Wednesday Night
Me and my friend Lyndsay travelled from Edinburgh to get down to Reading Festival by bus all the way-so not fun.
Thurday
So we got on the Reading bus along with all the moshers and hardcore goths, sweatys and weirdo's and slept the other hour and a half. The moment we got there we had to put our wellies on-the mud was soooooooooo deep and it was everywhere, fell in marches a couple of times which was nice without a shower!
When we found a place to camp (Yellow something) which wasn't easy as we got there around 11ish-still earlish but there were about another 4000 odd who were really keen that got there before us.we opened up our tent packet to dicover there were no instructions with the tent and since none of us had put a tent up in the past this was going to be intresting. We both pretty much looked at the tent for around 30 mins sorta kicking it and making a mess, we took so long that the boys next to us had put their tent up in our space which was nice so when a nice kind girl called 'fabby' helped u we were grateful but we had so little room our tent was kinda on top of two others-oops!
So after the tent fiasco we got changed and walked around and bought some stuff .Me buying all these things forgot that i was going to have to put them back into my hiking back later which was soooooooooo not easy!
Soafter we fitted in being cool and all we fell asleep and walked about at night trying to buy some food (£3 for a bacon roll-what a bloody rip off!) and some alcohol which we had bought earlier that day at Sainsbury's and at the sight we had a couple of drinks and went to the dance tent where everyone was in good happy spirits where we walked about like zombies and dead people. We wanted to get drunk soooooo badly but the toilets were the most rank things i have ever been in in my whole life. It was like peeing in a big bucket with poo all around the seat and urine everywhere-lucky me managed to fall on one of the seats and smacked my elbow off the wall in the cubile which started bleeding so im probably gonna have an infected elbow now. Also none of the toilet doors locked so you had to sort of balance and hover over this rank thing and try and hold the door whilst trying not to pee on urself which proved very difficult.
Anyway so after a traumatic and scary first night of sleeping in the coldest 'play tent' ever we managed to get up around 9am the next day.
Friday
Friday which was when the first day of the actual festival and all the music started. The bands started playing at 12 noon and me and lyndsay got right to the front of the main stage (bad idea as we dicovered) so Goldie Looking Chain were on first 'guns dont kill people, rappers do.........' they were good and funny etc, but the next band, Taking Back Sunday were sooooooo good, i had heard of them before but Lyndsay didnt realise that they were a total moshing band and we actually got pushed into the barriers and im sure i broke my ribs but we got pushed back alittle by the other hardores so when we wanted to get out the only way was to crowd surf as we discovered. So lyndsay went first-THE funniest thing I have ever seen in my life unless I had had a mirror of myself but that was soooooooo funny her kicking her wellie bnoots in everyones faces, her bag and poncho-so funny. Wasnt funny when I had to do it though. Quite embarrsing though but everyone else did it.
That day we also saw Jurassic 5, The Hives, Offspring and Darkness. Lyndsay was quite traumatised from the earlier Taking Back Suynday incident so she refused to go anywehere near the front but me being me said that I would meet her later and ran to front while she ran to the back. I managed to squeeze myself in the middle near the front where i met this group of guys from sussex or something. They were all like 'we'll take care of you blah blah blah.....' So i stayed with them when Darkness came on when the crowd all at once pushes everyone to the front so u actually have someone penetrating you from behind and your so close you have the guys hair in front of you in your mouth-gross! That was only the beginning and i was having a brilliant time, i was absolutley stoned had about a million caffiene pills and alcohol. I was totally fucked. It was nt until someone came over my gead as they wanted out and smacked me in the face with their mother fucker of a muddy wellie boot that i started to sober up and when the whole crowd puched to the side and about a hundred people fell in top of me. But as I soon worked out since there never really seemed to be any girls at the front of the stage as there mostly small and would have died I was one of the few which meant if you fell over a hundred poeple got you up first-especially if you started screaming like i did as you got up even faster. So this is what I called fun getting my hair ripped out and people standing all over me and kicking me in the face. I decided to get out near the end of the darkness's set so it was my turn to crowd surf for the second and final time. I said my goodbyes to the really cool guy that i ended up being hugged by and I got lifted up by this guy and crowd surfed. Everyone would have got a really good view as i had on a short black cord skirt. So it was my turn to kick poeple in the face with my wellies and bag So after that incident I managed to find lyndsay (i was also soaked as the security guards and crowd gave and chuck water at the crowd to keep you hydrated and seriouslly everyone chucks whole cupfulls of water on your head-i was frozen!), yeah so i met lyndsay who had picked up this total random guy and we went to watch dirty sanchez. Bad idea. we got there in time for when one of the guys from GLC got to pick some of their pubic hair off and put it in this bong thing, then another guy pissed in it, then someone else drank it-right in front of my face.........so there i go and do my usual boking sick noises much to everyones delight around me while I ran out the tent-how embarrasing! So that guy and lyndsay ran after me and we walked around talking to lots of randoms about trampolines and tongues (as you do) that night we got back to our tent around 1.30 which we discoevered was very early-silly us. We got woken up by about a million people and i woke up when some girl behind our tent was like 'should i just pee here?' thats when i woke up fully and screamed the whole bloody place down so she wouldnt pee beside our tent. I gave lyndsay a bit of a fright though as she was fast asleep when i start screaming my head off!
