How this all came about
It all started around christmass 2001,we'd just had the christmass meal and i was lying on the sofa not being arsed doing much. I ended up flicking through the sunday newspaper and came across an advert for shows greenday were playing next year. I decided going would be cool but being a jobless smuck i didn't have the meager £30 plus transport costs to do this. Thankfully I was able to convince my parents that a ticket would be a decent birthday present. They went a little better than this and brought 3 tickets and provided transport. Aeren and Simon got the honour of free tickets while Kyle and Lee payed their own way. That the greenday gig turned into a full scale one day punk(ish) mini festival is proof that truly somebody up there likes me.
Second stage lineup
Hair dye tip #1
Do not apply to people as scummy as Simon, it will all completly vanish without a trace throughout the day and you will be left with the sickening though of 'how much did you sweat?'
Main stage lineup
Don't get trains!
Lee did and got there 4 hours late and had to leave just as Greenday came onstage to catch the last train back, of course it never showed up.
There the reason i'm here and put every band before then in their shadow. A pink bunny rabbit drinking beer graces the stage before them and then warning lights go off, and Greenday come onstage playing Maria. The setlist is amazing, they played most of the songs i wanted to here, a little light on Lookout! material but that was to be expected really. Its only a minor flaw however and every song that they do play they play to expert standard. The ploy of getting people onstage to form a band works because i haven't seen it before. This was truly amazing, still one of the best bands i've seen play today. Kinda annoying that they didn't close with or indeed play good riddance however...
The wildhearts introduced this song with a little help from a midjet elvis, you read that right - a midjet elvis. They then proceded to record the video to the song, if you look hard in the video you can see Simon crowdsurfing, at least we think its him - same jeans and shirt but can't really make out face. The song rocks too..
Hair dye tip #2
Do not apply too heavily, as Simon did to Kyle.When i say heavily thats what i mean, he put it so it was almost touching his head and sprayed for almost a minute. He still had a green scalp months later. Was kinda amusing.
He's coming up by train, and he thinks he's gonna get here ontime? After the first few bands we ring him, he's been delayed, again we ring him after a few more band, he's in the wrong town...going well so far. Much later we ring him again, he's here! But the stations a good hours walk from the venue...
Stamping out
There was nothing as complex as a wristband, if you wanted to leave and get back in they stamped your hand. A little scary as its been raining quite heavily at times... and theres a limit on the re-entry time...
Of course Simon found this one out - the system is that whenever you crowdsurf they stamp something on your arm, 3 stikes or stamps and they chuck you out. The ingenius way that simon found around this was to... wash them off. Seriously are the organisers that dense?
Happy people
The people standing next to me during Greenday were very happy, and had just cause. You see they could see one of their mates, he was onstage playing guitar with Greenday...
Stages were right next to each other, bands played pretty much alternativly on either stage, while one band played the other set up, this means that bands follow each other with almost no gap...constant music and no clashes is a very good thing indeed.
Raging speedhorn, why?
They were the first band i ever saw... they were alrite then cause i knew no better, but now i can see them for the turgid bollocks i suspected they had been.Why are they even here? A bit of varietys good, just not whens it speedhorn.
As we left the festival there were festie goers everywhere,no surpise really, what was surprisng was that even though we left strait after the festival ended the service station we stopped in half an hour later was still full of festie people...was all rather cool.
The end of the world
Well it sorta looks like it don't it?
Hair dye tip #3
Multi coloured is the way to go, try the back one colour, left side another and right side another, failing that checkerboard sounds good
Mabey i'll go some more festivals in the future...
Greenday
Vanilla radio
Finding Lee
How to get away with crowdsurfing
The setup
Its a fucking invasion
...Yeah this kicked arse
