Music festivals

Guys. I'm really really excited because I'm going to Download Festival tomorrow :D
AND I WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE

So on that subject...what's PC's take on music festivals? Have you guys been to any? What do you think of them? I wanna hear STORIES, people ;P

(and not those like boring stories either I want proper stories ;) )

Download this year's gonna be the second festival I've been to, my first being Reading last year. I've booked the Friday of Lovebox this year as well, and I might do this festival in Paris called Rock-en-Seine (: Sooo I wanna hear your experiences :P

(also if you're coming to download holla at me on twitter cos I wanna meet people)

I went to my first and so far only festival two weeks ago, but it was far from the sort of scale of Download or Reading. It's called Evolution and it's held in Newcastle (for those unaware Middlesbrough is reasonably nearby), it was quite good but I don't even have a regular gig experience to compare it to so I'm not sure how good it really was. :P Still I got to see some of my favourite artists at the moment such as The Vaccines and Ellie Goulding so yeah it was pretty cool.

I'd love to go to Leeds this year and some of my friends are, but unfortunately it's way out of my budget. I guess there's always next year, but it's unlikely the lineup will be as good again.

You probably won't read this until you return so it's a bit of a pointless statement, but I hope you have fun at Download.

Edit: Razor Leaf's post made me want to add a few things. First thing being mine was more of a weekender too though it's still labelled a 'festival' and there was no camping etc. which is great for someone who hates camping like me I guess. :P

If people want to partake in drugs during this kind of thing then it's their choice, but I definitely wouldn't personally. It certainly is pretty common though.

Also, I was going to see TEED in Middlesbrough last October but it got cancelled unfortunately, so I'm a bit jealous for that. :P

I was at one just this weekend! Although it was technically a weekender rather than a full-on festival, and there was no camping. While a lot of people from around the city go to it, it's mostly populated by students who've just finished their exams. Parklife, its name is, and I think I got my ticket for like... £45 for both days? Which, given its lineup, was pretty incredible. Highlights for me were Rudimental, Madeon (can't stress this enough - absolutely phenomenal), Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Four Tet, Julio Bashmore, Jurassic 5, Benga... I could go on, haha. The full lineup'll still be online somewhere and I'll go dig it up a bit later.

Naturally the whole thing was a bit of a... slightly drunk mostly drugged mess, haha. I can't count the number of times I bumped into people / lost people / changed groups / etc, but most of the time was spent just with one of my flatmates since we have really similar tastes in music. Not that you care too much about who's actually on when you're off your tits. d:

Naturally, prices were extortionate once we got in there; it was something like £6 for a programme, although we got really lucky and happened to find one just... lying there when we walked in, which was a blessing! Drinks too were very expensive - something like £4.50 for 500ml Kopparberg Apple? By usual festival standards that's not too terrible but when used to general Manchester prices (cheap, for reference) and on a really tight budget you can't be necking them really. The queues for drinks were deceptively long too; what looked like three people usually ended up being a good 10-15 which always took a while to get through and was nightmarish when you wanted a drink but artists you wanted to see were on. Eventually, since so many people just needed water, people were wandering around everywhere picking up bottles off the floor and filling them up at water points. Pretty fine idea honestly if you're not too bothered about how you just found it on the ground and, given that I was at some points basically sharing chewing gum with people (don't ask if you don't know why I'd have needed chewing gum haha) I can't say I cared about that too much.

The only thing that was putting people off this year (and anyone who's familiar with Manchester's general layout will probably be able to see why this is such a problem) is that the location was moved from Platt Fields Park to Heaton Park in the north of the city, which meant that people living in Fallowfield like me (where most of the students who go to Parklife live; often just dubbed 'student village') had a nightmare time getting there and back. While they tried to organise a good bus service and whatnot, it all kinda fell through and getting there and back again never really worked out as taking less than two or so hours each way. Which was... not fun, haha. The sheer number of people (65k, I think?) shifted through that place every day mostly by busses was pretty damn staggering. Nonetheless, though, it wasn't a bad enough drawback to really massively bother me or not have me wanting to go back next year.

