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.

Preliminary Cock-ups
In the build up to this festival a lot went wrong. I wasn’t single when I purchased tickets for it. I am now. C was going to drive me this year (last year he took my tent and I got the coach). As time went by I became single, C realised he couldn’t afford to go unless he worked there meaning he’d go up a day before me. Back to him taking my tent again and me getting the coach. Then he got rid of his car. I could not get anyone else to go with me at all. I didn’t want to camp alone so tried to book a pre-set up tent with Tangerine Fields but after umming and ahhing about it (it was £150 and I’d only bought my tent 2 years ago) they sold out right before I tried to book. The same happened with the National Express coach. Things were not going well. I went on to the Latitude Festival forums and found the ‘Loners Camp’. All the people going alone were going to camp together. This seemed to be the best choice so I swapped numbers with people. C took my tent up on the Wednesday. It’s just too big for me to take along with my wheelie rucksack.

Thursday
Dad gave me a lift to Reading station. He was on a mad panic thinking that 50 minutes wasn’t long enough… even though Reading is only about 20 minutes away and it was 11:00 so hardly any traffic. People tried to tell me I was going the wrong way for Glade. My train was delayed due to an “incident” on the track (jumper then), but another delayed one turned up around the same time so that wasn’t too bad. Got a nice seat all on my own. The carriage was empty.

Got to Paddington to find that the Circle Line was suffering delays due to an “incident involving a person on the track” (ANOTHER jumper?!). Saw some people who looked like they were going to Latitude. Went to get on the tube with them and got forced into another carriage. I was pretty stressed out at this point so when a woman shouted and glared at me pretending that I’d hurt her leg (I really hadn’t), I just stood there and cried til I got to Liverpool Street.

Got a nasty BK at Liverpool Street while waiting for my train. Shockingly it was delayed. Yeah, you got it, an incident involving a person on the track! I was seriously considering turning around and going home. If 3 people were willing to die to let me know going was a bad idea…

So, I got a seat to myself on the train to Ipswich. Mainly because the luggage areas were full and my wheelie rucksack is too big to go in the racks. Surrounded by some annoying people which was worrying. There were only a small number of wankers at Latitude 2007 and they seemed to all be on the National Express coach I was on.

Got to Ipswich station where many confusing directions were barked at us. I would like to point out that if ever you get told it’s quicker to buy an advance ticket as you get priority – THEY’RE LYING. The queue for people exchanging their codes for bus tickets was massive. The queue for buying tickets was non-existent. I’d rather have paid the extra £1 to not queue. Then as I walked outside I was told “The estimated wait for a shuttlebus is 2 hours.” He wasn’t wrong. The queue was HUGE! And it rained. The only thing that kept me amused standing in a big queue of strangers outside Ipswich station for 2 hours on my own were the 3 crows who came to watch us and mock us. One had white wings like we have at home. Made me smile Got a seat to myself on the shuttlebus (I think looking really stressed and angry helps in these situations). Had to text C when I was moving and he got my tent set-up. Was looking to be dark and wet by the time I got there.

Finally got there and got my stuff sorted around 18:30. Briefly said hello to the campers before I crashed in my tent for a bit. I was pretty shattered! I wandered around for a bit, got my wristband, went to the supermarket (Red Bull was £1.50! Like it is at home!! Also directed a very grateful Northern lass to the Red Bull cooler. She did the same as me and thought they only had Red Bull Cola), had a few drinks with C at the campsite. Crashed out in my tent really early that night as I was just so tired from all the stress of things going wrong. Took me until just after 03:30 to get to sleep though. I could not stop shivering. I hadn’t brought my sleeping bag as it is massive, instead I took a blanket. Not good enough!

After slightly less than and hour and a half’s sleep I was awoken by the girl in a neighbouring tent screaming that she’d been robbed. I heard her boyfriend try to calm her down. Then they took everything out of her tent and realised her bag had indeed gone. Later it turned out all her friends had experienced the same thing with a man going into all their tents at about midnight. Luckily at that time there was a fire going outside my tent and all my lights were on (my tent has lights it rocks).

