Lewis took over driving after we got off the ferry in Dover around 4 and took us on what should have been the last 3 hours of the trip. Traffic in England being what it is we ended up having to go the opposite way around the M25 (the big motorway that circles London), stopping only once, for fuel and transmission fluid for Cumu and Burger King for us, and finally arrived at our destination at 10:30. As the festival was sold out we had organised tickets through gumtree and the girl we were buying them had asked to meet in a KFC carpark. Bets, which could I suppose be called somewhat racist, were placed on her skin colour as a result of her chosen meeting point. I lost. The transaction itself went really smoothly but must have looked so suspicious, late at night a group of guys driving into a carpark, getting out of the car to meet some chav girl and handing her a large wad of cash in exchange for an unmarked envelope before both cars drive off. This was confirmed by the cop car that tore in with lights flashing and sirens blaring just as we left.
Parked in the "Guests and Residents" carpark on the advice of Jo, who assured us it would be fine providing we told them we were just dropping stuff off. Stuff like ourselves for a few days. Set up our tent and by 11pm we were sitting around a campfire, beer in hand, with Steph & Jo, and their friends Kristian, a very fun but intense gamer guy, Jono, who was quiet but awesome, Johnny & Antonia, a cool couple and Lydia, Antonia´s sister, who had a habit of smoking, drinking, passing out and repeating the cycle.
After a few drinks we headed out to the carnival area next to the arenas and after checking out the pretty shitastic D´n´B DJ tent we spent several hours being morons in the silent disco, which was awesome.
Woke up, cracked a beer and hung around the campfire until we all headed into the arena for the first time to see the best named band of the festival: Danananakroyd before moving on to the main stage for Taking Back Sunday. It was at this point I realised the downside to English festivals, and also the reason why everyone wears wellington boots. Mud. Deep, thick, slippery, everywhere mud.
I´m also going to interject at this point that this brief sojourn into England was the first time we were cold and wet since... England. It rained on and off the whole time we were there. Yay.
Retreated back under cover to the main tent stage to check out Cage the Elephant, who Macky and I were very keen to see even though we only knew one song and really took us by surprise by how good they were and how much stage presence they had. We then swam back across the arena area to the main stage for Enter Shikari, who I was expecting, based off "Sorry Your Not A Winner" to be very metal but ended up sounding a lot more like a slightly heavier Pendulum.
After Enter Shikari, cold and wet, we escaped due to a break in the decent bands to Jo´s car and its heater, stopping only briefly in camp for dry clothes, alcohol and a deck of cards. The car must have looked pretty dodgy to anyone walking by, 2 girls in bikinis and 5 guys squashed into a little car with a bunch of liquor and misted up windows.
Eventually re-emerged into the world, drunker, drier and warmer, and headed back into the mudpit to see Muse, who never fail to put on a fantastic show. It was the 10 year anniversary of the release of Origin of Symmetry and they played the entire album through before launching into all the classics. Tired and not wanting to deal with the weather anymore we all went to bed after Muse finished.
Woke up to a breakfast of champions; peanut butter sandwiches and strongbow. Hung around the campsite for a few hours, mostly amusing ourselves by taping Kristian´s hands into a pair of Steph´s socks so he couldn´t use his fingers and then taping one arm to his camp chair and challenging him to find a stranger walking past our site to rescue him. He would only appeal to the hot girls, and his calls of "baby I like your hair, can you help me?" or "bitch, I´ll treat you right" didn´t help his cause. After lowering his standards somewhat and still getting no help (to one girl who refused: "I hope your children are born with your nose") he finally found one to help, only for a friend of theirs, Chad, to appear out of thin air and threaten to pour coke on her if she did and then pelting Kristian with Maltesers. He needed the toilet so badly that he eventually gave up and went with his chair, Macky following to record the results, which were that people wanted photos with him but would still refuse to help him. Eventually we let him go as he, Macky, Jo and I left the others to go spend the day at the main stage. First band on was The Blackout, who I had never heard of but blew me away. We all pushed forwards to the front for New Found Glory but Macky decided at one point that he was close enough and pushed sideways towards the middle and we got separated by the crowd. Ended up 3 people back from the front and New Found Glory were excellent.
After NFG we decided we needed food and I promptly found a "Great Australian Pie Shop". The pies were pretty great but the offered side dishes of mash, gravy or mushy peas detracted from the Australian part. We then spent the next 20 minutes searching the mosh pit for Macky but to no avail before Bring Me The Horizon turned it into one enormous fight circle. "Northern monkeys" will fight circle to anything, but when the lead singer of a hardcore band is yelling "BIGGER" for 5 minutes it gets a little surreal. BMTH once again really impressed me with their live show and energy, although I suspect that their recorded stuff will be a let down.
