Festival Fever

Isle of Wight or Isle of Torrential Rain?

There is nothing quite like the feeling of waking up at stupid o’clock in the morning on the day that you are going to a festival, ready to get on the road. For me this buzz is something I liken to when you went to an airport as a kid and thought it was truly the most exciting thing in the world. The car was packed, it was probably the most prepared I have ever been for a festival, largely due to it being my other half’s first festival and the fact that she had got a bit excited and gone to the shops the previous day. Armed with a nice new inflatable bed, camping lantern, and keg of beer (love her) we started the drive to Portsmouth for the ferry.

Driving at 6am I find to be a little like what it would look like after that massive explosion in Terminator 2 when everything got a bit melty, there is no one else about and you can just power your way to wherever you want to go without having to swerve around the middle lane idiots and can happily take the racing line round any bends. We were in Portsmouth in no time, straight on a ferry and to the bar. I felt quite uncomfortable drinking a can of fosters at 9am, I always cringe when I am at Gatwick for an early morning flight and there are people in the pub at 7 in the morning having their third of fourth drink, we Brits don’t seem to understand that regardless of whether you are on holiday or not, that is just plain wrong! Anyway, off the ferry at Fishbourne and down the road to the festival site. One of the great things about the Isle of Wight festival is that the site is so easy to get to. Literally it is about 2 miles from the port(s), and involves going on about 2 roads, even a group of girls with no male influence could find it. That being said, I missed the turning for the car park.

Once in the site, one of my preconceptions of the festival was blown apart almost immediately. I had been told that this was a relatively small festival, so I had somehow got it in to my mind that the campsite wouldn’t be a bulging mass of tents stretching far into the distance in every direction, but it was, and given that we wanted a little bit of peace and quiet once back at our tent we opted to pitch our tent in one of the fields towards the back. Tent pitched we sat and had a(nother) beer.

We arrived on the Friday morning, the festival opened its gates on the Thursday, so if you are looking to get a spot in the main camping fields, it goes without saying that you need to be banging on the door on the Thursday. However, our field was about 10 minutes walk to the festival site and we were able to pitch our tent happily in plenty of room, so don’t worry if you are arriving on the second day early doors. If, however you turn up late on the Friday then you may well end up pitching your tent inbetween others in a space that, well, doesn’t really exist, or as some people reduced themselves to, next to the portaloos.

So, time to hit the festival to see what was going on, Kaisers and Kings of Leon were on later, for now I wanted to give Tess a bit of an introduction to what the festival atmosphere is like, so we marched on to the main entrance. Why is that dog sniffing me? Get off you mutt! “could you put your hands together sir” “eh?” “if you would like to come with me.” Now I do have a slightly dopey aura about me, so I am told, but I have never been big in the drug scene, so to get accosted by the drug squad upon entry to the festival was a little bit embarrassing. Frankly I think the sniffer dog should have his pay cut for wrongful arrest being as I hadn’t touched anything but I will let it go, for now! After that hilarity we wandered into the site and had a few drinks, checked out the various shops and stalls and noticed that you needed to take out a small loan to go on any of the fair rides, seriously, £15 to go on a reverse bungee ball thing?! I would expect to be able to take it home with me afterwards for that.

You might have seen on the news that the IOW was a bit wet this year. This started on the Friday night with a fairly heavy shower that made a mockery of me not having a waterproof or even a jumper. It also highlighted to me that the guys who sell jumpers for £10 are far away from the stage, and the guys who sell the same jumpers for £25 are closer, it is like a mini UK in a festival site, with pricey London being close to the action and affordable Huddersfield being at the back near the funfair.

The inflatable bed deflated during the night to the extent that I was pretty much sleeping on the floor, Tess, remarkably was quite comfortably lying on a cushion of air on the other side, the only reasonable conclusion is that I have put on a bit of weight and was forcing all the air into her side, that was obviously gutting in more than one way. The morning was baking! The sun was out trying to make up for what the previous night had given us and the rays were welcomed, except in our tent which had become an oven. We decided that the best food probably wasn’t to be had from a festival vendor, so we headed into Newport, about 30 mins walk to sample the pub food available there. I did a similar thing two years ago at bestival and to be honest, it works a treat, a good hearty feed without having to pay over the odds, and a cleanish toilet to use as well.

Back at the festival we caught a few acts during the afternoon, Wild Beasts stuck out as being a bit special, I had been tipped off about them and wasn’t disappointed. Eventually we felt the need to wander back to the tent to recharge our alcoholic batteries. We found companionship in our quest with two right wally’s who were part of a wider group of wally’s who anyone at the festival had no doubt spotted at some point. Having gotten carried away drinking and taking photo’s of a super awesome VW van tent, we missed large portions of chase and status, gutted, and completely missed Mike and the Mechanics, not so gutted. We were however, back in front of the main arena in time for a bit of Pulp and the Foos. Both those sets were awesome, Pulp just for reminding me of adolescence and Foos because, well, I just love the Foos! Following the sets, which with time have become a bit hazy, we meandered our way back to the camp, although there was still time for one or two trips over the odd guide rope and one unexpected visit to someone’s tent following one of the aforementioned trips.

Sunday, it rained, loads. I woke up with quite predictably wet feet, a bit of a hangover, standard, and a huge sense of injustice that on a night where I needed loads of sleep, rain pelting the tent had restricted me to around about f*ck all of it. “Can you get my wellies from the car?” “For fucks suck!” I’ll be honest, we bloused it on the Sunday, it was raining, biblical rain and I had forgotten to bring an ark with me so we holed ourselves up in a pub called the Bargeman’s Rest which a lot of people seem to also know about as it was busier than the front of the crowd at the Foos set the night before. There is something quite gauling about reading the Sunday papers when you have paid so much money to be watching music in a sunny field, but it was proper rain and we both knew that we had to drive home late so didn’t fancy getting thoroughly soaked first. We did however still have to take the tent down and load the car up. As we walked past line after line of abandoned tents, the thought did cross my mind to just pick up the valuables and vamoose, but it was Kendo’s tent and I think he might have been even angrier than when I burst the swan so I diligently packed it up in the pouring rain and we trudged our way back to the car and warmth.