It doesn't matter if it rains if you have 50 square meters of tarpaulin.
This isn't what I usually do, because I find that particular brand of blog (and most others) completely useless, navel-gazing and utter boring, but now I'll talk about what I did last week. If my hands will stop shaking.
I've done as I usually do, and spent my vacation in moderate discomfort at a music festival, as any sane madman indeed should do. The air is moist particles of filth, you are either hung over or insanely drunk, and there is a constant but somewhat pleasant ache in your body and soul. The smell is terrible outside and worse inside. If you are an amateur, your tent will be leaking and taking in water. You are either too hot, too cold and/or wet. If you are lucky you lose or break your stuff. If you are unlucky it gets stolen or someone else breaks your stuff. But god damn, I love that life. Yes, I use the "L-word". I'm not supposed to, but that is how strongly I feel about it, and Potatobeak the Hate-cat will forgive me in time.
Now, it might seem strange that I'm breaking out the big L gun for such a concept as festivals, especially when they do and are all the things I mention here, but I will attempt to clarify and also bring the hate back in.
First of all, I will say this; If you haven't been to a music festival, just stop reading, you won't get it. Just continue to molest goats or whatever it is you do with your time.
Secondly I will say that you have to stay in the festival camping area. Tent, car, trailer, it is all good. Hotels and such is cheating.
Then there is the whooper: Everyone should try to work as a volunteer at a festival at least once in their life. Not the crappy one or two days of serving beers or whatever, but the whole deal, getting the whole thing up and running and then tearing it all down again. If you are lucky, you can even get paid a pittance, and the serious work crew get the serious benefits and fun. There was a time when I did this, but it is a young person's game, and I'm not sure I could hack it anymore. Accidents will occur. There will be blood. Someone in the crew will get stuck between floors in a tiny food elevator.
Someone might get hit by Green Day's moving freezer. Stuff happens.* But all that and other war stories are in the past, so let's see what happened this year, with all play and no work.
Where and how.
So me and a couple of friends went to the getaway rock festival in Sweden. Why go all the way to Sweden for a festival that had a somewhat weak lineup? Sweden is cheaper than Norway, the food at the festival is awesome, and I had to book my vacation before the lineup was released, so there you go. Our heroic driver drove for 13 hours, we arrived after dark and planted our tents in the one random spot that was available. Our neighbors were somewhat skeptical to suddenly have what can only be described as a waterproofed** cave on top of their tents, but the natives were friendly and soon sung us the songs of their people, and we got on superbly after that.
The music.
The biggest bands were probably Volbeat, Slayer and Dimmu Borgir. None of them impressed, and I didn't stay for the full gig of any of them. Yet, all was not lost. Blues Pills delivered the best concert I've seen for many years. It was the closest I've come to dancing like a stoned hippie, and I don't even like hippies. And I don't dance. It was truly a wonder to behold, the purest form of old school rock, beautifully performed by everyone on stage.
Other bands that impressed the shit out of me were Black Star Riders, Big Elf and Skindred. Kreator, Opeth and Steel Panther was merely good fun. It is impossible to see all the band you want to see, and some of those you actually see disappoint. If I find a couple of new bands that surprise me in a good way, I count myself lucky.
The food.
Awesome. All of it.
What I've learned.
My faith in humanity has gotten a boost. Mostly because of the great people that hung at our camp, the camp that got so many name suggestions that no one stuck, but several were apt. Here are a few: Hate Camp (duh), The Hell Hole, Camp Issues, Little Norway, Fist and hippo Camp.
Anyways, stuff I've learned...
Riding a mechanical bull is harder than it looks.
Fresh pasta is the food of the gods.
Never touch Jesus' hair. Ever.
Fisting never gets old.
Swedes know Norwegian, it just takes some time for them to realize it.
There appears to be a huge market for frozen cubes of hippo sperm out there.
A good massage will take you a long way but not all the way.
Vegans can live a long time on bananas.
Never buy an expensive tent. You are going to ditch it in the end anyways.
You can get an awesome response of random people if you shout "do the thing!"
Always check that your ride home has not been dismantled by people who only meant to fix it.
Festival toilets and showers can be good fun.
So yes, I blogging love festivals. The high you get is awesome, but I hate the trip down when it is over. There is fear and loathing, shaking hands and paranoia. I suppose it is my meta drug of choice, and there is a flipside to everything.
Some of the people I met collected stuff. Scars, jokes, hugs, sexual conquests, other people's possessions and so on. Having the memory capacity of a hamster, try as best as I can to collect the memories of gigs and the people I met. They are the best. So thank you everyone, for sharing your warmth with me at that moment in time. I haven't laughed so hard for ages.
I am the hippo-whisperer.
*No one ever got killed on my watch. As far as I know.
**It doesn't matter if the forecast is hot and sunny, ALWAYS make your camp waterproof.***
***And how we laughed at the wet people when it rained.
****Really what is left of Thin Lizzy in disguise.
