Chaos-23

So, another festival is over. Not a great one this year in all fairness.

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Went to exchange my ticket for a wristband on the Thursday and found the signs for the exchange were absolutely dire. In fact we only saw one and the only place you could see it was AFTER you’d been through the exchange tent. Not good enough…

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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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I don’t know why, but after having my rib-cage smooshed to bits by an insanity of bass in a small tent at Reading this year I’ve had a real soft-spot for Hadouken! They are so young and really seem to be doing something a bit different. Some of their tracks are insanely catchy too. I know a lot of my friends won’t like this, but I likes what I likes, and I likes Hadouken!

It’s not exactly the Hadouken! I’ve come to love. It’s far less in-your-face bassy and a little bit, well… emo sadly. I still like it once you get past the first minute or so, but it’s no ‘Liquid Lives’ or ‘That Boy That Girl’.

I’ve been depressed again the last couple of days. No real reason for it at all. I just want a big hug and to be told everything will be OK.

My weekends right now are awesome, fun-packed. But the weeks… the weeks are bad. It’s getting worse. I know this is just because I’m leaving work. I am getting home stressed, managing to claw back some semblance of happiness by using every Sanctuary Spa product I can find and plonking myself down next to my uber nice TV.

Last night that just didn’t work. I found myself getting a headache and getting to sleep just wasn’t happening. I still have the headache today. I hope this cloud clears. I have no real reason to feel so rubbish :o(

Add to that the fact that PodPads for this years Latitude are a whopping £399.95… even with the £50 refundable deposit… err no thanks! Which means camping alone. I hate camping. I hate tents. And I also hate the fact that the tent is not lockable or in the VIP area like the PodPads. But I just can’t afford to spend £500 just for a festival. Looks like this won’t be such a great festival for me after all. Lugging a tent all that way was not my plan.

Anyhoo, I have a headache still… but I’ve bought looooads more Sanctuary Kyphi stuff. I shall get home tonight and block it all out.

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.

Really should have updated ages ago, but my phone line is being an arse :o(

Reading Festival was a good laugh again. Didn’t see a huge amount of bands, but Lemon Jelly Satanic Bingo was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, even when no-one won for a very long time! Queens of the Stone Age were quality as usual. Kings of Leon were superb. Met up with Fly from bit-tech again on the Sunday, albeit briefly (again) cos he’s a lightweight and scared of Marilyn Manson fans ;op Bumped into Scott and Leigh heading in to the site on the Sunday too which was a bit mental. Scott has bumfluff on his chin… what’s that about eh? Jeffers did have some fine Whisky in his hipflask. Although my hipflask was way better and contained Amaretto… so clearly superior ;o)

I am now full of cold and off work ill. I was going to try & remote in (I got on the VPN trials - no more RAS \o/) but my phone line is so poo it’s not worth it. Shame… hehe.

This bloody rocks, although I wouldn’t want it on all the time as you can imagine it hogs resources and would be bloody annoying, still cool though :oD

HypnoToad Konfabulator Widget

Off to Reading Festival.

Staying at Chris’ from tonight (Thursday) to Monday. His internet is a bit hit-n-miss so I probably won’t be on-line ’til Monday evening/Tuesday.

If you need to get hold of me I have my mobile with me & I can pick up e-mail from Jo@Chaos-23.com.

See you on the other side…

That turned out to be one of the most enjoyable festivals I’ve had for a couple of years. Maybe because I spent less time there??

We only managed to see a bit of Rahzel & Mike Patton. They were really good, but the sound was a bit pooh, Super Furry Animals were blaring out at one side & the other side smelled like someone was BBQing poo (the Hog Roast stall was there).

I bought the warmest coat known to all humanity. I’m determined it won’t be one of those things I don’t wear until the next festival. It’s MASSIVE, fleecy inside & then woolly outside. Basically, like a fleecy cardigan with a woolly jumper over the top. It rox!! :oD

Chris bought a new bong so we’ll have to name it this week. Unfortunately it can’t be Luci after LuciFire cos he already has a Luci. Hmmm… best get thinking… it certainly can’t be called Fire. Grrrr…

I got loads and loads of sleep, but for some reason I’m still shattered. I’ve been waiting all day to be able to go back to bed. And that’s exactly what I’m about to do :o)

Hope all you Infest peeps had a good time?

