Leeds Festival.
The Event:
Leeds Festival 2005
The Players:
Pete - me - original suggestor and name gatherer, small drunk crap joke machine. faller off of chairs and tea spiller extraordinaire - landlord and legal guardian of….
Rosy - early drinker, random talker, alternative band misser, t-shirt wearer, air kicker, Pimm’s not getter and general irritator of…
Mike - trustworthy doctor (!!) with rock star tendencies… drunken welsh indie lover, bacon munching tea drinking feet leaving arse-of-fire king of ming and his other half….
Pam - northern to northerners, scottish physics graduate breaker of falls fun-maker tent-helper general all round top lassery & second in command of the cider drinking regiment and bringer of…
Chris - mancunian sport loving murder bottle drinker banter creator Dan shouter neighbour knower perpetually short of space due to inability to awake tent-sleeper….
Linden - Hardcore traveller half american captain of the cider drinking team drunk bouncing forgettor-of-events more general all round top lassery and baiter of…
Brian - early drinker extraordinaire, head of cricket banter and chant creation, dribbler, talented beer carrier AND BIG GAY BEAR.
Thursday:
Ok. here we go.
Actually thursday is the wrong day to start this…
Let’s go back to Wednesday:
Wednesday:
We had originally arranged to get Mike, Pam, myself, Rosy & Brian all together in the same place on Wednesday evening, but alas this was not meant to be as work unfortunately ruled out the cheltenham contingent.
This was not to stop us making an early start to the weekend, however.
Having noted that the Everton game was being shown pretty late on we downed a pizza and phoned Mahinda, who most of you will know, and met up down the old house at home, where a few pints were downed, a few pounds lost and a game watched where an unlucky everton where downed by a less than impressive villarreal (imo).
We were also joined by local celebrities adriand & his less well known brother who - on the verge of moving house - were greatful for the beer and company, I assume.
Upon leaving the pub at just-past-11 we meandered across to the saintly mahinda’s house in just round the corner-hastiness to pick up a few of the brew and latched into road of drinking and dribbling that would last until 3am (or some such)
Yes, we went round our house and watched a bit of sponge bob squarepants, an enjoyable movie, whilst drinking beers.
Eventually the big gay bear fell to his haunches and slavered himself up on a cushion. upon making his bed from a sofa (”Just Like That”) we discovered brian’s impressive wet patch on the cushion. a veritable circular feast of spittle, indeed. a picture will follow.
Brian asleep, or falling into semi-conciousness the rest of us called it a night and bid adieu to sadly-absent-from-the-rest-of-the-weekend mahindinho and settled down to our last night of mattress-sleeping bliss.
yummy.
Editors note
In what follows there exist several ommisions this is due to the authors beer-related amensiacical tendencies and a general inability to squash all of what occurred into words. Therefore, in effect, you will have to deal with a summary of events and you will enjoy it.
Though not as much as we enjoyed the weekend (YOU SHOULD’ve BEEN THERE!) quite a few in-jokes have been left out for readers sanity and due to afore mentioned memory abuse.
Thursday
Arrrrghhhh! logistical nightmare!!!
Mike & Pam were held up a bit and Linden had literally flown in from the states that morning and was
(a) jet-lagged
(b) currently somewhere on the motorway driving up
Whilst Chris had no idea where anyone lived and was sat anticipating our movements.
In the end I had to pop into work and the supermarket for some last minute provisions and thesis placement (not necessarily in that order) whilst Pam & Mike arrived road-weary and Linden arrived surprising spritely (though perhaps not so surprising if you’re aware of her bubbly nature)
Tea was drunk (and not spilled!)
Bacon butties were eaten.
These were the first of many, my friend, the first of many.
We visited a most formidable asda and stacked up a dual trolley infantry with supplies streaching from beer to socks and pasties to pot noodles.
The cars were loaded.
The plan was thus:
Pam - as the only one who knew (charlatans reference already) Chris - shared his ride (but not in the - well obviously not) whilst Linden, Rosy and I shared the back of Mikes car with the daddy long legs squeezed in the front.
much stuff was packed.
Axles were strained.
Motorways were traversed and via a stop at the service station with it’s space age chocolate puzzle coffee machine we arrived in Leeds.
