the season snowboarding in france and money was abroad with no money when the first wave of tickets were released...by the time i returned to england, the 'locals tickets' reserved for residents of certain postcodes around the festival site had sold out), then tried to get work as i had done in the past but again, nothing came of it. this was my last option. however, after seeing the weather reports of torrential rain throughout the weekend i was having second thoughts. i'd attended enough muddy festivals to last a life time i saw no need to subject myself to another one if it was going to take so much effort. i echoed these thoughts the mate on the end of the phone and it dodn't take much encouragement from his end to make it painfully aware i was fooling myself in thinking no longer really gave a shit. of course i fucking did, summer for me never starts properly without the festival (as was apparant from last years festival break and shitty non summer like weather for the subsequent months!). 'ok man, i'm coming, i'll see you tomorrow'..

7pm: i'm eating my dinner getting restless. it was still sunny and there were tens of thousands of people already getting fucked in fields and here i was in my living room with a tv for company. i finish eating and pack what i can. i had envisioned an operation involving rope ladders, grappling hooks and a vast array of ninja equiptment, but alas, i suffer apathy like a disease, preperations wern't made and the closest i came to finding a grappling hook was a shoelace. my saving grace was the full goretex camo i'd bought years earlier at a discount rate from an army surplus store in an extreme sports festival. the intention then was to have a pimp ass outfit for the eveing which was coupled with a new pair of bright white 'dunlop greenflash' hi tops and some of aviator glasses. most people probably thought i looked like a prick but i enjoyed myself nonetheless. tonight however, the military gear would finally see its intended use. i allowed myself one small rucksack for the entire festival, anything more cumbersome would impede my stealth. i managed two t shirts, one extra pair of jeans, a jumper, socks, boxers and 4 plastic bags i would wear over my socks once the festival got muddy (ninjas don't do wellies). i packed a bottle of water and four twixes for nourishment. now to choose my footwear...anything i took would inevitabley become sacrifice to the pilton mud...i settled on a pair of old nike air max's, surely a worthy choice for any modern day ninja. they would die a noble death.

11pm: i've decided my best route of attack is at the north of the site around about worthy farm. there are access roads leading in and out of the site, alot of traffic so i figure they wouldn't expect people to make the jump there and leave it slightly less fortified. a GPS system wouldn't go amiss at this point but the best i could do was use google and print out a map of pilton which i'd use to navigate the mile or two down from the village to the festival site. obviously i wouldn't be taking the roads so needed something to point me in the right direction as i crossed through fields and gardens in the middle of the night. i start hitching from the corner of a road 7 miles away from the site. a taxi wouldn't be too expensive but if i was going to do this properly, it had to be a pikey effort from the start.

11:45pm: i arrive in pilton and get dropped off at the village shop. i've worked as a steward in the past so know a few things about security and the layout of the site. i know for one that you need a villagers pass to enter the residential area that leads towards the site. i also know what it feels like to be on the wrong side of a 12 hour shift (security work 8 till 8 ) so an early morning entrance when security were more concerned with staying warm and awake than watching the bushes for stalking sas lookalikes, was ideal. this gave me plenty of time. i chanced my luck at one of the guarded roads under the pretence i was going to my girlfriends house on 'bakery road' and was picking up my ticket from there. predictably they were having none of it so i retreated back down the road, melted into the shadows and scaled the first of many fences to come.

12:15am: after making my way to the bottom of the road and finding a hidden dark spot i could use to gain my bearing and asess the direction i should head, i emrged and set forth along the road toward the site. this took me straight past the temporary police station where a policeman was standing outside and was alerted by my approach. i nodded to him and asked how his night was, as if my being there was as normal as his, and was glad for that moment i wasn't wearing full ninja costume. waterproof camouflage is one of the more common sites at a muddy festival, ninja warriors are not...that could quite possibly have set alarm bells ringing. after exchanging brief courtesies, i continued down the road and as i got round the bend decided to break into a hastey jog in case the policeman decided i actually did look a little suspect walking through the village in the dead of night towards the festival site with a rucksack and full camo outfit. i ended up running round a corner straight toward a female steward sitting in a deck chair. i gave her a quick wave and she returned only a baffled look. i ran straight past without looking back and didn't give her so much as a chance to question my destination. as i ran up the road and round the next bend i saw another two security guards walking in front on patrol. taking this as a sign the roads were not the best place to be, i darted into the undergrowth and made my way up an unused, overgrown trail through thick trees and head height nettles and brambles.

