Chaos-23

First off, against all the odds I survived. I’m here to tell the tale. I’ve been ill though, with festival germs so it’s taken a while for me to get around to this.

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So today I got my special person link for pre-sale Tour Tickets… but I’m not even sure I’ll use it as they aren’t playing Reading in 2008 I’m not sure if it’s because the Hexagon will be in its state of limbo then or if they just don’t fancy Reading. Here are the rest of the dates anyway:

11/09/2008 Edinburgh Festival Theatre
12/09/2008 Edinburgh Festival Theatre
13/09/2008 Glasgow Pavilion
14/09/2008 Glasgow Pavilion
16/09/2008 Dublin Olympia (not available pre-sale)
17/09/2008 Dublin Olympia (not available pre-sale)
22/09/2008 York Opera House
23/09/2008 York Opera House
26/09/2008 Harrogate Theatre
27/09/2008 Harrogate Theatre
01/10/2008 Buxton Opera House
02/10/2008 Buxton Opera House
03/10/2008 Wakefield Theatre Royal
04/10/2008 Wakefield Theatre Royal
06/10/2008 Sheffield City Hall
07/10/2008 Sheffield City Hall
15/10/2008 Liverpool Arena
16/10/2008 Blackpool Opera House
17/10/2008 Blackpool Opera House
18/10/2008 Cardiff CIA
20/10/2008 London Brixton Academy
21/10/2008 London Brixton Academy
22/10/2008 London Brixton Academy
27/10/2008 Bristol Hippodrome
28/10/2008 Bristol Hippodrome
31/10/2008 Birmingham NIA
03/11/2008 Oxford New Theatre
04/11/2008 Oxford New Theatre
05/11/2008 Wolverhampton Civic
06/11/2008 Wolverhampton Civic
07/11/2008 Nottingham Arena
10/11/2008 Portsmouth Guildhall
11/11/2008 Portsmouth Guildhall
12/11/2008 Brighton Centre
13/11/2008 Brighton Centre
17/11/2008 Plymouth Pavilions
18/11/2008 Plymouth Pavilions
19/11/2008 Bournemouth BIC
20/11/2008 Bournemouth BIC
26/11/2008 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
01/12/2008 Manchester Apollo
02/12/2008 Manchester Apollo
08/12/2008 Leeds Grand
09/12/2008 Leeds Grand

It’s almost here!! 15th November 2007

Ahh…. that was a pretty good festival :o) Tickets have been bought for next year’s already. It’s almost £150 for a weekend ticket these days, which is pretty outrageous. Then again, it’s so close to where I live I’d have to be an idiot (or an old fogey with no taste in music or fun) to not go. Even if it does ever turn out to be a truly dire line up, selling a ticket (probably at a profit) isn’t exactly going to be difficult.

Thursday
Dropped all my stuff off at Chris’, went to the site to get my wristband (fabric ones this year, fine until they get wet… eew). Apparently got filmed by Meridian News on my way in. Strange bloke kissed my head while I was waiting for my wristband, so I made a sharp exit without getting the tails cut off the band. Bumped into Nathan, Big Dan & Zoe, they were camping again this year… nutters. Met up with Tony, Claire, Claire’s Mum & Claire’s Aunt. Waited for them to get their wristbands & then headed into town for some grub. Ended the evening with drinkies at Pavlov’s Dog, Sahara and of course the Turtle. Didn’t really get to sleep as early as I’d hoped…

Friday
We didn’t head in too early on Friday, there was no-one on really early that we wanted to see that badly. However, I did want to stay and watch the last acts on the Cabaret stage so going in later made sense. We split up when we got into the arena so I could buy a chair (one of the ones from last year had broken, the hideous pink ones were £5 cheaper than the plain ones…) and were planning to meet up again for Alan Carr at the Comedy Tent. Sadly it was so packed out I couldn’t get close enough to hear anything. So I trotted off to the NME stage to wait for Peaches… oh how good a move was that?! I got there in time to catch the majority of Gogol Bordello’s set. I’ve never seen/heard anything like it! I texted Chris to get his arse over ASAP. He couldn’t miss this. We’re now off to see Gogol Bordello at Brixton Academy in November :oD After the chaos that was Gogol Bordello, Peaches came on. She wasn’t as good as I’d hoped tbh. I prefer her more electronica stuff to the rockier stuff. Sam (drummer) was bloody amazing though. We met up with Claire & Tony again for BodyCount. That was a must-see. Although the encore was Hey Joe, and although I like Hendrix, personal reasons (being called Jo and having it sung at me all the time) mean I have a dislike for that song. We caught a bit of the Eagles of Death Metal’s set & failed to see Mark Lanegan on stage with The Twilight Singers. By then it had rained, and I was damp, cold and starting to get miserable. Especially as we had 3 hours before the Fire Tusk Pain Proof Circus. So we headed back to Chris’, got changed into dry warm clothes, watched some TV & then headed back in again. Literally seconds after walking through the arena gates it started to rain again. So we took shelter in the Cabaret tent. Everything was running late, so unfortunately we saw some of Mr Methane’s set. I really don’t like that guy. We also saw Roxy Velvet’s Open Heart Surgery, which wasn’t great. Couldn’t really see much of what was going on, but it seemed to be her covering herself in fake blood & writhing about. Finally the Fire Tusk Pain Proof Circus came on. I didn’t enjoy it as much as LuciFire’s Suspension Act, but the fire work she was doing was amazing. She is the best fire-eater I have ever seen (and I have actually seen quite a few). Her on-stage presence is immense. Both Friday & Saturday nights she managed to blow away all the previous cabaret acts. Oh and stapling balloons to the Tusk’s back and throwing darts at them to the Bullseye theme-tune? Genius ;o) By the time we left the tent it was dry again, so we’d timed it all perfectly.