It was rather chilly.
we trapsed around the camp site looking for a large enough gap, passing a loud fun fair of mediocreness and settling in a rather pleasant spot called the yellow camp (*insert brian gag here*).
tents were erected just in time as darkness fell, with a great deal of help from Mr. Trolley - the beer carrier - and Pamela - who proved rather adept at the placing of sticks in tight spots (you’re the one with the dirty mind if you’re reading anything into that!) and we sat around.
We didn’t remain sated for long though as the music came on and everyone bar Mike and myself left to get wristbands (and - as it turned out - hot cider and donuts! Tasty!)
Mike and I chew the fat whilst listening to some top drawer music and piling into the first crate of lager. we drunk rather more than we realised and upon the re-arrival of the posse we’d diminished most of it.
Donuts eaten.
Music listened to.
Beers drunk
Cider ingested.
Beds taken.
and sleep.
Tranquil.
Friday
Ahhh, Friday, festival day.
Oop early to the dawn chorus of sleepy campers, both Mike and I a tad hungover and joined by Linden for a trip down to the wristband exchange where we swapped our big flat things for small green circles, our new wrist for three days.
Sat on benches where I incorrectly identified an ex-house mate and drunk tea. absorbed the incredible line for money, a feature of the weekend.
We head back - but not before picking up the genius invention of chairs.
We avoid the schoolboy error of buying stools by virtue of them being sold out (a lucky escape) and arrive back to raptuous applause from our minions (though they don’t like to be known as such for some reason)
Cricket is on and a bit is listened too. plans made and we decide to head on in for Turbonegro, whose party piece “Fuck the World” I rather enjoy. Of course this means we arrive late and watch alkaline trio instead!
I’ve decided to take out the reviews from this part of the TWAT, they are collected below.
We basically stayed in the arena the rest of the day getting steadily drunker and watched the rockingist rocky set in the world of rock from Iron Maiden, who my mate Gary had also turned up to see.
I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH DETAIL FROM FRIDAY.
THIS IS BECAUSE IT WAS MANY, MANY BEERS AGO IN A PLACE FAR FAR AWAY.
we went back to the tent and introduced ourselves to our neighbours who tried to trick us (but we’re sharp, us) by telling us their names were “Helen Daniels” we eventually found out that one was called Claire, that they lived in Kendal (first few guesses were of the ilk of Worcester and Gloucester for some reason) that it were Pimm’s O Clock (see bibliography) and that they were playing poker. kind of.
we drunk more and went to sleep.
Super.
Saturday
We’re woken up (I’m woken up at 445 and do not get back to sleep til 645!) by our next door neighbours whose evening activities include shouting the time out accompanied by a cheer. Telling off the one guy who was trying to get to sleep, spinning around in chairs “SPIN ME AROUND SPIN ME AROUND!” and other bizarre “TOUCH MY NIPPLE AND SAY YOU LOVE ME” things including … well use your imagination…. No dirtier than that…. and dirtier than that…. NOT THAT DIRTY….. thats right.
I’ve no problem with people staying up late. heck we do it ourselves, but some consideration would be nice. the fact that they could not handle their lager was another factor. one girl was carted off. I noted upon my daylight trip to the cess pit that no-one else was “Active” at 6am.
Up early and back to bed and up again.
Coldness
some rain.
up by 1000
cricket on.
a fine morning reminising over jokes and further jokes. this is when tea started to get spilt (by me). my usual method was to use the can holder on the chair and then sit in the chair thus “Rocking the kasbah” (if you can call the chair a kasbah) and sending the tea over the side.
Hot.
some people left whilst some of us hung around with cricket on the brain. Beer started to flow. Brian had 7 before even leaving the campsite (I believe that was saturday).
Linden and I went in for a bit of Coxon, but were waylaid by a rather cool band called “The Blood Arm” who we’d caught before supporting “Maximo Park” at the “Jabez Clegg” in “Manchester” which is in “England”, “Europe”, not far from “A few too many of these ‘ ” ‘ “. I’m sure you’ll agree.
reviews below.
we carried on getting drunk but I left the larger group that had formed for the Coral to go and see a disappointing Cooper Temple Clause. where I had my only food of the day, a pork roll. (dirty minds rampant again, I see, you should be ashamed of yourselves!)
I was fairly drunk by here.