12:45am: the climb up the path had made me start to sweat, so reluctantly i shed some clothing which only added to the bulk of my rucksack. out came the map and i made a quick estimation of where i was and where i needed to be. there was a large house with an incredibly bright light shining from a source just out of site and i cautiously took this to be another guarded area. as i crept round the bushes i spotted two figures huddled inside luminous jackets sitting on deck chairs. they were in the forecourt to the building. a road toward the site ran paralell and there were open fields opposite. the entrance to this field was a good 100ft down the road and unfortunately, immediately opposite the entrance to the yard, in full view of the posted security. the only cover offered on aproach was a scrubby two foot high bank of grass and foliage. the entire area was bathed in that dirty white light, highlighting any movement i made above the height of the dividing scrub, like a shadow puppet against the high stone wall guarding my escape into the welcoming darkness of the field. i took off my bag, got down on the floor and started to edge my way forward along the road, staying flush to the cover paying heed to stay low as not to be seen. i reached the entrance to the yard with the gate to the field on the other side of the lane. i waited and watched the security as they muttered with each other between the odd radio crackle, faces buried in hi vis jackets, looking dispiritingly at the floor in front of them. for a good two minutes i watched then, staying as low as possible, sprang up, darted across the road and vaulted the gate, making as little sound as possible.

1:15am: i ran through the long grass behind a hedgerow silhouetted against an illuminated sky. at the end of the hedge only a small wire fence seperated two fields, and as i reached it, the 'big' fence came in to view. hundreds of metres away, a hugely defiant wall of silver stood strong before a vast open field with no cover to speak of. behind it i could see the lights of the festival site sprawled out like a city, and hear the murmer of a hundred thousand happily fucked up people. mounted on one of the many turrets jutting upward from behind the fence, a light that could only be likened to a second sun, turned night in to day, and made stepping out from my comfortable darkness a disconcerting yet necesary decision. about a kilometre away however, across open grass, the cover of trees almost reached the fence. i crept through the fence and started running down the field against another hedgerow, hoping my distance from the fence and camouflage against the bushes would keep me undetected. the shadow i cast on the hedge was like an unwelcome companion i couldn't rid myself of, until once again i was in shadow. infront of me, through the darkness, i could make out a feint sillhouette of a car parked up in the field. my approach grew more cautious and as i came closer i was suddenly blinded by a flashlight. caught off guard i covered my eyes with my sleeve, looked around and noticed i'd reached a garden just over a low stone wall. instictively, i changed direction, leaped over the wall, back into darkness and ran to the hedge which proved too solid to get through at this moment. instead i opted for some overgrown grass and thistles to skulk in (thank fuck people around here don't seem to worry about letting their gardens grow wild). after about 20 seconds, radio's were crackling and beams of light were flickering through the garden. i lay motionless as they scanned overhead, confident i was now invisible to anybody more than two feet from me. after a while they left and i could hear engines out on nearby roads, no doubt looking for a shadowy figure in the bushes. i stayed there for a good while weighing up my next move. the lights in the house were on, i didn't dare venture through the front, and back on to the roads, neither could i continue through the now apparantly guarded field. i went back to the hedge and found i could climb in. it was about 8 feet thick and dense as fuck but i noisily pushed my way through into another garden secluded from the field beyond, and with a bit of hedge hopping, i found my way into well kept garden with an exit that led back in to the field about 30 metres behind the car the security were now obviously posted in. the far end of the field, closer to the big fence, was my destination. the grass was a couple of feet long and and packed with thistles, and as not to be seen, i adopted the same position as earlier, and crawled slowly through the cover until i was at a great enough distance from the car, where i exchanged my crawl for a crouched jog.

