Post by Nik on Sept 5, 2004 8:39:10 GMT -5
I only found myself going to this one day festival by chance. Around Christmas time late in 2001 I spotted an advert for shows Greenday were playing later on in the year and decided I would like to go. Now being a poor job-less bastard I decided the best way to do this was to convince my parents to buy me a ticket for my birthday. This they did and more besides, they brought a ticket for me and another 2 for mates and also gave us a lift there and back. I’ve had worst presents.
About a week before the date I began to worry as to where the tickets actually were, many phone calls were made, always with the response being to wait. They all arrived the day before we were off, kinda panicking up to that point though.
The queue was really short but still took us an hour to get through. This is because the arena isn’t actually open yet, we’re kinda early. While we’re waiting we can hear what sounds like sound checks from in the arena, helps to build up excitement that did. The upside of all this waiting and earliness is that we’re amongst the first hundreds people into the arena, its still a good while until any bands are due to take the stage so we noticed a load of stalls up the hill, the place was on a steady downwards slope till the stage, and so we went to take a look.
There are 2 stages and their set up right next to each other, while one band plays on one the next sets up on the other meaning that there’s almost no gap between performances and that all that you need to do to move from one stage to the next is rotate your head 90 degrees. This is an absolutely brilliant way of doing it because it meant next to no waiting about and also that there was no chance of missing a band due to having to waste time moving between stages or any clash issues, for nothing clashed.
First band on played on the support stage and were the mighty capdown. They played a kinda ska punk crossed with nu metal sound that actually wasn’t that bad at all. If nothing else they were a step up from the only other band I’d ever seen, that being raging speedhorn at a free video shoot the month before. They also, capdown that is, have the distinct honour of being the first band I ever saw performing at a festival, and were also the first mildly good band I saw.
It wasn’t exactly a long wait until they were followed up by Snuff. Another ska punk band and another increase in quality. As well as the usual fare they put in some decent comedy numbers the best being the set ender that went something along the lines of ‘I’m a bastard, I’m a complete tosser’ etc… I would really like to know where I can get my hands on a copy of that song, but as I don’t know what its called and have only a vague recollection of the lyrics its proving rather hard, any help would be greatly appreciated!
Onto the main stage and a dip in what had been a steadily increasing quality with spunge playing some awful pop drivel. Honestly it was just an absolute bore with next to no redeeming feature. O.k. it could have been worse I’ll admit it, it could have been raging speedhorn again. But that still doesn’t change the plane and simple fact that spunge are an absolute shite band who bored the shit out of me. Some of their recorded stuffs alrite when drunk though.
On to the really good stuff now with a main stage performance by FacetoFace. Some excellent punk, not quite old, not quite new, somewhere in between ya know, racket that actually didn’t fall flat on its face in an outdoors environment. In a smaller venue they would really be able to blow people minds. As it was they simply played an excellent set and then left the stage far too early for my taste. I mean if ever I wouldn’t have objected to a forced encore it would have been then.
While we’ve all been absorbed in the action onstage another member of our organisation has been slowly but surly travelling down by train, he should have been here by now easily though so I decided its best to give him a ring. Surprise, surprise there are delays on the trains and he’s gonna be a good while longer, I say that’s a shame but your wasting my valuable phone credit and then went for another look around the tat stalls.
Hundred reasons are a good band. A very good band in fact. Their records are good, very good in fact. From what I heard of them at reading 2003 they can give a good live performance, very good in fact. But today they are absolute bollocks. What happened next worries me slightly, this is because I have no idea what the fuck I did next. Did I rotate my head 90 degrees and watch the levellers? If so I can’t remember it, but then again I can’t remember going anywhere else, what I do know is that a good while after hundred reasons had finished I rang up our missing people again.
Well it turns out that they’ve actually been in the right town for a while now. Unfortunately the train station was rather a long distance from the arena and they’ve been spending their time walking down. We decided to go outside the arena to help them get inside quicker, rather kind hearted of us if I do say so myself. There were no wristbands as its only a one day show but the organisers have come up with an ingenious way to let us go in and out of the arena. They are gonna stamp us. That’s right they stamped our hands and then checked them on the way back it. If it had rained outside there was a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to get back in again and would have had to have spent the rest of the day repeatedly trying to jump the fence or have mugged a tout.
Another stupid stamping idea was the policy for crowdsufers, that being a 3 strike and your out code with stamps as a mark of how many strikes you had. Simon, our habitual crowdsurfer, found a way around this rule, and it truly does show the genius potential he possesses. He, wait for this it good, wiped them off!
Whenever we met them at some point they were sitting at the very top of the hill and we had to convince them to come down to the at least middle. That’s why I don’t think we met them outside cause, if we did it makes no sense that we would have gone all the way up the hill with them, no we must have met them inside a bit later, it’s the only way it makes sense.
We all rejoined the crowd as A kicked off their set. Another band I hadn’t heard much of, another band who put in a good set but that I still don’t know much of. Next the support stage hosted the unwanted return of raging speedhorn. I spent the entire of their dire as ever performance lying down just away from stage so unfortunately I could still hear the motherfuckers.
