As the summer approaches, and before we pack the tents, lagers and loo roll into the back of the car, it was time to reminisce about festivals past. And being the bastards we are, we’re of course not going to simply tell you about the good things, we’re going to have a jolly good moan too. Read on for the best, and the worst, experiences from across our team of writers.
Fran Slater
I’m going to go into cheesy dad mode for a minute or two for this one, but I think I’d have to say that my favourite festival experience I can remember is watching my daughter at her first ever full weekend event. Deer Shed 2023, we’d taken her along with little idea or expectation of how it was going to go. Would she enjoy herself? Would we? Would it be too loud? Would we even get to watch any bands?
One day one, with the tent put up, we arrived with our camping chairs just a few minutes before This is the Kit came to the stage. I took a deep breath. These were one of my favourite acts on the lineup, and I braced myself for her to start crying as soon as the music started – I stared at my beer and wondered if I’d even get to drink it.
And then they started. And instead of crying, my daughter stood up and starting walking forwards. Not content with our seated spot far from the stage, she moved through the crowd and we had to rush to keep up with her. She was heading for the barrier. She motioned for me to pick her up and we stood there, a few feet from the stage, swaying slowly to the songs.
For that whole weekend, she was the best tool imaginable for getting to the front during sets. People moved aside for us. She danced to punk music, shook the barriers during a DJ set, and shouted at the singers in a country band. It was amazing to see the wonder of a music festival through the eyes of a two-year-old for a change, rather than my usual blurry and much older set of peepers.
When it comes to the worst experience, it is more an absence of something than what actually happened. Glastonbury 1997 was difficult for a lot of reasons. It was my first big festival and it went on forever – I was 13. I was there with a cousin, my dad, and lots of my dad’s drunken, messy friends. And if you Google Glastonbury 1997, it comes up as ‘the year of mud.’ It’s impossible to really describe how muddy it was. I also, during the long van ride home, vomited into a welly until sick spilled over the edges and soaked my hands.
What stands out, though, is the band I didn’t bother seeing. I had clung to the railings watching The Prodigy and then, after waiting for a while to see who the next band were, I walked away when their first song didn’t grab me. Just a few months later, I got into Radiohead and they have remained my favourite band ever since. Various mishaps including lost tickets, breaking up with an ex three weeks before a show she’d bought tickets for, and a bout of illness on the day of a show, meant that I wouldn’t see them live until they toured A Moon Shaped Pool in 2018. With a little more patience and a slightly earlier discovery of The Bends, I would have been front and centre for what many people call the greatest Glastonbury set of all time. I’m haunted by that decision to this day.
Joe Hoare
Despite not going to my first festival until my mid-20s, I am now “festival-pilled”, taking in Latitude, Bestival (RIP), Green Man (every year post-Covid), Manchester Psych Fest, Neighbourhood Weekender, and Sounds from the Other City in my relatively brief career. Unfortunately, I have become one of those people for whom Green Man is the peak of my life and have almost entirely built my personality around it. Forget the seasons, my year is marked by the ticket release day, the line-up release day, the Green Man Rising competition for upcoming artists, the festival itself. My life really is that sad. Choosing one moment, then, is incredibly difficult. I could go for the “Before-They-Were-Big” brownie points and talk about seeing The Last Dinner Party, Self Esteem, and Big Special on relatively small stages. I could go for the acts that unexpectedly blew me away: Arooj Aftab at sunset in the Walled Garden stands out.
But for me there will be no moment that encapsulates everything that is great about Green Man than Kae Tempest’s set in 2022. Early evening on a sunny Mountain Stage is already a special place: the amphitheatre is buzzing with excitement for the upcoming headliners, the setting sun washes the stage with a gentle, gamboge glow, and even the looming mountains – the Bannau Brycheiniog – lose their sense of foreboding. All is well with the world. There is no better person for a moment like this than Kae Tempest, who encourages us to find peace in ourselves whoever we are, to enjoy the moments of contentment when they come, to enjoy this moment as it happens now. Playing the songs from his then new album The Line Is A Curve, everyone was drawn in, hanging on the depth of lyricism and the pleasing simplicity of the accompanying music. Firesmoke, from a previous album, brought me to tears – there was something in that description of love that I found unfathomably beautiful in that moment. I looked to the side and a massive “geezer” in his fifties was also in tears. It’s hard not to exaggerate but I felt it was a moment when music genuinely was transcendental.
Oppositely (and most recently), my worst festival experience happened at Sounds From the Other City in Salford this May Bank Holiday. We, for the most part, had an amazing day but one set really set the low water mark for crowd interaction. Enter Blue Bendy and their lead singer who managed to slag off a whole room, nay a whole city, in a drunken rant after the first song, before some levels of delusion I’ve never seen live before.