2:00am: i hopped over a barbed wire fence on the far side of the field and crouched behind an open gate, in a hedge, and observed the situaton whilst eating two twixes and hydrating myself. the fence was once again illuminated but not as much so, and less than 100 metres from me. still not close enough but i could sit and watch the patrols and observe how frequently they passed, and the direction they came in. just to my left was another lane i'd need to cross to get to the next field and closer to the dense copse i was aiming for. i sat and waited for a good half hour. two security guards idly shuffled past my spot once while i waited, but aside from the landrovers every eight to ten minutes or so, it was relatively quiet. i knew the fence was too high to jump without aid. at this point the only chance i could see of scaling the thing would be to run out in front of one of the patroling landrovers jump on the bonnet, on to the roof and leap across grabbing the fence, hoping the seconds it took them to think 'what the fuck is this guy doing' would be enough for me to be on the roof and making my way over. i figured the fence to be a little over twice the height of the landrover and about a 4 foot horizontal gap from the roof, so the jump would be the easy part, getting on top of the thing before security caught me would be problematic. however, i knew this was a fucking stupid idea, so made a mental note to leave it to chance and see what fate presented.

2:30am: i clambered out of my hiding place and toward the entrance to the field. i looked down the lane from out of the hedge and there was another security guard posted by a building some 40 metres down. i waited for the right moment, then darted across the road to the closed gateway of the next field. i could hear voices coming from beneath a row of trees that ran down the middle of the field. i crawled under the gate and in to the shadows of the hedge row and lay down and watched once again. the voices got up and wandered off further down, so i took my chance and ran to the cover of the trees slipping from one to another, passing a couple of camping stools on my way, until i reached another stone wall which i quickly passed over back in to the safety of a welcome concealed garden.

2:45am: climbing over the next wall, i gingerly stepped down and found my footing slightly unstable. upon closer inspection i couldn't believe my luck. the festival site must be a good 10miles round, and out of all the places and gardens i could choose to make my entry from, i step over a wall, on to not one, but three ladders just lying on the floor waiting for me. the ninja gods were smiling on me that night, i'm certain of it. a renewed sense of confidence instilled, i stalked to the bottom of the overgrown garden to measure my situation. i could hear voices not far off so i moved with caution. just as i got to the bottom of the garden to look over the fence, back into another part of the tree lined field i just moved through, my good friend, darkness, turned round and bit me hard in the ass. in the dim light i didn't make out the piece of sheet metal sat hidden by the fence, that when stepped on, made so much noise, i might as well have shouted 'over here' at the top of my lungs. i ran back to the undergrowth and dived into a deep patch of leaves, grass and brambles, then lay still as alerted voices came close and shone torches in to the garden. radio's crackled, torches continued to shine then a few minutes later a landrover with a mounted floodlight sidled up to the fence and illuminated the whole place. i lay still in my cover and it drove off, voices got quieter...i waited a further 20 minutes until i moved out of my spot. i obviously couldn't make my entry here so i'd have to move the ladder to another spot, closer to the big fence and further from the security. attempting to move the ladder now would no doubt attract more attention, as the night was so calm it was impossible to move through such undergrowth, cracking branches underfoot without being heard, let alone untangle a metal ladder from brambles and move it around unseen whilst suspicions were high. leaving the ladder in place, i waded through waist high brambles toward the other end of the garden and once again asessed the situation. my movement must have been heard once again as more landrovers drove up to the fence and shone lights in to a part of the scrub i wasn't. a vast and well kept garden lay over a fence at this end, that ran down to a point that was only a good 50 metres or so from the big fence. that's where i had to get my newly acquired ladder. i moved back through the brambles with all the caution i could but it wasn't enough as the sound of movement brought radios and flashlights back to life. the security must now be posted just on the other side of the fence listening for me. i quickly re positioned myself in my previous hiding place and covered myself back over with brambles. i could hear on the radio, talk of 'somebody in the bushes' and security answered that they were just in and around the bushes looking for me now. beams of light scanned across my spot, more landrovers made passes and i lay in my spot decideding to eat another twix.