I remember a single song of idlewilds set which I assume I actually saw all of, that song was alrite anyhow. Saw a crowdsufring phone which was cool. More details, the phone was being passed from person to person near the front like a crowdsurfer, occasionally somebody would talk into it whereas the guy on the other end would say to keep it going. Well if you can’t be there in person.
Closing the 2nd stage were the wildhearts, another band I’d never heard of. Yeah they were amazing as they have been the many times I’ve seen them since this performance. They introduced new song ‘vanilla radio’ with a midget Elvis and then recorded the crowd for the video to the for mentioned song – Simon we think we can see crowdsufring in it, well it kinda looks like him, can’t actually see the face.
Attempted to relocate everybody as it was only me and kyle by this point, at some points its rained but it sunny again by this point. The day was constantly changing between extremes of heat and freeze which was really disorientating, cool though. We were almost at the stage of meeting up with everybody, we were at a meeting point but then unfortunately iggy pop took the stage and I couldn’t help but get just a little closer to the stage.
Iggy wasn’t great really, don’t get me wrong he was ‘kin fantastic but he wasn’t great. Especially now that I’ve also seen him with the stooges and as such what kinda show he can put on this particular show wasn’t great at all by his standards. Was ‘kin fantastic though, you just had to ignore the hired band and focus on iggy. But one serious point – no ‘lust for life?’, What the fuck was with that!
Greenday came onstage to ‘warning’ lights and played ‘Maria’. They were ‘kin amazing, the best band I’d seen up to that point and up there amongst the best live bands I’ve ever seen. After they’d played about 3 songs lee left to catch a train that in the end ever came, I’d have stayed and walked home at that point, it was that good. They played all the songs I wanted them to play, almost. They got, as they always do, audience members on stage to play operation ivys’ ‘knowledge.’ The guitarist they got onstage just happened to be a mate of the people standing right next to us at this point in proceedings, their reaction to seeing him onstage playing could be described as ‘excited.’<br>
Greenday ended proceedings on the peerless high of ‘good riddance’ to a burning drum kit. Only they didn’t because they weren’t granted a fire license. That was the only thing wrong with their performance, would have been a perfect way to end things, the two or three fireworks had to make do instead.
By a stroke of luck, more for them as I’m the one with the way home, we ran into everybody else on the walk out. Brought a poster off a guy outside the arena, seconds after I brought it he halved its price, I feel so ripped off – I spent 2 pound on that. Half an hour later we stopped off at this service station. This service station is a lot cooler than normal service stations as its filled with people from the festival all slowly making their way home.
Kinda a cool day thinks I. perhaps I’ll go to more festivals in the future…
About a week before the date I began to worry as to where the tickets actually were, many phone calls were made, always with the response being to wait. They all arrived the day before we were off, kinda panicking up to that point though.
The queue was really short but still took us an hour to get through. This is because the arena isn’t actually open yet, we’re kinda early. While we’re waiting we can hear what sounds like sound checks from in the arena, helps to build up excitement that did. The upside of all this waiting and earliness is that we’re amongst the first hundreds people into the arena, its still a good while until any bands are due to take the stage so we noticed a load of stalls up the hill, the place was on a steady downwards slope till the stage, and so we went to take a look.
There are 2 stages and their set up right next to each other, while one band plays on one the next sets up on the other meaning that there’s almost no gap between performances and that all that you need to do to move from one stage to the next is rotate your head 90 degrees. This is an absolutely brilliant way of doing it because it meant next to no waiting about and also that there was no chance of missing a band due to having to waste time moving between stages or any clash issues, for nothing clashed.
First band on played on the support stage and were the mighty capdown. They played a kinda ska punk crossed with nu metal sound that actually wasn’t that bad at all. If nothing else they were a step up from the only other band I’d ever seen, that being raging speedhorn at a free video shoot the month before. They also, capdown that is, have the distinct honour of being the first band I ever saw performing at a festival, and were also the first mildly good band I saw.
It wasn’t exactly a long wait until they were followed up by Snuff. Another ska punk band and another increase in quality. As well as the usual fare they put in some decent comedy numbers the best being the set ender that went something along the lines of ‘I’m a bastard, I’m a complete tosser’ etc… I would really like to know where I can get my hands on a copy of that song, but as I don’t know what its called and have only a vague recollection of the lyrics its proving rather hard, any help would be greatly appreciated!
Onto the main stage and a dip in what had been a steadily increasing quality with spunge playing some awful pop drivel. Honestly it was just an absolute bore with next to no redeeming feature. O.k. it could have been worse I’ll admit it, it could have been raging speedhorn again. But that still doesn’t change the plane and simple fact that spunge are an absolute shite band who bored the shit out of me. Some of their recorded stuffs alrite when drunk though.
