Bridge and I chilling at Reading last year
Festival season is looming, and money is haemorrhaging from my account as I grab as many gig tickets as possible. So far I Florence and the Machine, Band of Skulls, Hard Rock Calling and the Isle of Wight festival lined up... Due to the all round averageness of the Reading, I have been saved from having to shell out for that one, but now am looking towards perhaps a little outing to V festival.
For those of you who have never done a big music festival - do it! I went to
Reading last year and it is like a living monument to hedonism. I have never been to Vegas but I assume it operates on the same principal. Basically, it is a place that offers you every type of pleasure (okay not every...), at all hours - its what life would be like if we were millionaires and indulged our every whim - the way we would like to live in our wildest dreams.
As if days of watering ourselves with yummy cider and indulging in the great sounds of Rock 'n Roll weren't enough, when the last band left the stage every night there was a plethora of activities - a fun fair, an outdoor cinema, a silent disco and people taking every type of drug (I abstained of course) and doing every type of crazy shit - the last night is kind of like the maddest party you have ever been too, but on steroids... People are dressed up all mental - near our tent we had a bunch of guys who were all dressed up like vikings, there were boys in wedding dresses, smurfs, frogs, people in full on lycra suits that went over their faces - every kind of madness...
The funniest encounter we had was on the last nite - we were sitting under a gazebo at about three in the morning talking shit and slowly drifting down off the high of a 3 day party with the greatest music, when a ginger haired wild child proffering a glo-bracelet stumbled towards us from the dark. She told us her name was Sophie, she was a lesbian and she hadn't gotten lucky since Thursday and she was looking for another lesbian...apparently at this point she had trolled the camp site looking for hopefuls but had been unsuccessful and was now desperate enough that she was A) approaching groups of men in search of hidden lesbians, who inevitably asked her if she wanted to change her mind and return to the mighty phallus (to which she declined) and B) offering the glo-bracelet as an engagement ring to the next willing sexually confused yung'un she found...
After amusing us all no end with her straight forward desperation and proliferation of names for the female reproductive organs she headed off telling us to send any other lesbos who stumbled upon our little campfire after her...You just can't put a price on amusement like that...
One of the best things about festivals is seeing all these people in wonderful clothes and accessories, all chilling out and being someone else for a little while. The hats, sunglasses and wellies are wonderful camera fodder, and I wish people dressed like that all the time. In June last year I went with my lovely mum and aunt, and many others, to watch the amazing Bruce Springsteen play Hard Rock Calling. It was one of the greatest gigs I have ever been to. And my mom was totally channeling a sixties festino, and so she is my festival style icon...
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