As the hordes prepare to descend on Stradbally for the Electric Picnic, one man who won't be pitching his tent and pulling on his wellies is Seán Kenny
I DON’T WISH to denigrate fields. No setting is better for the cultivation of crops or keeping of livestock. And where would team sports be without a patch of grass to serve as a playing surface? However, as a venue for a music festival, a field is singularly unsuitable.
Along with other bearded, socially inept men, I recently attended the Rhythm and Roots festival in Kilkenny. Unlike most festivals, it was held indoors at various venues. I enjoyed the music, the proximity of the bar, the luxurious presence of indoor plumbing, and standing on surfaces comprised of matter other than mud.
At night, I slept on an actual bed. And there was a complete absence of moshers and hipsters. It was, in other words, devoid of the multifarious annoyances of the outdoor music festival.
MOSHERS AND HIPSTERS
I find that my enjoyment of a gig is usually contingent on not being shoulder-charged, trodden upon or elbowed repeatedly in the head, ribs or neck by moshers. I am all for moshing in principle. Or was. When you are 17, and have spent the better part of the day in more or less constant communion with cans of Dutch Gold, no course of action could be more reasonable. However, in addition to injuries inflicted upon moshee by mosher, all this flailing tends to result in the spilling of vile beer-like liquids (eg Dutch Gold), generally over your clothes, which are now soaked and reek of vile beer-like liquids.
It is perhaps in the interests of your physical wellbeing then, to attend another sort of festival, peopled by a different demographic, namely the hipster. Hipsters tend not to mosh. This is because they are several hundred times cooler than you and have a lot to think about – will the act of jumping disturb the elaborate network of triangles that forms my hairstyle? Can my unfeasibly tight, ironic T-shirt withstand the strain of sudden movement? Will my ironically nerdy glasses fall off? It’s a minefield. So, attending a hipster-heavy festival represents sound logic in one sense. But this means looking at hipsters, with their smug, ironic, asymmetrically coiffed heads, which induces an overwhelming desire to be back among the moshers.
And, worse, far worse, it involves listening to hipsters, pitchfork.com’s terrible legion of the undead, emitting their joyless drone of cool. They are so terrifyingly uniform in their individuality.
MUD
The Irish climate is, of course, divided into seasons, these being winter and winter minor. Most festivals are held during winter minor, presumably in the wildly delusional belief that the weather will be clement. Even if there has been a drought prior to the festival, at least one deluge of Biblical intensity will occur over its duration. This, like death and taxes, is one of life’s inevitabilities, and leads to the propagation of mud.
Now, there are many surfaces upon which I am quite comfortable. I am, for example, a great supporter of paving, tarmac and concrete. Mud, however, ranks prominently among my least favourite surfaces on which to walk, stand, or listen to live music. Mud is unhygienic, usually contains unpleasant insects, and is damaging to Adidas Samba trainers.
Wellies? No. I am frankly uninterested in how many pink flowers or polka dots or camouflage patterns they bear; wellies look ridiculous. They are also an impediment to the otherwise straightforward business of walking without falling over. I am apt to trip while wearing them, landing in the mud, contact with which I had aimed to avoid through the very expedient of wearing wellies.
FESTIVAL MYTHOLOGY
Many festival-goers treat their mere attendance as a kind of heroic accomplishment, for which they deserve recognition, possibly in the form of a statue erected to the memory of just how crazily they partied. This same class of individual calls Glastonbury by the infuriatingly smug diminutive “Glasto”, as though it’s their dear, old childhood friend. This also applies to Electric Picnic, “EP” or “The Picnic” to the initiated.
Television coverage of festivals is magnificently, hilariously earnest. Rather than being treated for what they are – large concerts in fields – festivals must “mean” something. Artists, regardless of how incoherently drunk or knuckle-headed, must be quizzed on what the event means to them. “Mad for it” punters – provided they are telegenic and not visibly engaged in illegal activity at the time – are also questioned in this manner.
There is a delusion, known to afflict all broadcasters covering music festivals, that mud and/or heavy rainfall induces in festival-goers a near-spiritual sense of fellow-feeling, elevating the event to an even more numinous plane. This is known as Jo Whiley syndrome. It is incurable and highly contagious.
CAMPING
If I were, say, stranded near the summit of one of the larger Himalayan mountains on a winter night, I might consider using a tent as a form of shelter. This is, however, the sole set of circumstances under which I would ever again spend a night this way. Overnight stays at festivals, because they are held in fields, miles from anything approaching civilisation, necessarily involve bedding down in an encampment. Tents, aside from being a repository for unpleasant smells, are problematic because of their uniformity – everyone bought the same one from Argos the day before the festival. This makes locating your own habitation a frustrating, time-consuming business. But even if I were a braver, better man, a man who could bear with fortitude a night spent under a malodorous nylon dome, there are other considerations.
I am not, as a rule, favourably disposed to having my place of dwelling set fire to, urinated upon or used as a crash mat by people who happen to be fighting in the vicinity. None of these occurrences are, in my experience, conducive to a restful night.
TOILETS
Evil has a smell. It is the odour of a portable toilet. Oftentimes, they disdain to confine their contribution to the traditional target, meaning floor and walls bear the taint. Essentially, entering a portable toilet in possession of a functioning pair of nostrils is like walking through a portal to the bowels of hell. Literally.
In fact, were Dante writing Infernotoday, he would surely include a 10th circle of hell, reserved exclusively for festival promoters who are ultimately responsible for such filth on an epic scale. Perdition for these impresarios would take the form of eternity trapped inside a festival toilet cubicle emblazoned with the legend, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".
