(somewhat delayed) T in the Park!!!

Apologies for the delay. Blog posts to follow thick and fast in the coming days I hope!

Thursday: We made it in, and actually got sunburnt waiting to get into the camping ground. Not putting the tent up in the rain- WIN!!!

Fairy trio! There was a fancy dress theme for the Friday night, which we (clearly) put a lot of effort in to. 

Friday:

Friday was actually pretty amazing. It was glorious and sunny mostly, there was the requisite mud that any festival must have, but basically fine. I got to see The Darkness live, meaning I have now seen Franz Ferdinand and The Darkness, the soundtrack to my last year at high school. I even had S2 (a friend from school) with me to appreciate The Darkness too, it was perfect. I believe in a thing called love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fairys in tent city! (Note the lack of mud now...)

Fairy make-up was a lot of fun, Jo did an amazing job of drawing on the side of my face. If only you could actually see it...

Oh so also there was the Kaiser Chiefs, who I've loved for a long while now, but I was surprised at the crowd reaction to them. The Darkness inspire people to rock out in a hair metal totally-I'm-taking-this-seriously-buahahahahahahahahahahah-just-listen-to-the-rhythm-of-my-heart sort of way (i.e. have an awesome time tossing their hair about play air guitar and trying to hit the high notes of a would-be metal love song). I guess the Kaiser Chiefs are just that bit more melancholy and strike a chord with the younger, frustrated generation who mostly comprised that part of the crowd. Their rather tongue-in-cheek lyrics I think were taken rather more literally than really intended too ("every day I love you less and less"). Either way, Jo started to get seriously squished and was in danger of being maimed, so we left after a couple of songs, it was just too rough. Which is a pity, I really like them, but there's no way we could've stayed, she's just too small for a crowd in that sort of mood.

After mooching about for a bit, going to get something to eat, we meandered back around the end of their set, and I decided I would like to go back in. I'm not really into mosh pits, but I'm okay with the crush around the main stage, it's a part of the thrill and is really quite fun, if you can hold your own (which I'm sure you all know I'm more than capable of with a mixture of elbows and fluttering lashes). I'm not really familiar with Example, I only knew the song 'Changed the way you kiss me', but I like it well enough, so I was up for it, and managed to get in really close without too much difficulty. It's a bit of whirlpool effect once you get into the crowd, I started quite far out at the side, but only about two songs in I was right in the middle, without any real intention of getting there, that was just the way the crowd sucked me in. Unfortunately Example wanted to get a few mosh pits going, and actually requested the crowd to 'get a few circles going here' and then the real squishing started. I suspect it was somewhere in here that I got a bit damaged, but I didn't really notice at the time (thanks Adrenaline- Threnaline), so just carried on. I actually got pulled out the front barrier at the end of the set, thanks to some kind (and tall) guy in front of me who asked where I wanted to go and when I said 'out' he got attention from the appropriate plebs and got me hauled out over the front barrier (quite literally). It was the only way out at that point, the bands only got bigger and better after that, and the crowd correspondingly bigger.

Anyway, enjoyed an amazing set from Florence + the machine. AMAZING!!! I love that woman! She owns the stage pretty damn well for one lady, and is a security nightmare with all her jumping off the stage to go right up to the crowd. She has such a powerful voice, and such a range. Sometimes seeing people live is disappointing, and sometimes you appreciate them more. In her case, she definitely came across even more awesome than I realised she was (and slightly drunk, but that's entirely forgiveable), such enthusiasm too. I was very happy.

Unfortunately by the time Snow Patrol came on I was starting to feel the full force of my time in the crowd, and my ankle was getting really sore, so I headed back to the tent early, not wanting to fight the main crowd and mud to get back with a sore ankle.

Please observe where we could have pitched a tent...

Jo and I

Saturday: Cut forward nine hours, and I woke up to rather upset friends, whose sleeping bags were wet, thanks to a leak in the tent. Leak in the tent was fixed (drunks had tripped of guy ropes keeping the fly away from the tent), contents of tent sorted out, and then I tried to stand up and walk. Suffice to say that 'tried' is the important word. 'Hobbled' is the correct term for what I managed, with the aid of S2 and Jo, until we reached a help point, and got some medics. To make a long story short, I spent ALL day either in first aid posts, the site hospital (yes, apparently a festival this size has an actual, on site, army-style hospital), except for a while in the Cabaret Club. Which had stand-up comedy. Grr. Also, dear god, festivals are FULL to the brim of stupid people. Absolutely full. There were drunk people with hypothermia left, right and centre, wearing foil blankets and vomiting into cardboard tubs, or passed out on stretchers. I realised that people who're high as a kite are actually way more tolerable than drunk people, mostly. Whatever party drugs they were on just made them very love-y and actually pretty hilarious for the most part. And they don't vomit so much. Also, anybody who volunteers at these sorts of things deserves a gold medal. I don't have nearly that much patience! They're angels really.

Also, they should sit in a corner of these tents with a camera, filming. It would make awesome reality TV. People who pay £250 for the privilege of getting themselves fucked up, cold, muddy and ill in close proximity to awesome live music are just crazy. All that amazing music, and they aren't going to remember any of it. Admittedly that's because they didn't see it, but that is directly due to their own stupidity (except for a few, much more worrying and sad cases of drink spiking). It's a strange phenomena really, but it seems quite common- S2 reports that she has encountered this attitude from workmates and such here. Really odd. If you want to go mess yourself up outside, camp-grounds are a lot cheaper!

Anyhow, the end result of all my time in festival A&E was that I was *eventually* helped out of the place and onto a bus back to Edinburgh, with my pack. Many thanks to many of my friends for all their help. E sorted out a B&B for me to stay at, as my cellphone battery was dying, and Jo and S2 helped to carry me and my stuff to places I could be rescued from. I made it to the B&B by about midnight, where I showered (*with* my boots, it was the only hope I had of removing the mud from them!) and collapsed into bed after re-bandaging my ankle. Yay I still know how to do up bandages properly! They are awkward on yourself though.

Festivaaaaaaaaaaaal power!

Sunday: Next morning I got a taxi to S2's flat and grabbed my stuff, in order that didn't die of boredom in the B&B room. It was a nice enough B&B (Smith's Guest-house, if you're interested, I would definitely recommend it!), it's just that with no phone and no internet, there's really not much to do. After retrieving my travel entertainment (oh Netty, how I love thee), I settled in to a café for the remainder of the day, taxing back to the B&B (sprained ankles while travelling are expensive) in time to paint my nails before hobbling to the Chinese restaurant down the road for dinner.

Anyway, the festival was good, even if I did get a bit broken and have to leave early. I got to see the bands I was most after, and my friends, so I'm happy. I was able to catch up with S2 and Jo (who can be found over at her blog) on the Monday, and they filled me in on the remainder of the weekend and all the mud and music I missed. Sounds like I missed the most of the mud-fest!