"You can't take that in, mate."
Years ago I went to see Metallica and Marilyn Manson play at the Big Day Out at the Milton Keynes Rose Bowl. My mate Greg and I had been queuing up to get into the place for ages, the sun was beating down and I was quite happily chugging back can after can of Kestrel while Greg sipped at his litre bottle of Navy Rum (being a tight bastard he planned on nursing the bottle all day, showing it the kind of love and attention that should’ve been reserved for a firstborn child). We were doing a happy little dance of joy – we’d been waiting to see Metallica for a fucking long time and were pretty damn excited.

Eventually we get to the front of the queue. We get a full body search from some geezer who looks like Jason Statham’s uglier, harder-looking brother and another bloke who turns out to be an incredibly butch and hideous woman. Jason Statham’s brother says to Greg: “You can’t take that in, mate – its glass. Put it in the bin.” And he pointed towards a BIG fucking plastic container filled up with a wonderful plethora of amazing, wonderful booze bottles (there was also a sword in there – fuck knows why someone decided to bring that to a festival). Greg asks if he can transfer the contents of his bottle into a plastic container. “No,” comes the terse reply. I start to realise now why it’d taken so long to get to the front of the queue. This poor fucker had had enough of metallers attempting to smuggle in more contraband than Han Solo would’ve been proud to handle in a couple of decades.

Then Greg says something genius. In retrospect, it was probably the most fucking stupid thing I ever heard him say: “Can I drink it now before I go in?” He asks. The security man mountain shrugs and moves onto the next person in line, pushing us to one side while Greg decides what to do with his pride and joy – the lovely bottle of booze. Greg takes a BIG swig, pulls a weird face as the rum burns his throat.. He offers me the bottle. “Fuck no, mate,” I say. “Can’t fucking stand rum.”

So we stand there for a few more minutes, people pushing past us to get in, as Greg manages to drink almost an entire litre bottle of rum. When he can’t take anymore he lobs the bottle in the bin and we approach Jason’s brother again, he says: “You gonna be ok?” to Greg, who shrugs and slurs: “I’m fine – that was just my breakfast, mate.” And we’re allowed inside.

We make it a couple of paces, we get out of sight of the security in the milling crowd, before Greg turns to me, and says: “I think I might have a little sit down for a bit.” Greg then slumps to his knees, assumes a position as if he’s praying to Allah, and makes a funny little gurgling noise. “You ok, Greg?” I ask.

Greg moans quietly for a bit, then I notice the deep, dark patch appearing at his groin and spread down his legs with added steam as he proceeded to piss himself in full view of a thousand-or-so festival goers. “Don’t feel too good, Spanky,” he says, as he tries to stand up, vomits spectacularly into the air like a chutney fountain, and then falls into a deep, heavy sleep, snoring like a Bison with bronchitis and a forty a day fag habit.

Useless cunt...

Thankfully Greg sobered up after a spot of gentle kicking. But to this day I still can’t listen to anything by Marilyn Manson or Metallica without being reminded of the pervasive, almost imperceptible smell of stale piss and rum-flavoured vomit.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 5 Jun 2009, 11:24, Reply)