Saturday
The next day (finally) was Saturday, it was sooooooo cold the night before and we had about 5 million layers on so when we woke up to dirct bright sunlight onto our tent on saturday morning it was like being suffocted-i couldnt breathe as it was soooooo hot and the first thing we had to do was to go to to the toilet-really not a nice smell first thing in the morning. Gagging like hell-i also needed a poo realy bad but i refused to do one.
I forgot to mention also that on friday the day before, i had managed to pee all down my leg. There are theese things called 'pee-mates' which apparently are eay to use and shit are really popular. Its so girls can be like guys in a urinal. So stupid me goes and trys it, Its like a cyllinder where you place at the hole where your wee comes out (what a picture) and you pee into it. Ididnt realsie that it had a hole at the end of the cone thing and i was aiming the hole alllllllllllll down ly leg. So when i pulled my trousers back up i had wee all down and it was so obvious as well. But without that being embarrasing enough there was a guy working at this stall tent thing and he had been watching me (lucky me) and he had managed to get a skirt with was the most rank skirt ever for me to change into right there and then, so off the trousers go again and on the rank skirt. I then had to walk through the arena place with my urinated trousers in one hand , the rank skirt on and my sticky legs to our tent. Nice.
After that event we saw the 5,6,7,8's who sang that whohoo whoohoo whoo sonmg, the football advert thing, the roots, franz ferdinand, the libertines and the white stripes. This time i managed to persuade tash to come and join me at the front, how wrong was i to suggest that!. She thought it was an experience but she was wearing a white cardigan-oops! Again i managed to drag her down to the front-she didnt appreciate the wellie in the face thing but im sure she got used to it.
Towards the end I realised that I had lost my wrist band So I got quite pissed off after that but still enjoyed the rest of the gig. That night we managed to get back to our tent around 5ish
Sunday
The last day of music. We were meeting Jess and Tash again today which was cool, i was really looking forward to the days lineup of bands. I was so excited about seeing Green Day as i love them so much! We did our usual of getting up around 9am and trecking to the toilet which by now the smell was kinda drifiting to our tent and it was overpowering i gagged everytime i went near it!
We watched the streets, the lost prophets and the rasmus were meant to be playing but when they came on stage they got bottled off so that was the end of that one. We were pretty much drinking cider all day so again i was fucked, but i was also physically exhuasted from trying to stay alive in the crowds and everyone falling over on me (i fell over twice in the white stripes) oh yeah-i managed to get a new wrist band-i was number 51,777 and that was camping wrist bands!
Annnnnyyyyway rumours had it that 50 cent had pulled out of playing so we werent actually expecting him to turn up but oh no, after placebo had finished there goes the 'g-unit' back drop on the stage. This is when it got probably scary. I managed to persuade everyone to go near the front as Green Day were on after, oops! When 50 cent came on bottles of piss were flying over the tops of our heads, i got hit with so many bottles as im really tall (like 5,11 if your wondering) and guys behind us were pissing into their bottles also.
When 50 cent and his crew came on stage-oh my god! He should have never come on, good on him though for playing 25 minutes of his 55 minute set! I seriously think about 2000 bottles at least were chucked at him, he was chucking them back though and when he was like 'put your hands up' everyuone stuck their fingers up at him, but him and g-unit were all swearing at us and sticking their fingers up at us too!pointfull. He finally walked off when someone chucked a deck chair at him. He was like 'what the fuck is all this shit man, go fuck yourselfs' and walked off stage.
Next band-Green Day I was dying for the toilet too but we had got pushed back a bit so we werent as close to the stage anymore and i refused to go to the toilet and lose my place. Lyndsay had ran to the back of the crowd leaving me with Jess and Tash. We were all excited but when they came on-my god!what i thought was bad the nights before, all the pushing and shoving, crowd surfing and jumping was bad!they must have got about 20 times more of that. I managed to get right right right right at the front. I was second row right in the middle of the pit(if you want to call them rows) I really wished i hadnt gone so close though-again i was by myself singing my head off and swearing when i got a wellie in my head but what an experience. I thought i was going to get killed, i was suffocating real bad and my arm was stuck about 5 people behind me and my hair got totally ripped out my head. Poeple get pulling at it and pulling me when they fell down so i would fall down as well. But the worst was yet to come. When i got to second row Green Day was like we want three people out the crowd to join uis on stage to play with us. FUCKING HELL!the whole bloody crowd must have actually jumped on my head-my neck got totally fucked and i got a full force kick right in the middle of my face with someones wellie boot-they left a muddy mark. It was when i broke my toe was the fucking sorest thing ever!i wa scream,ing in agony but still i would not budge, i was so desperate to see the band that i wouldnt move and everyone was asking if i wanted out and if i was o.k and shit-i must have looked a mess with hair stuck to my head all matted, eyeliner and make up running down my face and covered in bruises. I had fucking good will power il tell you that, but still such a good experience. I had 4 tops on and a bra and all four of them got soaked. I was soaked to the skin and freezing cold! I have the worst cold now. We pretty much went straight back to the tent after saying a tearful goodbye to jess and tash.
About 3.30 ish we tried falling asleep but it was impossible. They was a big crowd of drum players right next to us and people were tripping up over our tent and shit. The drummers were playing till 5am and then started again at 7am!thats when i got up-again zombied. I had to pack all my shit into plastic bags dangling from my bag-lovely smell coming from them im sure. We got on our bus and didnt get home till about 8ish after a full day of travelling. Seriously not fun but well worth the money, effort and travelling.
Cant wait till next year!