On to the really good stuff now with a main stage performance by FacetoFace. Some excellent punk, not quite old, not quite new, somewhere in between ya know, racket that actually didn’t fall flat on its face in an outdoors environment. In a smaller venue they would really be able to blow people minds. As it was they simply played an excellent set and then left the stage far too early for my taste. I mean if ever I wouldn’t have objected to a forced encore it would have been then.
While we’ve all been absorbed in the action onstage another member of our organisation has been slowly but surly travelling down by train, he should have been here by now easily though so I decided its best to give him a ring. Surprise, surprise there are delays on the trains and he’s gonna be a good while longer, I say that’s a shame but your wasting my valuable phone credit and then went for another look around the tat stalls.
Hundred reasons are a good band. A very good band in fact. Their records are good, very good in fact. From what I heard of them at reading 2003 they can give a good live performance, very good in fact. But today they are absolute bollocks. What happened next worries me slightly, this is because I have no idea what the fuck I did next. Did I rotate my head 90 degrees and watch the levellers? If so I can’t remember it, but then again I can’t remember going anywhere else, what I do know is that a good while after hundred reasons had finished I rang up our missing people again.
Well it turns out that they’ve actually been in the right town for a while now. Unfortunately the train station was rather a long distance from the arena and they’ve been spending their time walking down. We decided to go outside the arena to help them get inside quicker, rather kind hearted of us if I do say so myself. There were no wristbands as its only a one day show but the organisers have come up with an ingenious way to let us go in and out of the arena. They are gonna stamp us. That’s right they stamped our hands and then checked them on the way back it. If it had rained outside there was a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to get back in again and would have had to have spent the rest of the day repeatedly trying to jump the fence or have mugged a tout.
Another stupid stamping idea was the policy for crowdsufers, that being a 3 strike and your out code with stamps as a mark of how many strikes you had. Simon, our habitual crowdsurfer, found a way around this rule, and it truly does show the genius potential he possesses. He, wait for this it good, wiped them off!
Whenever we met them at some point they were sitting at the very top of the hill and we had to convince them to come down to the at least middle. That’s why I don’t think we met them outside cause, if we did it makes no sense that we would have gone all the way up the hill with them, no we must have met them inside a bit later, it’s the only way it makes sense.
We all rejoined the crowd as A kicked off their set. Another band I hadn’t heard much of, another band who put in a good set but that I still don’t know much of. Next the support stage hosted the unwanted return of raging speedhorn. I spent the entire of their dire as ever performance lying down just away from stage so unfortunately I could still hear the motherfuckers.
I remember a single song of idlewilds set which I assume I actually saw all of, that song was alrite anyhow. Saw a crowdsufring phone which was cool. More details, the phone was being passed from person to person near the front like a crowdsurfer, occasionally somebody would talk into it whereas the guy on the other end would say to keep it going. Well if you can’t be there in person.
Closing the 2nd stage were the wildhearts, another band I’d never heard of. Yeah they were amazing as they have been the many times I’ve seen them since this performance. They introduced new song ‘vanilla radio’ with a midget Elvis and then recorded the crowd for the video to the for mentioned song – Simon we think we can see crowdsufring in it, well it kinda looks like him, can’t actually see the face.
Attempted to relocate everybody as it was only me and kyle by this point, at some points its rained but it sunny again by this point. The day was constantly changing between extremes of heat and freeze which was really disorientating, cool though. We were almost at the stage of meeting up with everybody, we were at a meeting point but then unfortunately iggy pop took the stage and I couldn’t help but get just a little closer to the stage.
Iggy wasn’t great really, don’t get me wrong he was ‘kin fantastic but he wasn’t great. Especially now that I’ve also seen him with the stooges and as such what kinda show he can put on this particular show wasn’t great at all by his standards. Was ‘kin fantastic though, you just had to ignore the hired band and focus on iggy. But one serious point – no ‘lust for life?’, What the fuck was with that!
Greenday came onstage to ‘warning’ lights and played ‘Maria’. They were ‘kin amazing, the best band I’d seen up to that point and up there amongst the best live bands I’ve ever seen. After they’d played about 3 songs lee left to catch a train that in the end ever came, I’d have stayed and walked home at that point, it was that good. They played all the songs I wanted them to play, almost. They got, as they always do, audience members on stage to play operation ivys’ ‘knowledge.’ The guitarist they got onstage just happened to be a mate of the people standing right next to us at this point in proceedings, their reaction to seeing him onstage playing could be described as ‘excited.’<br>
Greenday ended proceedings on the peerless high of ‘good riddance’ to a burning drum kit. Only they didn’t because they weren’t granted a fire license. That was the only thing wrong with their performance, would have been a perfect way to end things, the two or three fireworks had to make do instead.
By a stroke of luck, more for them as I’m the one with the way home, we ran into everybody else on the walk out. Brought a poster off a guy outside the arena, seconds after I brought it he halved its price, I feel so ripped off – I spent 2 pound on that. Half an hour later we stopped off at this service station. This service station is a lot cooler than normal service stations as its filled with people from the festival all slowly making their way home.
Kinda a cool day thinks I. perhaps I’ll go to more festivals in the future…