Summer festivals are a strange phenomenon. We always long for them, to bum around a field with a tepid can of lager in our mitts and sharing the experience with thousands of like minded people. You’re basking in the sun (this one is usually a dream rather than reality, but allow me some leeway on this one), relaxing in some nice scenery and just generally enjoying yourself far away from the daily drudgery. It sounds like a very enjoyable endeavour and a lot of people usually do it all over again the very next year.

They may even make the trek to another country to partake of a foreign organizing concept of a festival. I’ve pondered this recently because last year I badly wanted to go to a three-day festival near my home town but due to fiscal issues I couldn’t go, but this year I definitely am. I should clarify that I am not an experienced festival-goer, having only been to one in my entire life so I’m not a weary traveller of the urine-and beer soaked fields of the world and have not mastered the art of comfortably moving around the semi-conscious bodies of punks, crusties and metalheads. But I have been longing to go to a festival for years.

This is where my recent introspection comes from. I really don’t know why I have wanted this for so long. Surely it can’t just be due to the good bands. Maybe it’s because it will necessitate several days away from the office, but surely there are more comfortable ways of spending your holiday then being hung over and covered in dust.

Let’s think about this; the weather is always diabolical and that is something I want an explanation about. I’d like to know whose idea it was to place all the worlds’ biggest music festivals in countries where it constantly rains, especially during the three days that the festival takes part. Even if there has been tropical heat every day prior to that, you must still under no circumstances neglect to prepare for rain, because it will rain.

The other major problem is that you have to pretty much disregard personal hygiene whilst there due to a number of reasons. My first and so far only experience with this was proof enough. Me and my friends smelled so bad that a friends father, who drove us home had to keep quiet for the entire trip, from fear of gagging. When this attack on his olfactory senses had subsided, he revealed that in his entire career as a doctor he had never encountered a smell so putrid. What a nice thing to hear about yourself, we were thrilled as you may imagine.

That may be the reason that I stayed away from it for so long. The fact that the smell our feet radiated is still deeply rooted in my mind.
But there is still something that makes me want to go again; I just can’t put my finger on it. It may be the feeling of being under the stars, camping and drinking and relaxing and all whilst some great tunes are washing across the field.
It’s a sense of freedom and it’s a completely different experience which is something I need after a very non-eventful year. Rest assured, it will be much cleaner this time around.

And did I mention that Kiss are headlining?