Saturday
We got in even later on the Saturday. Mainly because we wanted to see some later bands and wouldn’t really have a chance to go home and come back in for LuciFire’s Suspension show. Which was a shame in a way as we missed Stewart Lee headline the Comedy tent. We saw a bit of Jet, who were OK. We were mainly chatting though, and seeing girls fail to cover themselves whilst taking a wee behind a lorry… there was really no point going behind the lorry as everyone could see your bits anyway… We met up with Tony, Claire, Claire’s Mum & Claire’s Aunt & shuffled across to the main stage to see the Arctic Monkeys. They’re not really my thing and were even more Northern & not my thing live. Then we all split up, with Tony & myself heading towards the Lock-Up stage to see Anti Flag. They were OK, the political stuff was all a bit passé and boring, but telling us to introduce ourselves to the people next to us was funny “Hi I’m Tony” “Hi I’m Jo” “Wow my girlfriend went to college with a girl called Jo” etc… After Anti Flag I went over to the NME stage for The Raconteurs. Met up with Chris, left the chair with him, and chose the worst time ever to go to the loos. The queue was HUGE. However, there was a bonus as someone had dropped £20 on the floor and I was clearly the only one that saw it :oD The Raconteurs were really good, I’ll definitely be buying their album now. They all rushed to the front of the stage and waved at the end of their set which was immensely cute. :o) They finished at 23:30, and as we didn’t need to get to the Cabaret tent until 00:30, we stayed sat in our chairs and watched the mass exodus from the arena in comfort. Then something weird happened… The stewards started building a metal cage inside the NME tent. Then there was a massive queue of people chanting songs ranging from Jingle Bells to Livin’ on a Prayer. Suddenly at about 00:15 people starting running like crazy into the tent. We could see hundreds of people running down the queue, but they seemed to disappear. After about 5 minutes a trickle of people entered the caged area. Dancing like loons… to nothing! This, my friends, is a Silent Disco. It took a while to see, but yes, they all had headphones on. It was probably the funniest thing I’d seen in ages. They really were like monkeys in a zoo. We meandered over to the Cabaret stage & found it surprisingly busy. We watched Burly Q from just outside. I have to say I wasn’t really that impressed. I did really like the GoGo dancing, but other than that it was fairly forgettable. Luckily before LuciFire came on the tent emptied out a little, we made our way in & set up the chairs. I was soooo looking forward to this. Although a little sad that there was no-one to introduce it to. None of our friends ever stick around long enough to see it. There are not really any appropriate words for LuciFire’s Suspension show this year. I had a tear in my eye I enjoyed it so much. For those that are still reading and haven’t heard of this act before. LuciFire starts off in a wedding style dress singing I’ve Got You Under My Skin while meat hooks are thread through the flesh on her back between the shoulder blades. When they’re threaded through she walks into the middle of the tent & is hoisted up high above the crowd. Then the fun really starts! While suspended she performs a striptease, complete with glittered feather fans. Then there’s the manic dancing to Come On Eileen (yes, she’s still suspended at this point). It was awesome. I’ll never tire of this show. Ever.

Sunday
For a change we got to the site a bit earlier on Sunday. Russell Brand was due to headline the Comedy tent, but we’d already heard he’d had to pull out for health reasons. Which was a shame as I quite like him sometimes, but the amazingly good news was… he was replaced by Mark Steel! Mark Steel is an absolute legend. I’ve watched every one of The Mark Steel lectures countless times and listened to The Mark Steel Solution on the radio almost as often. He did not disappoint! Would you like to buy a hedgehog? Unfortunately we had to sit through the absolute drivel that was Iain Cognito in order to get a good viewing area. I’ve often wondered what Iain Cognito was like… well I know to avoid him now. I attempted to head off to see Goldie Lookin Chain but the tent was totally rammed. Instead I found Chris with his mate from University, we managed to ignore Bullet for my Valentine enough to carry on a conversation. We watched Slayer in the sunshine, which was just wrong. And how old do they look now?! I thought they were looking a bit old in 1995 at Donnington! I loathe Placebo so had to leave before they came on, the plan being to watch Hot Chip and meet up again for Pearl Jam. It didn’t really end up like that… I walked off really annoyed that I was bored shitless, but Chris wanted to sit around in one spot for the next 3 hours & not move. I looked for Tony & Claire but couldn’t find them, tried to look at the shops, but there was a heaving mass of people on the move. So I got to the Carling Tent and Larrikin Love were on. They were OK, but I couldn’t really get close enough to hear properly. I sat outside the tent on my (hideously pink) chair, got accosted by a very, very drunk bloke that said many rude things to me and who I thought was never going to go away even though I told him I wasn’t single. Chris started to text me to say he was going to come over & meet me. I waited… and I waited, but he never appeared. In the end I had to pack up my stuff and head for the (now) very packed loo queue. I wasn’t very happy. By the time I got back Hot Chip were nearly finished and Pearl Jam had started their set. Managed to find Chris, then Claire & her Mum & Aunt, sit down and moan that Pearl Jam just didn’t have any “oomph”. They seemed quite bored and like they’d rather be somewhere else. Chris tried to say it was because we were too far back, but they even sounded a bit poo when I saw the recording of it on BBC THREE. :o/ We left before they’d finished, I failed to buy a single thing. We managed to blag a cab home. Hoorah!

And that, is that. Another festival over.