Friday
Due to the lack of sleep the night before I felt like a zombie. Also, on attempting to walk to the toilets I found that I’d pulled muscles in my arse cheeks from all the shivering. This was not fun! Walking was agony! I went to Cosy Camper and bought a blanket. The woman who served me was convinced she knew me from Download. I’ve never been to Download. I made my tent tidy

Most of Friday daytime was spent napping. I was very shattered and making the most of not being cold. As long as I kept the main door of my tent open and only the mesh door closed my tent had a nice breeze through it. I missed Russell Howard and the Mark Steel Lecture due to napping (and I could hear them from my tent… and it rained a bit and I was warm and dry and snug). The sheep this year were slightly disappointing as instead of being many different colours they were all pink.

Attempted to see Ross Noble but I could not get anywhere even remotely close to the Comedy tent as it was just as small as last year. Wished I’d stuck around as Ross went slightly mad, handed out the back-stage Red Bull to people and organised a conga around the arena to shout “SAUSAGE ROLLS!” at the Vegan food stand. Luckily this is on YouTube:

Caught a bit of a.P.A.t.T as I headed to the Aspall’s Cyder Barn. They were pretty good live. Met C at the Cyder Barn. Drank LOADS as he realised that working the Saturday evening shift meant he missed everyone he wanted to see. Met a number of people. Missed Julian Cope as C refused to move. Headed back in to the arena with 2 blokes we met to watch Crystal Castles in the Woods, but ended up getting food instead. Saw Mark Steel wandering about with what I assumed were his wife and kids. We were tempted to say hi, but we were drunk and he looked a bit pissed off and stressed. Then we popped along to see some Franz Ferdinand… Not worth it really. Everything they do sounds the same. They’re an OK band, but did not deserve to be headlining the night. Saw Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown from CSI) wandering about, posing, looking gutted no-one spoke to him. Turns out he was doing some of the WordTheatre. Went for a drink at Millsy’s Bar! It seemed appropriate. We had some Pimms there. Headed back to the camspite via the bar and drank lots more. My tent was snug and warm that night. Yay! Got proper sleep!

Saturday
Even though I’d had a fair amount of sleep, it rained quite a bit early on Saturday so I pretty much stayed in my tent. Headed in at lunchtime for some foods, caught Tim Minchin’s set in the Comedy tent. That was superb! Especially liked the Racism song Sadly missed Jon Richardson as the area was filling up and we didn’t like the guy on in between. Listened to Bill Bailey from my tent. I knew it’d be rammed from last year when he played and from what I could hear he did an identical set anyway. We saw Ross Noble wandering about.

Saw Mark Thomas in the Literary Arena. Started getting really cold around then though, so when he started reading extracts from the book he has out in September I decided to go back to my tent and grab a long-sleeve as I will read the book when I get it.

Got back into the arena later on and felt really quite ill. Stood by the water point by the Kid’s Arena (dear God if I go again I’m stealing a child. The Kid’s Arena looks amazing!) until I’d got through 3 refills of the water bottle. Then I grabbed a pizza and sat by the lake for a bit. Meant that I missed Seasick Steve and Rich Hall but I could hear quite a bit from where I was sat. Wandered across to catch some of The Mars Volta before heading to the Obelisk stage for Sigur Rós. Wow! They blew me away. It was so beautiful. I stood quite far back as the sound was still good and I had a clear view of the screen. I admit I left before the end of their set, but I went to sit by the lake. It was so nice having Sigur Rós play in the background, an amazing laser light show on the lake (a machine sprayed water up in the air while lasers projected 3D images into it) in front of me and bats zooming about my head.