Regarding festivals in general - I don't really see why someone wouldn't like them unless they don't like the whole... uh... going outside part of it, I guess cue resounding "no" from pc. One thing I guess you could say is bad about them is how they're more or less drug use hotspots; this weekend I'd say that at least half the people I met had taken something over the course of the weekend, although in fairness Manchester is kinda notorious for that kinda thing, especially its student population. But the general environment, the ease of sales for dealers, the price of the alternatives (such as drinks), etc. have a lot of people doing drugs at festivals from what I've experienced. It personally doesn't bother me, but it could bother some people I guess. Others I've been to though, such as Reading, have a wider audience and probably less drug use since they've been camping so it's much easier to just sit around in your tent and get pissed rather than having to resort to other stuff for a buzz.

tl;dr parklife is awesome and don't do drugs, kids.

Nuke said:

I'd love to go to Leeds this year and some of my friends are, but unfortunately it's way out of my budget. I guess there's always next year, but it's unlikely the lineup will be as good again.

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Ugh, I wanna go too. That and Creamfields. But alas - money, among other things. Shame since I have a lot of mates going to those too.

I'd like to go to at least one music festival in my life, although I fear that I've left it a bit too late. Pretty much none of the elements of the traditional festival appeal to me, except for the music. But I imagine it'd definitely be an 'experience', if nothing else. As for which one: probably Glastonbury or Coachella or something else of its ilk. If I'm being completely honest, I can't imagine I'd like it all that much, given my distaste for a) camping, b) mud, c) off-their-tits-because-of-drugs people, but I'm open to new experiences and whatnot! :D

I've been to two festivals (both of 'em being my hometown's Rainforest World Music Festival, a three-night music fest somewhere in the mountains) with friends and listening to music live is a cool experience, but I imagine I'd have to be langered to truly enjoy it. I don't drink, but I envied the drunks who dance with no care in the world to whatever music was being played. I'm way too shy to shake my hips around in front of strangers like that sober.

This year I've been to a music festival, called Soundwave. It was awesome, some of my favourite bands were playing there, such as Blink 182, The Offspring, Metallica, Northlane, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Anthrax and just tons of other metal bands. I went up and stayed in a Hotel with my bestfriend and his family, and we went there the next day. And it was really freaking hot that day. Like, we were in line waiting to get in, and we were already sweating heaps. There was a bit of an id problem but it turned out alright, and after an hour of waiting, we finally got in, and Northlane was on at one of the stages, and we just ran straight into the circle pit.. It was awesome.. At the end a huuuge circle mosh pit was formed and everyone went crazy. By the time that was done, I was actually completely drenched (You know when you just come inside from being under heavy rain? Thats what a lot of us looked like, except, it wasn't just our sweat.. haha).

At one part we were getting dehydrated and everyone was just forming around a bubbler haha (Little drinking fountain), and we sat on a tree branch, eating pizza and drinking water while looking at a band off in the distance. At this point nearly everyone you met was baked or wasted out of there mind, I went to the public bathroom to the troff part, and it was probably the grossest thing I have ever seen (I wont go into detail just for you people who may have just had dinner). We then met up with this girl we knew that I saw at a previous Blink 182 concert, and we chilled together for a bit, we then lost her, and saw some other people we knew, which was weird.

We then went to see Billy Talent, followed by Sum 41, followed by Blink. And by that time, it was dark, and since we already saw them at the concert, we knew what they were gonna pull, and I got right to the bar (Again), and became best buds with everyone around me haha! To bad I never got their names. After blink was done, the Offspring was happening on the stage next to it, so I travelled and pushed allllll the way to that side, and ended up losing my bestie, so I just became friends with the randoms around me. And was then introduced to a thing called 'Friendly Circle Pit' Where everyone skips in a circle instead of... Swinging your arms like a maniac;) hahah.

After Offspring, Paramore came on, and so half of the crowd bailed, including me (No offence Paramore lovers) and legged it to Metallica, I was still alone and my friend was trying to ring me and I couldn't even hear myself at all so I was just shouting 'Okaaay!' at it haha. But I then got the message saying 'Metallica' So I knew what he was doing. I got surprisingly close, around half way. And these were in football stadiums too btw. I was rocking out with 50 tubby metal heads having a blast haha. At the end of the night, I was dead. My legs, were like broken, and I could smell my own and around 100 other peoples sweat off me, and gosh I was so thirsty. I don't even know how I ended up meeting up with my bestfriend and his dad and sister.

It was a great day... Too bad next years line up isn't as good. heh