Isle of Wight
I think my lack of postings goes someway to explaining just how good the festival was. And if you could see me, my comedy tan lines would certainly demonstrate how warm and sunny it was for the entire weekend (except for the morning we left which was strangely overcast and cloudy- when does that ever happen I ask you?!).
My bags would tell you a story about my lack of sleep, and my big grin would go some way to hinting at the happy memories I now have in my memory bank.
A quick rundown as I’m so tired I can barely type (almost 30, 2 hours sleep per night in a damp tent on a rubbish air bed which was all lumpy, right next to a massive group of ‘youths’ who stayed up all night every night strumming on their guitars, and somehow managed to sustain sleep past 6.30am in a tent which, after sunrise, promptly soared to horribly uncomfortable temperatures!)
Rolling Stones- excellent. Jagger has got amazing sex appeal for a man of his age, and those hips sure can wiggle. Also, he seems devoid of the usual 40-50 something paunch which effects many men (and some much younger!). My favourite song….I can’t get no (satisfaction), a brilliant live rendition, perfectly sung and complemented by some fairly naff staging technology which propelled the whole band forward on a 100 foot extendable section of the stage so that all the audience, from front to practically the middle, were able to get at spitting distance from the great legends. Steve was so drunk he created a 10 metre square area around him because he kept falling over and treading on people’s toes. Infact, most of the time, I was secretly giving him a little push as he was teetering on the edge and went down very easily like a sack of proverbial shite and it kept me amused. Also, he made the heinous error of attempting to enter the 3 day old urinals area wearing flip flops and I don’t even need to begin to describe what happened, suffice to say that there were much oozing of raw sewage involved.
In fact, Steve provided a whole array of entertainment throughout the weekend- getting some brilliant panda eye burn marks from his Pradas- serves him right for wearing such big poser shades, and last but most certainly not least his response to our friend Rob’s question ‘What’s the funniest outfit you’ve ever worn’ where he proceeded to describe an outfit which consisted of faux leather trousers and high heels….(his REAL words) cue many many hours of howling, and crying so much I ended up with stomach cramps and an upset tummy. Just when we thought he couldn’t possibly get any more entertaining, he told us he had saved up for 6 months when he was 11 to buy a bespoke, Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’ red leather jacket, complete with the shoulder pads. We made him do a moonwalk in the tent which consisted of him walking backwards pulling a stupid face. What an absolute wally….god love him. That is what happens when you don’t have a male role model in your life and are surrounded by women for most of your life. I guess….
We had a couple of minor run-ins with the police when one of our group was taken away for questioning when the sniffer dog sat squarely by his side and looked up at him (what I thought was lovingly…it turned out it was dog-accusingly). He was out 30 minutes later, light of some pot, and having had to pull his pants down and kneel over so that the police could see if he had anything up his bottom. Lovely! He didn’t by the way….well, nothing untoward anyway.
All in all, lovely time. I did feel a little bit old, not helped by the aforementioned youths in the plot next door describing our group as ‘really cool, but VERY old’….little did they know I was attempting sleep some 2 foot away and cursing them with every swearword in the book. Cheeky sods! They were about to go to ‘uni’ (tossers) so I suppose we were a decade older, but whats a year or ten between revellers?
Oh, and the other amazing thing…Morrisey cancelled, (no great shame, horrible miserable man, with awful hair) and was replaced in the line up by…..the RED ARROWS! They were so fabulous, and I felt like I was about 10 years old, all teary eyed and full of pride (don’t ask why I have no idea!). They did some amazing stunts, some coloured smoke type things, and some low level fly-bys where it looked like they were inches away from each other….the whole festival craned their necks for 30 minutes and did the statutory ohhing and ahhing. We were even given a live link radio link up to ‘Red One’ the top flying guy, who gave us a countdown to when they were going to appear in the sky. It was one of those moments when you looked at all the boys and realised they were all re-living some child-like want to become an ‘arrow’.
Happy days! I didn’t really manage to properly embrace the ming, and did have a proper wash down every day, plus hair wash and make-up and lovely smocky type dresses….look low maintenance hippy chick even if you’re quite clearly not- that’s the key!
Photos to follow when I can locate them from other people…promise xx
