Festivals – especially rock festivals – are not known for their wholesomeness. Even the supposedly genteel Electric Picnic has its fair share of tired and emotional people doing undignified things. And at some less refined events, almost anything goes. Here, Irish Times journalists recall their most hellish, embarrassing and downright vile experiences from festivals past.
Knebworth, 1976: “We missed the Stones. Or did we?”
I remember it well. Ok, some of it. Knebworth 1976. Just us dozen from UCG, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 10cc, and 250,000 others. We left London’s Willesden Green laden with consumables and got the train. Trekking from the station we found a spot among the multitudes and liberated the Southern Comfort and Advocaat. We also inhaled deeply in the hot sunshine.
Soon we were asleep, by the dozen. Lynard Skynard's Freebird wafted me to nirvana. It was dusk when someone woke and roused us in panic. All our faces were burnt and we were wracked with regret. We had missed the Stones. But we hadn't. At 11.30pm they came onstage, four hours late, and played till 2am. Fabulous.
Patsy McGarry
Slane, 2003: “Fizzy cheese rose from the depths”
It was my first festival. Slane Castle and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers; what teenage dreams are made of. The bus on the way down involved naggins of vodka, washed down with a well-known energy drink. My sister had earnestly warned me not to drink on an empty stomach, so as I arrived, ten minutes before the Chillis came on stage, I hastily ate a cheese sandwich behind the bins. Orange plastic grated cheese on granary bread with margarine.
We rushed to the front of the stage and my big friend Brian lifted me onto his shoulders. The crowd jumped together in unison as the first verse of Scar Tissue played. Fizzy cheese rose from the depths. Brian kept jumping. My cheeks filled to capacity and then burst. Undigested cheese flew in a torrent from me over, at my best count, 30 people. I went home early.
Dominique McMullan
Féile, 1993: “Never pitch a tent at the bottom of a slope”
Setting up a tent was never my strong suit. But it was last on my list of priorities, after tickets, transport, booze, a sliced pan (for soakage) and a roll of toilet paper. A lesson learnt in hindsight is never to pitch a tent at the bottom of a sloping field just because you want to be close to a clump of trees. Liquid flows downhill be it rainwater, beer or bodily fluids.
And everyone at that concert seemed to have the same idea: using the clump of trees for a spot of privacy. I woke up the next morning wrapped in a collapsed tent that was floating in a newly formed pond. “It was just dirty rainwater,” I repeated to myself over and over for the rest of the day.
Fionn Davenport
Féile, 1997: “I half-filled two Coke bottles with vodka. Genius”
It was the Day Trip to Tipp (aka Féile 97), and my mates had gone down the day before. Young and stupid, I overthought that when I arrived early Sunday afternoon those messers would be a few cans ahead. This wouldn’t do. So I had the genius idea of half-filling two Coke bottles with vodka for the train down. Two old ladies smiled over as I sipped innocently.
After an hour the carriage seemed to be rolling a lot. I didn’t feel great. The announcer said, Next stop Thurles. I raced to the toilet and threw up, then scrambled to get off the train before it left the station.
My eyes were bloodshot. There was vomit on my chin. “What happened you?” my mates – absolutely sober – asked.
David McKechnie
Storsjoyran, 2005: “Being chased by swastika-adorned metal heads wasn’t funny”
Ostersun is the Swedest thing: midway between Stockholm and the Arctic Circle, the place has a beautiful lake, beautiful surrounds and beautiful people. Every end of July the townsfolk give themselves over to the Storsjoyran music festival. In Stockholm one year, a Norwegian friend rang me to see if I was up for a weekend in the middle of Swedish nowhere. We met in a bar by the lake and were well fortified by the time we rolled down to the festival, for which we had secured “VIP” passes.
The initially convivial free bar took a turn for the worse when a Finnish Death Metal Band proudly showed us their Swastika tattoos. This somehow led to a chair being thrown, and eventually, to my friend and I being chased around a music festival site at 3am by swastika-adorned metal heads. It wasn’t funny at the time – but we both find it hilarious now.
Brian Boyd
Kinsale Arts Festival, 2012: “The inflatable venue began to deflate”
You know the phrase “it’s never a problem it’s an opportunity”? As guest artistic director of the Kinsale Arts Festival, I had many Opportunities. Missing artists, strange quirks of health and safety, bizarre requests. The best? We hired “an inflatable arts venue” kept aloft by an enormous generator that started emitting smoke one Sunday night. Our temporary theatre began to gently de-puff, moments before the wonderful Frisky and Mannish were to take the stage.
Free wine can lift the most impatient of spirits, and jugs of cold water temporarily calmed the generator down. As the crowd called for more, I sat at the bank thinking please don’t play another encore, in case everything collapsed around our ears. Looking back, it was a brilliant night.
Gemma Tipton
Bump, 2010: “What happened to the sumo suits?”
My friends and I made our way to a very small festival called Bump, in Doonass, Co Clare. From what I can remember, it took place in a field behind a pub, and the acts – it was all electronic music – performed inside some kind of wedding marquees.
To give the event a “boutique” feel, the organisers provided two sumo suits which attendees could wear and wrestle each other in. They were great fun and very popular. But when we woke up on Sunday morning, we were disappointed to learn that they had been taken away. Somebody had fallen asleep in one of the suits and soiled it, explained a steward. And with those words, all the fight went out of us.
Dan Griffin
Truck Records Festival, Oxford, 2002: “I do my pre-gig drugs (antihistamines)”
My band, The NPB turn up on a farm on the edge of Oxford in our “tour bus” - a hearse redesigned to look like a police car – now owned and driven responsibly by our friend Ian (though Ian may not have a full licence – what’s the statute of limitations on road traffic offences?).
We proceed to wow the UK crowd at the Truck Records Festival with our rock and roll behaviour.
“You want some of this huh?” says Daragh, the bass-player to some teenagers.
The teenagers are terrified. A man in a cowboy hat has never offered them salad before. We cut the vegetables out the back of our van and drink from a thermos of tea. We do this at every venue (we’re touring on a budget). I think the Ramones used to do the same.
I do my pre-gig drugs (antihistamines – there’s a cornfield behind the stage).
Paul the drummer swigs a beer nonchalantly (one beer – he may be driving later). “Lock up your daughters Oxford,” he says (presumably because our girlfriends may befriend them and give them zines about feminism).
We play for the massing midday crowds - twenty or so people who aren’t watching bigger bands like Biffy Clyro on the other stage.
We do our job well. We are very punctual and one stranger is well and truly rocked. That is our quota.
We pack up then sit in the sun for a while before driving on to the next town. Yeah, that’s how the NPB roll, leaving a trail of order and politeness and salad in our wake. The NPB have no worst festival experiences.
Patrick Freyne
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