V Fest!

***

It's not everyday that you feel on top of the world, engulfed by an overwhelming sense of happiness and profligacy. However the weekend just gone is summed up by that feeling.

This weekend, of course, was V Festival, Chelmsford. A worry-free weekend of superb company, amazing music, and hundreds of thousands of people, all there for the same reason. I'm certain it's not possible to portray the festival experience though lexicon, but I'll have a damn good try!

Of course, like everything in life, there is always a downside. Whether it's the hangover after a night out, or the terrible aftertaste that supervenes the initial beautiful taste of garlic bread. If you worry about these insignificant adverse effects, life suddenly become so much more negative, and quite frankly life's too short. So I'll skip over the 3 hour que to get into the festival.

Friday night didn't involve music, just a chance for people to set up camp and mingle. Once we'd set up our tent (which took the same amount of time as it would to paint an ant), we sat explored the festival a little bit before returning to camp to drink.

Saturday morning, we awoke early and head down to the arena. Foolishly none of us had actually found out what time the arena opened, so we ended up sitting around by the gates for a couple of hours. We eventually entered the arena and the day of live music began.

Feeder

We started with Feeder, the first band on the V stage. We watched from a distance as we'd been sorting out our Hidden Garden passes first. It was brilliant to see Feeder again. They reminded me of a milestone in my life, when a friend and I had gone to Birmingham alone to watch them back in 2005.

Passion Pit

I love Passion Pit. The atmosphere they created with their tightness as a band, as well as their fantastic stage presence was crazy. I'd had to miss out on seeing Passion Pit earlier this year when I'd double booked myself, so seeing them at V totally made up for it.

The Coral

At this point, there was no one on that I particularly wanted to see, so stuck around after Passion Pit to see The Coral. They were ok, but seeing as I hardly know their music it wasn't the best. They seemed pretty bland as a band live as well.

Editors

I finally saw Editors!; Another band I'd missed earlier in the year due to a double booking. They were absolutely brilliant and exceeded initial expectations from me. A rather suitable name as well considering my career path.

Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding is an artist who I hold close to my heart. A young solo artist who has made it so incredibly big in the past year. I saw her literally a week before she had her big break earlier this year. Seeing the transformation from the grotty yet highly intimate gig at Leicester's 'The Shed' through to her well produced professional setup to thousands of people at the Juke arena at V 2010 was amazing. Ellie was definitely a highlight of the day.

Florence and The Machine

Florence has probably been my favoured artist of the past 14 months, another quick growth from such a fantastic solo artist. After seeing Florence last September in Birmingham, Florence remained the best gig I'd ever attended. I was worried that seeing Florence at such a huge event compared to the last place I saw her would ruin the atmosphere. It didn't. Florence easily spread her auditory magic throughout the arena, and although I saw her from quite a way back, her voice still managed to send shivers down my spine.

David Guetta

The final act of the day was David Guetta. He certainly knows how to please the crowd. Blasting out some incredible beats, complimented by some absolutely stunning set design and lighting, the day was topped off nicely.

I went back to the campsite ecstatic. I'd had such a prodigious day, and I knew it was going to be the same story again the following night.

I feel like now is the time to introduce Alan. A strange craze swept the festival taken from a TV advert. A pretty plain, yet incredibly amusing craze; simply shouting 'Alan', to which others would reply by yelling 'Alan' back, or sometimes steve!

Here is an example of said craze which I filmed on the way back to the campsite.

Learning from our previous mistake, we gave ourselves a much needed lie-in on Sunday. Upon waking up to outrageously greasy hair, I delved into the world of 'Dry Shampoo'. The notion of the crazy product never ceased to amaze me since I first came across it several years ago, but today was the first time I used it; it didn't end well.

Once I'd removed my antique visage, I once again had (relatively) silky smooth hair once again. Bliss.

So down to the arena once again we went; and what another amazing day it was!

Example

We kicked the day off with Example, a relatively new addition to my playlist. He was brilliant live, and we may have had a cheeky appearance on TV?

Plan B

We wanted to see Plan B who was starting 5 minutes after Example, but so did the other 10,000 people, so by the time we arrived Plan B was well into his set and we were at the back, hardly in ear shot. We could still hear well enough to sing and dance though, and that's all that matters!

Madness

Ever since seeing 'One Step Beyond', a Madness tribute act whilst I was working at Glasto earlier this year, I've wanted to see the real deal. The only band you can dance like a complete and utter idiot too and get away with. They put on an impressive show and were well worth it!

The Kooks

Next were the Kooks, and this is when the rain started. It was rather refreshing whilst dancing with another 20 odd thousand people, and it didn't dampen peoples spirits at all. As I previously said, life's too short! The Kook's were really good live, and although not their biggest fan, I still really enjoyed their show.

Calvin Harris

A big name in the current music scene, Calvin Harris didn't fail to deliver his infectious and signature tunes. Fantastic live performance apart from the pretty awful female vocalist who seemed to have some strange habit of over emphasising her 'B's...

After Calvin we returned to the tent for a while, drank, painted our faces, applied glow sticks and hyped ourselves up for Sunday's headline, The Prodigy.

The Prodigy

Were amazing. Never have I been to hyped in a crowd. Hundreds of thousands of people, all crammed in enjoying their hardcore tunes. Turning a blind eye to the fact someone had just lobbed a cup of piss or cider over you. You didn't care; you were too engulfed within the moment.

Immense, would be the correct term to be using here.