Saturday at the Festival was better than expected. We didn’t bother getting down there for the 5.6.7.8’s as there was such a huge gap in between them and anyone else we wanted to see. Apparently they were very good though.

We got there in time for Har Mar Superstar who was absolutely fantastic. AND he kept his clothes on. Marvellous! Shockingly Chris actually liked him too.

Then we headed off to see The Roots. They were very good musicians, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I was in the mood for & being sat in the middle of a field surrounded by annoying people didn’t help.

After them we saw The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. To my delight Chris loves them. He lost the plot and legged it up into the crowd to get a closer look… never in a million years did I think he’d be into “Southern Goth-Boogaloo”!! :oD The tent was fairly empty which was a real shame. It had been packed for Har Mar earlier.

Bumped into Mr & Mrs Haz on the way out, he was being very emo & waiting to see Funeral For a Friend.

Caught a bit of the Dillinger Escape Plan, but the sound in the Concrete Jungle tent was abysmal. Didn’t like it at all so we left after about 10 minutes.

Went back to the camp-site for a while as it was going to be a couple of hours before anyone else we wanted to see.

Got back into the Arena early to go to the loo & had a terrible choice ahead of me. HUGE queue or smaller queue & right next to Morrissey :os I chose the Morrissey option, although it was painful on the ears.

Tried to see Sick of It All, but again the sound was awful so I gave up & headed across to meet everyone at the Carling Stage for Mondo Generator. Wasn’t as impressive as I’d hoped. They weren’t bad, but didn’t hold my interest & instead I found myself chatting to some strange boys… with nail varnish that matched mine XD

We waited what seemed like an eternity for Mark Lanegan. Our feet were blistered & sore & our knees were giving way. We caught 2 songs & had to leave. Just too tired.

Got back to the pub to see The Funky Monks (RHCP Tribute Band), but the singer was having an off day. Too much tiredness meant we left after 1 drink.

I’ve had loads of sleep yet I’m still shattered. I only want to see Mike Patton tonight & he’s not on until 22:30 so a bit of a lazy day ahead of us!!

Well, yesterday at the Festival was pretty cool. It took well over an hour to get through the mud and into the Main Arena though, so I missed Goldie Lookin’ Chain :o( They did covers of Let’s Get Ready to Rumble & the theme from Jim’ll Fix It apparently.

Caught Jurassic 5 & they were very good. The Kazoo solo was interesting as were the hand exercises they made the crowd do XD I also met up with Wil & Fred (MrHaz & Fly) from Bit-Tech for Jurassic 5. Very cool to meet these people in person at last! :oD Some strange little kid with very faded dyed hair pointed at my hair & said “snap!” which was a little disturbing…

The Wildhearts were as good as expected. :o)

Then it was off down the pub for a few hours. Met some nice people that end up at the pub every year. They’re just coming to the pub next year & not bothering with the festival!

We headed back in time to meet back at the camp-site & then off to see The Darkness. They had much fun with “FUCK” and “CUNT” on the big light-boards behind them. The fireworks were totally INSANE!

Lastly we had the Cabaret Stage. Wow. This stage rocked. Started out with the awesome Dirty Sanchez. Pritchard smacked the shit out of his leg with a meat tenderizer. Pancho got a fish-hook through his ear, but the main spectacles were Joycey drinking Pritchard’s Carling enema & Joycey doing a pube & piss bong… then drinking the bong-piss…. eeeeew!

Then it was the fabulous Lucifire doing her Grotesque Burlesque. Seriously, if you ever get the chance to see her perform this. You MUST go. She is suspended by meat-hooks, then performs a striptease & fan-dance. It’s amazing.

We couldn’t see 10 Minutes With My Dad or the Suicide Girls as the battery died on the camera supplying feed to the TV screens :o(

All in all, an excellent night. :oD