monday, august 27th
the festival
so, i met up with stuart who wove with me thru the crowds of beautiful folks towards the site. what is usually fields behind the train station was, all weekend, a temporary city, filled with music. blue blue skies on saturday. because i fainted at last years festival, and got dizzy dizzy at the siren festival, i had with me a huge bottle of water and some apple juice. stuart lent me his groovy blue hat and then after sitting by his tent for a time, we headed with hannah and katie to catch trail of dead.
i could hear 'mistakes and regrets' as we headed to the main stage. i wanted to run towards the sound, and as soon as we got there, i danced! after they finished with 'a perfect teenhood' and conrad had knocked his head on his amp over and over, we sat down on the grass. it was as if electricity (and lust) were spiralling thru my veins. deep breath and wow, i do love that band.
we saw frank black, who sounded like an angel and looked kinda terrifying, and who played 'monkey gone to heaven', yay! after his set, we heard that weezer had cancelled and i got really cross! rancid played instead. we met up with lucy and rb, and together we all sat and half watched supergrass. i think i have seen this band at least six times, and probably each time out in a field somewhere, somewhere in england with stuart or lucy. bored, they guzzled strawberry pop and vodka, while rb pierced his face with a safety pin much to the delight of two boys standing by us. rich, the now ex-singer in ben's band, came by and told us that he hadn't slept in thirty eight hours. crikey.
after supergrass played, the pa burst out with 'clint eastwood' by gorillaz. 'you know what?' i told stuart. 'this song really makes me think of josh.' and i was fine, and then all of a sudden i was crying. i didn't even know i was till lucy was saying, 'oh, no! gorillaz makes sophie think of josh!' stuart, rb and lucy all gave me a hug at the same time. 'these vibes are going out to josh!' cried a vodka soaked lucy, 'JOSH!' they all shouted. i love my chums.
later, as the sun set, and after getting some vodka jellies that were illuminated on a tray; lucy and rb handcuffed themselves to each other, with lucy holding my hand, and we weaved on over to see mogwai play in the bbc radio one evening session stage. we talked and smoked under the upside down smoke filled bowl sky of reading, meeting a scottish boy who had lost all his chums but was going to see mogwai anyway and a boy called jim who was in a post rock band himself. rb pierced his tummy with a safety pin. it looked sore.
mogwai were perfect, the whole crowd seemed to just drop to the floor, staring up at the ceiling of the tent as the intense music soared above us. lucy and me lay on our tummies. i smoked and thought about josh and just about died when they mixed the iggy pop sample from 'punk rock' into 'two rights make one wrong'. it was beautiful. 'it's so intense!' lucy said to me, 'i can feel it in my tummy.' afterwards we didn't want to leave, we lay on the floor as people stepped over us. let the ants cover us.
around four in the morning, when in a fit of insomnia and me and stuart were looking for boost bars and coca cola, we came across a whole big group of folks banging huge metallic empty dustbins with beer bottles, making a beautiful noise! of course, i joined in. it was a lot of fun. felt kinda groovy and together with these folks; cept when i got home, i read on nme dot com, that at that very time, a girl had been raped by two men. i want the festival we all like to be safe.
hopefully, the festival will have a better line-up next year. the nme had a poll, and they asked if you'd rather see travis or the strokes. the overwhelming majority of folks said the strokes, but they weren't headlining! maybe next year the organisers will listen to the kids.
suds at