We left the arena for the last time, and returned to Yellow camp. This is when the rain turned into real rain, and it hammered it down for the rest of the night.

Morning came around, and we packed up our now drenched tent (pop up tents arn't the most waterproof of tents) and left to go back to London.

A truly immeasurably awesome weekend, can't wait till next year!

Flan x

Half way there...

Well as I pass the half way point of these tedious 6 months, things are starting to pick up.

I'm used to being back in Loughborough, back to old times with the occasional pub outing and general lounging about. Pretty typical that I'm heading back to London tomorrow, being torn from my roots once again!

I am looking forward to going back down though. I miss my new room and of course my wonderful housemates ;). There's a meet up with people from our course too which'll be good seeing as after so long we probably won't even recognise each other! I'm getting ahead of myself - rewind!

Yesterday we went bowling! It was a pretty impulsive visit, and we ended up waiting a couple of hours for a lane, but it was a fun day, followed by a PS3 fest until about midnight. I also took Claire's PC under my wing to give it some TLC and a re-build. It was pretty terrible, and sounded like a jet taking off. However on closer inspection, I removed dust which amounted to the size of my fist from the cooling fan. Pretty unbelievable.

Right now I'm sitting watching it download a new operating system. This time next week it'll be like new!

So back to London tomorrow. Eye appointment on Monday, just a check up, and then funzies that night with all the crew!

And then the big event! V fest next weekend! I am so immensely excited! It's gonna be a really amazing weekend, and hopefully I'll have recovered by the time it comes round to coming back for work!

I have a feeling this blog is going to read back really disjointed and erratic.. mainly because I've been distracted whilst writing it. Oh well - transient nature as I've said in the past!

Flan x

How times have changed.

Gone have the days where I could fearlessly shout random things at 'chavs'.

It was Summer 2006, and a group of us were walking through Loughborough's Queens Park. Upon leaving the park, we were met by a large group of 'chavs'. These were know at the time as 'Chavalanches'. As these forms of humans do, they took it upon themselves to say something rather vulgar towards our group of people. Quick as a flash, taken from a short film by David Firth, I retorted at the top of my lungs 'Who are youuu?'. This seemingly innocent and irrelevant question knocked the chavalanch off their feet, they literally did not know what to say or do. They were left completely disarmed.

From this experience I continued this habit of responding to abuse from these pikeys with irrelevant and completely random phrases. For instance I asked a group of charming young youths who had just told me to get my hair cut 'Why is the sky green?'. This method continued working.

However over the years I have grown up, and so have they - to be bigger, stronger and generally more intimidating. The abuse generally subsided, and therefore the random spikes of conversation did too. After my friend Guy was beaten up, as the group of chavs had seen past his confusing lexicon, we decided enough was enough.

So for the first time in quite a while, last night the old habit came back up and literally exploded from my mouth - bad idea.

As we were crossing a side road, a car sped into it off the main road, no indication, cutting the corner and nearly knocking us flat. Without a second thought, or even a first one for that matter, the habit came back. I could feel it ripping through my body, a mixture of desperately wanting to confuse a chav for just one last time, but this time it was mixed with fury. These kind of drivers, the ones with souped up cars, exhausts the size of cannons, music loud enough to be heard several miles away and measure 7.2 on the richter scale as they drive past are the ones that make our car insurance so expensive. The drink drivers, and wreckless, the plain stupid.

So just like the guys broken exhaust, the word roared from me: 'PRICK!'

It could have been worse I guess, there are many far far worse words I could have chosen, but prick was the first one hat came to mind.

Everything went slow mo. I could hear the screeching of the tyres, I could smell the burning of the rubber, and I could feel an immediate and potent regret, followed by extreme adrenaline.

I ran. If I'd ran like that at sports days in the past, I may never have been bullied for being crap. The problem was, he was in a car.. and I wasn't. I needed to get off the road and way, so i took the first side road I could and scrambled over someones fence, over another, and another and finally found a suitable bush at the side of a quiet road. I lay there, listening intently, I could hear the rumble of this engine driving around furiously looking for me. It eventually faded, and I was rescued by Ben in his car after a panicky phone call.

So there we are - a brilliant life lesson. I intend not to shout abuse at these people, even if they do have the mental capacity of a clothes peg.

A somewhat cinematic version of the story, but there it is.

Flan x

Partyy

The party was ace and a good time was had by all! Here are a few snapshots taken from videos - their whereabouts I intend to keep private!

There was a pretty good turn out, and I had attached my laptop to the stereo, and loaded up 'Grooveshark' - a website that streams pretty much any song ever for free. You can make playlists and it allowed people to choose songs and put them into the playlist. It worked really well!

The night turned a little bit messy with some of the party goers - not the nicest thing to clean up, but at the time we took advantage of their over indulgent disaster and decided to (after checking they were alive), put boxes on their heads...

...colour them in....

...Drag them outside...

In fact, it became clear at the party that if anyone fell asleep, they would be pranked in someway or another. A vuvuzela came in handy to wake people up suddenly, as did a cymbal and an air horn. As morning broke and people started to tire, the party moved entirely to the front room, where we played a human game of 'Bukaroo!' as shown below.

Morning also saw amusing sights such as this....

So over all, I declare the party a success! Everyone enjoyed themselves, and the clean up operation went pretty smoothly, despite taking about 8 hours.

The downside is - someone at the party had a cold, and now everyone else has a cold... but hey ho!

Speak to you soon!

Flan x