We went to watch the Killers pretty close to the front (we being Linden, Pam and I) the rest stayed a bit further back - perhaps understandable given Pam’s suggestion to the people behind us (I am deliberately not saying more). they were decent but then everyone sloped off to watched Kasabian.
Linden hung around to watch a bit of the pixies, I stayed on when she went to join the others.
The Pixies are great.
Went back to the campsite and drunk until the wee small hours chatting things over with the 6 thoroughly enjoyable partners in crime who joined me in the middle of a field on a cold august night.
Further banter ensued.
beer was drunk.
Sleeping occurred.
Cool Ridge Dressing.
Sunday
SPIN ME ROUND. again. Twats.
Up early once again. this time I just sit outside my tent drinking in the early day atmosphere. Everyone else slowly joins Pam and I, and a few of them are off into the arena fairly early.
Mike Pam and I are left behind we’re very tired and make the decision to stick around and basically doze til about 130. Mikes feet appear outside his tent, and stay there for a little while.
I’m guilty of drinking a litre and a half of water in half an hour without really noticing before we pick ourselves up for the biff, who were late for.
the trip to the arena was fun.
we leave with a beer each. Pam decides to go to the loo. Mike and I agree that this might be a good idea and it becomes a group trip. Upon leaving the loo we head back to the tent and pick up a second beer. we leave and are about 10 metres down the path when Linden calls “Sun Cream?” enquires the flame haired one “Aye!” says we. I go back and pick up another beer.
I’ve decided that since there is no festival on Monday I will get well and truely hammered today.
I was succesfull.
but not as succesful as some other people.
the three beers in 20 mins certainly did help, but upon running out of money I hit upon a plan.
lunch at the tent!
I go back after a beer and some music in the main arena, and not being able to get myself to where the girls were watching some bands in the carling tent.
I bite a cornish pasty.
I spit it out.
It is very off.
I bite another cornish pasty
I spit it out
It is very off.
I eat an apple, 2 oranges, 3 tracker bars, and listen to the cricket.
I head back with another beer to heraldry of “I’m back baby, where are yer” (sent to Pam & Linden) and “I am back in the mother fucking arena mother fucker where the mother fucking fuck the fuck are you mother fucking fuckers? Fuck!” (to rosy) Linden replied, and I found them easily.
I am drunk by this stage and start trying to embark upon a drink festival by getting linden to “Catch up” which she does ably well well Brian pulls off a wonderous 7 pint lift (no kidding!) and dishes them out thus:
thats 1 for pam
3 for you (linden)
and 3 for me (brian)
right, it’s a race.
the race did not take long.
Cider ended up in my beer.
Snakebite ended up in some tea (I am NOT proud of this!)
drunken-ness and Michael Vaughan esque dancing ensued.
during kings of leon (was it then?) we lead the crowd in a random sing-a-long of “Twist and Shout”
lots more drunkenness
foo fighters.
memories hazy.
Linden and I supported each other for an enjoyable trip home, leaving the others behind (including an oblivious rosy who walked past me twice) until we spotted pam “PAM!” which reminds me that I’ve left out the “DAN!” story which I can now not be arsed to put in.
we got back. I fell off the chair ALOT of times. the third of these was when I managed to fall off two chairs at once. a feat I’d just claimed was impossible, landing on the doctors tent.
hmmmmmmm….!
eventually we fell asleep.
Happy Days.
Monday
woke up early to see people leaving and couldn’t find foot anywhere, Chris finally sourced some fine eats and we chomped our way through some random serving to arrive in the car park around mid-day (I’ve no idea of what the time actually was so I’ve just guessed)
The Car Park:
bap wars: bored in the car park we started throwing gone-off baps from our car to chris’ one (from mike) brilliantly landed atop the boot lid, but beneath the range of the wiper. it happily sat there until they were lost from view.
Beeps: Too Many Beeps
Dancin’ : Inspired by a bouncing car of dancin’ we started up our own troupe, which really came into it’s own during saturday night. By that point we’d pulled up alongside another car of eager dangers (including a mentalist on the back seat) cue an hour or so of dance trading.
Great Fun.
We were dancing all the way home, my personal favourite being when radio one played the cricket theme tune.
As we pulled into Manchester though, Radio one played it’s finest card and we cruised through rusholme, windows open, shouting along to Ghostbusters.
A Fine end to a blumin good weekend.
Indeed the weekend was fantastic and I thank all those who were there. Great stuff!
)