4:20am: i think i'd been lying still for over a full hour now. i could still hear the odd buzz of radio chatter but it had eased off. after a good half hour of footsteps rustling around my area and worried a guy with a torch was going to step right on top of me, they must have assumed after no more noise i'd moved on, but they were still close. then the winds started to pick up and i felt a drop of rain. a smile crept across my face as the rain became heavy and the wind grew restless. this was the exact cover i needed, and would mask the noise it'd make as i moved the ladder through the foliage. the security would also go and seek shelter under the trees, giving me some time and breathing space. i picked up the ladder, and retraced my path through the brambles over to the next garden. once i was over the fence on to the mown grass, movement was easy. i made my way to the far corner which would be the last cover i'd see until i went for the big one.

5:20am: i balanced, perched atop a wooden fence, watching the security guards, concealed by overhanging trees and creeping hedgerow. the ladder was positioned so, that a small portion rested, reaching just over the fence, in a way that when i jumped down, i'd be able to pull the ladder forth, and run, with a minimum amount of fucking about. it'd have to be one swift movement from the moment i jumped out of the hedge, to the moment i was in the festival site. there was no sound coming from the other side of the fence, so i figured i'd succesfully navigated my way to the worthy farm area which is off access to the general public. after more waiting and timing patrol passes, the right time came when security had strolled off up the field and the last landrover passed only a couple of minutes before. i jumped out, grabbed the ladder and ran towards the fence holding it above my head. security were approaching on their radios to call for back up. these guys were only there to keep a look out, it was the ones inside i had to steer clear of... the ladder went up and was almost a perfect height to the top of the fence. i climbed to the top, pulled the ladder up and dropped it down the other side just as the two security guards i had been watching and two i hadn't seen, got to the bottom. i gave them a cheeky wink and dropped down into the site. adrenaline high, i knew i didn't have long until i had to make myself hidden as i was in a part of the site i wasn't meant to be. i ran through what seemed to be a kind of orchard and down toward some buildings, through some gardens then jumped into a bush in a front garden by the side of a small road. only moments later the early morning peace was shattered as the site burst to life with the roar of engines and noise of two way radio's blaring. i covered myself with leaves and got comfortable. for a good half hour it seemed they were going nuts trying to find me. i could hear radio's only feet away asking if they had me yet, and hear the scuffle of people searching the area. i ate another twix and finished my water then waited for the heat to cool.

6:30am the area became peaceful once again and was a good a time as any to make a move. obviously everybody in the area would have been alerted of a bloke in a full camo suit, who'd made the jump, and as i still had to get past another security check point, i couldn't do so like this. i changed my clothes in the bush, swapping my camo garb for the loudest colours i had, then emerged adopting a drunken stagger, as if questioned for a wristband, i would reply with pissed nonsence and continue my stagger as if i was another festival fuck up who didn't know where or who he was. i 'stumbled' down the road toward the last checkpoint and could see tents at last...shuffling passed the security they were obviously too tired to give a shit who i was, and as i walked in to the site amongst the throng of people still doing there thing, i gave myself a big 'fuck yeah' for mission accomplished.


highlights of the festival, aside from playing real life 'metal gear solid' all wednesday night, were '!!!', 'fat freddies drop', 'mr scruff' and 'square pusher' who was so good i actually followed through (although that could be attributed to the dodgy diet and copious amounts of pear cider i'd consumed) and missed a good part of his set sorting it out.

it was fucking muddy though...
(The_Mighty_Spleen, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 12:46, 7 replies)