Spent the half hour interval again failing to find Macky but then Rise Against came on and I had to immediately make my own way to the front to go a little mental. They played all the songs I love off their new album as well as all their best other stuff and, even without Macky to mosh with, were fantastic.
By now however I was concerned by our inability to find Macky and we went back to camp to see if he had left the arena (and maybe for another drink or 2). He hadn´t. Regrouped with the rest of the group (minus Macky) at our pre-decided meeting point, an ice cream van, and we all headed forward for The Offspring, who put on a great show with everyone singing along to every song but are really, noticeably, aged.
Sucking up my inhibitions I then joined Johnny, Kristian and Jo and we moved forward for 30 Seconds to Mars who I will sum up with the following 5 words: Jared Leto is a tool. Left halfway through to have another search for Macky but he wasn´t at the campsite or the car so I made my way back and we once again regrouped at the ice cream van for My Chemical Romance. I was really expecting MCR to be awful, emo crap but they ended up surprising me with the quality of show they put on.
Still tense with the lack of Macky I then pushed back to camp and he arrived triumphant 5 minutes later after having spent 10 straight hours at the very front of the stage. Relieved, we had some drinks and crashed.
Woke up nice and perky to find Jo, Kristian, Antonia and Johnny all in a state of uber-hangover thanks to the "Crunk Juice" that had consumed the previous night. Crunk Juice is apparently a result of "Lil Jon, the King of Crunk, who created the drink for his bitches and hos so they would get really fucked and do crazy shit". It is about 12%, comes in a giant can, is illegal to import to the UK and tastes like a "raspberry abortion".
Spent the morning hanging around the campsite, laughing at the poor hungover kids, working on polishing off the alcohol and packing up as we were told we should leave after the days bands rather than stay the night as "people start burning everything". Julia, a pretty blonge girl with dreadlocks who Kristian had been after the whole festival turned up just in time to see him passed out, half naked, in the mud and offer to take him to the welfare tent.
Loaded the cars, left everything we weren´t taking in Lydia´s tent which was being left and then I sprinted off alone to see Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Drunk and alone I pushed to the front of the stage just in time for a full set of happy, hippy sing-alongs and awesome music. Also had some crazily hippy girl with dreadlocks plaited with flowers offer me LSD but turned it down like a good boy.Afterwards I made my way to the ice cream van to meet up with the others, in a super good mood, tromping through the mud singing "Home" to myself and feeling more hippy than I ever have before.
Met up with the others and headed closer to main stage for Madness, who I had never heard of but knew a few songs and were very old school ska, and Jimmy Eat World, who always get the crowd going well, then went back to the campsite to burn the remainder of the wood and drink the last drinks. Found Lydia´s tent ransacked and torn apart and the wood stolen by next site over, but we reclaimed it, grabbed the few last cans and hung around until about 9 when we (Macky, Lewis, Steph and I) drove to Steph´s where we had been offered a place to crash for the night and finally got ourselves a decent meal, badly needed shower and a really comfy (couch) bed.
Woke up to a full english breakfast. Fantastic. Baked beans are something we could not find anywhere in mainland Europe, so they were hugely appreciated, by Lewis in particular. Left at about midday, dropped Steph off at Jo´s place but had to decline her offer to show the poms how to play cricket (possibly not her exact wording) and get back to London. Booked our flights for the next day to Valencia as we drove, got again stuck in traffic and arrived back at Stephen´s in Walton about 6pm.
Unpacked everything from Cumu, donating any of our food and camping equipment that was wanted to Pen & Stephen and while we were doing so Stephen went upstairs and wrote us a letter to cancel the insurance. Our flight was leaving at 8am the next morning and Stephen then offered to talk to Jerry, his friend we bought Cumu off and then the insurance company. We ended up somehow getting Jerry to buy the car back and pay for repairs and cancelling the insurance and probably made back about 50% of what we initially paid. Stephen is some sort of miracle worker/saint.
Cumu ended up doing, in around 2 and a half months, 8000 miles (12,800km) which averages at 105 miles (170km) a day and even with her cantankerous nature and eventual gearbox cancer is sorely missed.
Spent the evening washing all our clothes and talking with Pen and Stephen before getting an early night.
Woke up at 6 and Stephen (again, saint) drove us to the airport where we got on our plane to Madrid, which we had to book as there was no flights left to Valencia.
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