Latitude 2011… ATP…. Cardiff

I have been busy and not getting enough sleep which means I’ve been neglecting to “blog” about my life. I went to Latitude, ATP and Cardiff in the past 2 weeks.

It was my 5th Latitude to date. I only missed the first one (they’ve had 6). It’s kind of my favourite festival but this year had their lamest line up to date. Paul Nutini!?! Still I went, I partied, I enjoyed.

I think my highlight was definitely seeing Adam Ant. Been a fan for years and years, and though he may be 56 and have man boobs now, he was still the best. I have to say I think he’s sleeping with one of his backing singers as they had WAY too much chemistry on stage – lots of grabbing, winks and smiles. Haha. Prove me wrong! He didn’t play my favourite songs but he did play LOTS of hits, so it was perfect.

I went with my buddy Jen Long and her fellow BBC Introducing buddy Ally McCrae from Glasgow. He was the tallest/skinniest man ever. Look how funny we look together!

Last weekend I got the coach to CARDIFF ! First time in Wales this year (and won’t be the last, going to Green Man in a couple weeks). Jen’s moving house so it was theee last infamous house party gig. Four bands played in the kitchen including – Deaf Club – Cut Ribbons – Drains – Dancers (third gig ever). For the last song EVER played we put an impromptu band together at the end (Mike, Jen and I) and played one Racket song haha was so funny.

Caught the coach back early Sunday morning and went straight to ATP Portishead at Alexander Palace. Holy crap! Never been up that way before (in my 7 years of living in London) but WOW best view in London. Totally blown away by how beautiful it was, also it was a lovely sunny day so that helped. You could see all of London. The festival itself had a few problems, nothing major, but as it was the first ATP at that location they are working on ironing out the kinks. Truthfully I was so exhausted I only made it to the end of Grinderman and then retreated back home so actually missed headliners Portishead. Sometimes sleep is more important than music.

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Sonisphere

Right, so on Friday I made my way for the first time to Knebworth for the Sonisphere festival. The Big 4 were playing – Anthrax, Megadeath, Slayer and Metallica. I convinced Stacey we should leave “early” and get a 1pm train (even though the bands weren’t starting til 3pm). Lucky I did or we wouldn’t have seen ANYTHING !! We got to Stevenage station at 1:30pmish and there was a massive queue for the free shuttle bus and a shorter taxi queue. The guy warned us the shuttle bus queue would take over an hour so we were like “oh let’s get a taxi for sure then” – BAD idea. We queued for over an hour for a taxi. They were soooo slow!

Finally we got to site and it was another 30 min walk to the other side of the site to the guest list box office. We got there and yet again there was a massive long queue. We queued for another 1.5 hours and finally at 5pm – 4 hours after we left London we had our wristbands to the festival. Woooo!

Sadly this means we missed Anthrax, but we got to see Megadeath. Here’s my amazing view of SLAYER:

We came across about 100 people standing outside this truck, just standing around. Turns out Metallica soundcheck in this tiny truck behind a black curtain right before they go on stage. Haha. Here’s a picture of them emerging:

I have to say this could have been a reeeeally excellent festival and though I had a good time and was with nice people, it had a LOT of flaws. Transport between the station and the festival needs to be organised better (more coaches and taxis), definitely more people manning the box office (no one should have to queue for 1.5 hours to get a wristband!!), though saying that I did walk through the entire backstage with no wristband or pass – so security is pretty lax. Also what was with the TV screens being so incredibly low on the mainstage? They are there to help people standing in the back see but when they are lower than the stage, um, that doesn’t help out.

Good things though: clean toilets with loo roll, nice security guards and fast free transport back to the train station. Also it’s only 20 mins from London.

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SUMMER TIME

So much to write about, I’ve been to Wireless Festival, Sonisphere Festival and a million other gigs!

But instead of writing that all up, I’m gonna leave you with this video for Gob’s Soda. I just updated the Rock Over London podcast and I played this song as it’s the song that ALWAYS gets stuck in my head when I’m too hot. “I just want to jump in a lake, like Gob”

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