Roskilde '08
We started out with a lemon and a bottle of tequila given to me at a party some time before the festival. None of us were into tequila so we thought we could trade it into something better.
One of my friends is brilliant. For the tequila we got a nice big tent, and for the lemon we got a liver pâté. For the pâté we got a set of tennis rackets, and for those two folding chairs. The cheapest chairs I've ever sat in.
(Haz, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 10:52, Reply)

as a crusty i've been to a few
i'll try to keep it brief

glastonbury, many years ago, the toilets were set up over a huge pit which filled, rapidly, with waste. said toilets collapsed dropping ten or so folk in. yes. seriously. in small plastic cupboards as the waters (they wished it was water) rose. the toilet faeries were there and hosed them down and payed for new clothes. talked to the stall owner who furnished them. he did discounts all the way and then made a couple of the folk rum coffees. we alternatly gagged our way through the conversation at the stench from 50 feet away.

breaking into glastonbury over the wall at night. and realising we had dropped into the security compound (hullo Mez if yer reading this :D). Scuttled through the gates into the festival giggling.

trying NO2 and having to be carried/dragged to the tent by my incredibly patient GF. i do not reccomend it as a way to finish the night. i woke up with my feet out of the tent all puckered and blue and like lumps of painful stone.

witnessed jumping a 5 bar gate into the sacred space at glastonbury. not vaulting using a hand. strainght jumping. i dont remember doing it but witnesses made me try it again the next morning. i did not succeed. in a horribly mangled way.

Trying to stop a girl who was much too young molesting me. Ended up finding her brother to make her stop. that was an interesting conversation...

Hving run out of money/food but still having some green walking past a noodle bar to hear a member of staff say "we can't just throw that away". i aided them in not throwing a HUGE pile of noodles away by eating 3 servings and informing other hungry revellers. i swapped green for noodly goodness and all was well. 2 hours later woke up sunburnt and with a swollen noodlebaby belly.

i could go on and on but wont so last one? Solfest. just love it. See ya there! :D
(DreddPirateBob has watched every scifi film ever on, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 9:37, 3 replies)

Long time listener...
The first time I ever went to a festival was Reading, and I was 17 or thereabouts. I was supposed to be camping with my friends, but I got to the train station and saw some girls with tents, got chatting... and ended up staying with them. (And then I ended up spending half the weekend with a guy called Sharky. Which was great, because my name is George.)

But the story's not about that. I was walking down a walkway past a group of guys when they shout my name. Not knowing any of them from Adam, I was curious enough to ask them what was up. Turns uot they were shouting "jokes!". So I stand there, listening to their jokes, as everyone tries to outdo each other, which naturally leads to a long string of dead baby jokes. Eventually, they press me for a joke, but : fuck! my mind is blank. Can't think of a thing. So I demur, and others tell some jokes, and I rack my brains for something.

And then I remember it. The joke that Fanny tells to Mictlantecuhtli in The Invisibles. And eventually it comes back to me, but, well, I'm still a little shy. But it's coaxed out of me:

What's purple and stiff and makes women squeal?
Cot death babies!

And that goes down a treat. So well, in fact, that it seems to have been crowned the best of the lot. But it carries on, only now whenever someone new joins the circle, I am asked to repeat my joke. Eventually this becomes more and more frequent. The crowd has grown to above 50 people, at least. After a half-hour of this, I am getting increasingly bored, but, y'know, obviously enjoying the attention (and milking it by showing nothing but reluctance). Still, it'd been going on for a while, so I attempt to leave. They wouldn't let me. They joke is (apparently) too good.

So I just make a run for it. I get so far before anyone can respond, and soon am scampering away between the tents, nearly killing myself on guyropes. Still, I'm a pretty obvious target, so I play commando: ducking underneath the tents, trying to keep tabs on my pursuers. Eventually, I get away.