I wandered around the Woods area for a while after that. There was a mad disco going on with everyone screaming Abba song lyrics at the top of their lungs and some nifty art work. Most of the trees were lit up and groups of people were dotted around. It was really nice. Headed up the HUGE slope to the compost toilets. Have to say they were ace! They had real toilet ROLL and they didn’t smell at all! Not sure if that’s because they were up such a steep hill, people were scared to use them or if they were just dead good! Shame there were no lights inside though… was a bit dark!

As I headed back in along the lake I saw the light show had changed and now there was a blue tree and what appeared to be a blue monster in it… NO! It was no monster, that was the Cheshire Cat! It was awesome! The tree stayed whilst the cat faded in and out. I couldn’t get any good photos (no way I was taking my good camera to a festival with such high crime stats) but hopefully I can post links to some from flickr soon. Later it changed to extracts from Alice in Wonderland with the rabbit running along writing out the words. It really was amazing.

I got to Pandora’s Playground for Lucifire’s tree suspension act. I’m pleased to say it went sooo much better than last year’s. I’m not entirely sure what happened last year, but it all seemed to go a bit wrong and she didn’t look like she was having fun. This year it was back to being fantastic again! Some Brummie bloke behind me commented that “she doesn’t seem to be doing much does she… I mean, apart from being suspended on meat-hooks”… *sigh*

I slowly sauntered back to the campsite via the bar. C was finishing his shift at 00:00 and the plan was to get very drunk and then go and watch Mark Lamarr. People were sat around the fire when I got back so I grabbed my blanket and went to join them. Around this time it became clear I wasn’t liked by a few of the people I was camped with. One was downright rude and upset me. After a while I gave in with being annoyed at her and not getting a reply to my texts. I went to bed. Finally over an hour late C texted me back. Turns out he’d forgotten all about me and had made new friends instead. When I went to the loo I wandered up to see him. Wished I hadn’t. Eventually went back to my tent to cry myself to sleep as I’d had such a rubbish day and all my plans were screwed once more.

Sunday
I was woken up at about 10:30 by C texting me to see what I wanted to do. I panicked and thought he’d be over soon, so got washed & dressed and then fell asleep. Woke up later to find no response. Turns out he was asleep too.

I had wanted to see Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging or at least the Q&A with Gurinder Chadha as I have to watch Bhaji on the Beach as part of my OU Course. But I slept through it… Also missed Frankie Boyle

We got to the Comedy Tent to see Milton Jones, he was great as usual. Really quick-fire jokes. very, very silly jokes. My Mum loved him at Reading last year. I missed Otis Lee Crenshaw though I can’t remember why! Same goes for Stewart Lee and Omid Djalili. I heard The Breeders from my tent.

We wandered about for a while and saw Grinderman, C seemed to still enjoy it even if he does hate Nick Cave. Interpol were OK. Seen them before though. Went back to my tent to get warm before heading back in to see LuciFire’s Weimar Liebe. Promptly fell asleep and awoke at 03:00. Oops.

Monday
Got up early, C’s shift was finishing at 08:00. Packed up all my stuff. Was halfway through getting the tent down when he appeared. We walked the miles to the shuttlebus queue. Queued for ages. As soon as I sat down I could feel my back going. The hour long journey sat in pain didn’t help. Then at Ipswich station the bastards changed the platform at the last minute so the hoards of people with bags and tents had to cross over the bridge. I got stuck behind a group of OAPs with walking sticks. Did not help my mood. Had a tired row with C on the Reading train. That was a joy. Got picked up by my Dad and all I wanted to do was have a bath in my bathroom and have a sleep in my bed. Get home to find my bathroom being decorated so I couldn’t have a bath and my bedroom was full of paint fumes so I couldn’t sleep either. Dad seemed surprised I’d want a bath when I got home..! Cried for hours.

Decided not to buy a ticket for 2009. Not yet anyway. Will see how it goes, but the way it stands right now. I ain’t going alone again!

Well this has been HUGE! I have some photos here on facebook.

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.