So this is a pretty good story, so when I am walking nearby with a friend of (an ex of) mine a few hours later, I make the mistake of telling them. And, maybe to test it, maybe just to be a dick, they decide to yell "GEORGE IS HERE!" Sod. So naturally the crowd notices me. And recaptures me. And it turns out that my disappearance was what was needed to elevate me from a boy with a decent joke into a prophet. The second coming of Jesus. "George". After I left, they continued searching. Then one of them got the idea that I was beneath the ground. So they'd started to dig for me with their bare hands. They showed me their muddy hands. Newcomers were perplexed, so I was asked to tell the joke again. By this point there were too many of them for me to escape: the crowd surrounded me about 3 thick in every direction. Eventually (after many tellings of the joke) we began to make a slow tour of Brown campsite. With increasing frequency, they would all shush, quiet down, and ask me to tell the joke. So I would and then they'd all get excited, and yell "COT DEATH BABIES!". They'd ask me questions, using "George" like it was a title. I just asked why they wouldn't let me go, what I had done to deserve this, would insist endlessly that I was nobody special, that I had just told a joke about a dead baby and a mother's grief. But that just egged them on further. Someone eventually put a candle in my hand, which I would hoist aloft while yelling "COT DEATH BABIES". The joke had lost all humour by this point: It was nothing more than a rallying call. Before I'd say it (which was approximately every 5 steps) everyone would shush, and crouch, leaving me the single man standing out of a crowd of around (by now) 200 people. And then I'd cry "COT DEATH BABIES!" and everyone would jump up and yell it with me and get excited and then we'd move on.

Some people didn't like my rule. One man jealous of the attention, threw a can of beer at my head. I wasn't too worried, because he missed: and fuck, I had 200 people around me to protect me. I had to specifically tell a few of my followers not to beat him up. Eventually a girl tried to get in on the action. She tried to declare herself "High Priestess". I went along with it as much as I could: I wanted to transfer this huge crowd onto her and escape. But she was too power hungry: the crowd would not accept her. I considered the power I had: Fuck, I had followers. I had a fucking cult, following me round, keeping me prisoner. But what could you ask for? They gave me some beer... I could only imagine getting some with a girl, 200 people surrounding the tent, begging for me to yell "COT DEATH BABIES!" I knew it couldn't last. Besides: I was only holding onto it by means of saying I hated it. I had power, but there was not a thing I could use it for.

(Oh, a bit after High Priestess, everything kinda dissolved. But I met a few of the guys who originally were involved at Santacon that year. The moment they saw me they dropped to their knees and cried "George!". I told them it was a time for Santa, and they kept telling me how weird it was to be drinking beer and talking to George like he was a normal person. Weirdly, they were also really apologetic)
(v21, Sun 7 Jun 2009, 4:47, 1 reply)

Rebellion Punk Festival 2008
I've played at the punk festival since 2007, and I'm playing this year.

Last year had some great moments, such as being in the worlds smallest dressing room, with Edward Tudor Pole and some other woman who was getting changed, all whilst blatantly flouting the anti smoking inside laws. Sat in a room of punks and burlesque dancers all huffing glue. Insulting Itch from The King Blues. Bitching about Itch from The King Blues with their former bassist. Singing "Please don't piss in my microwave" with cabaret punk band Monkish (who feature Chris Goodman - Ex King Blues). Eating a diet of only hot dogs. Smuggling all my friends beer in the back entrance (hur hur) with my artists pass. Pissing everyone off with my set, by singing the same chorus at the end for 10 minutes, the lyrics of which are "Bareback anal hardcore porn, amateur tittyfuck scat", laughing at a friend who took speed because she was so drunk, drinking Special Brew and playing loads of pop songs on my guitar outside the festival on the first day, Captain Hotknives hugging me in the toilets, absolutely twatted on weed.

ROLL ON 2009!!!!

My set involves : Feathers, chicken livers, toy guns, Wurlitzer organs, super strength beer tasting, custard pie fights, a mixture of original punk and pop song covers, all played on a ukulele this year!!
(Multi-Coloured Pop Shop "twat with a ukulele", Sun 7 Jun 2009, 2:47, 1 reply)