We went with no expectations and with a bit of a gap in our schedule. We’d heard they are a bit like Black Country New Road but with a bit more edge and went to St. Philip’s Church to see what we thought. The room was not full – it’s a small festival crowd and people often mill in and out. They played their first song and it was decent, maybe even good. A solid band and his vocals were deliberately and interestingly strained. The song finished and the crowd went mild – claps and a few woos commensurate with the size of the crowd and the fact it’s a day festival.
The lead singer was not happy, waving his hands to encourage a bigger response. The crowd remained mild – lemon and herb on the Nando’s scale. “C’mon, I didn’t expect a Manchester crowd to be so passive,” he says. Ooooo. “I thought Indie music was like a religious sect here.” Yikes. Another song ended with the presumably ad-libbed lyrics “we’re the best fucking guitar band on this line up”. He followed that up in his chat with “I’m just joking. Sorry if I’m coming off as antagonistic, I’m a very affable guy, ask anyone.” No nods of agreement from the band.
The cherry on top of the Not-So-Humble Pie was when he said that this was a bit like “that guy in Back to the Future”.
“Marty McFly” a willing audience member offers.
“Yeah.” He then proceeds to talk about the moment where Marty McFly prematurely invents a genre of music and says “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet but your kids are gonna love it.” I think the implication here is that the music of Blue Bendy is so groundbreaking and sophisticated that the tiny minds of the average Salfordian punter can’t possibly understand it. This tiny mind had had enough and left before the end.
Tom Burrows
I’m not a big festival goer to be honest. I’ve never camped out at one, and I like the vibes of the day ones I’ve attended but also enjoy a bit of comfort with my music watching experiences. But my first festival experience, the Saturday of Leeds Festival 2009, did open my eyes to the where the magic lies. I’d missed Arctic Monkeys the day before but was there for Radiohead, roaming free between stages with my fellow sixth formers, exploring all the bands that rarely made it to our corner of East Yorkshire. And it was the smaller acts that made it worthwhile. In a little tent just a week after they’d released a quietly compelling debut album, we saw a black-clad four-piece called The xx. They made this moment in the middle of the day sound so intimate and sounded exactly as they did on this great record they’d put out. For the rest of the day, everywhere we went we saw black t-shirts with white Xs emblazoned in the middle. Whatever happened to those guys…
‘Lovebox’ is a weird name for a festival at the best of times, and it’s fair to say that the peace and good vibes that they were going for were not realised in the 2017 edition I attended. For a start I was only there because my boy Frank Ocean was headlining, and I’d ummed and aaahed about buying a ticket for his other, more convenient headline slot at Manchester’s Parklife before it sold out. It was a day of such aggro energy. Sampha’s chill was disrupted by the inability to get in the tent, and actual fights were kicking off as Solange sang her sweetly defiant ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’. But it was going to be worth it to see Frank Ocean. I stood with my girlfriend at the time, close-ish to the stage but a good distance back, next to this strip that extended from the stage. But then, the crew started setting up right next to us. We’d misunderstood. We were right next to the action. Cue a mad scramble for space from overly excited millennials desperate to get into our space. “I want to leave”, my girlfriend muttered to me. “We’ve been here too long to leave now”, I muttered back. So we uncomfortably endured Frank Ocean’s last headline slot in the UK, surrounded by a load of screaming teens. At least we were there, right?
Kate Burke
I think I might be biased, but there can be something truly magical about Scottish music festivals – especially when you’re surrounded by rolling hills, scenic lochs, and the weather hits just right, even if it’s only for a set or two. It is Scotland, after all.
The Flaming Lips headlining the Friday night of Rock Ness in 2009 was the epitome of this for me. Oversized balloons bouncing to a backdrop of beautiful Loch Ness, the first time I’d ever witnessed Wayne Coyne walking the crowd in an inflatable orb. Far from home, amongst friends, and a joyful atmosphere, it set the tone for an incredible weekend which also boasted an epic line up (Biffy Clyro and The Prodigy for me, thanks!).
Similarly, Connect Festival 2007 was absolutely beautiful, albeit muddy as fuck. I took a Sunday day trip to see Rilo Kiley, Regina Spektor, Idlewild and inimitable headline slot by Bjork, the atmosphere was as incredible as the acts. I put my jeans straight in the big bin as soon as I got home, then realised had left my phone in the pocket.
On the flip side, the other side of Scottish festivals is that they can attract utter wankers who are only interested in dressing up like they’re off to Coachella and getting off their face in their favoured manner. One of the reasons why I stopped being a T in the Park regular – and also why my first and only TRNSMT Festival experience is amongst the most shit.
Radiohead were the star attraction for me in 2017, the festival’s inaugural year. Having visions of the Gig on the Green vibes I’d enjoyed as a teenager I was super excited – but it turns out the vibe was hair glitter, posing for the ‘gram, vodka and red bull, and talking through the whole fucking set.
I spent most of their set finding somewhere to stand that wasn’t next to people having a casual conversation at best, and at worst being genuinely rude. When I eventually found a pocket of fans – it was a great performance. But I wish that could have been my first thought whenever I remember it…
Rick Larson
I don’t have a worst festival experience because I don’t go to festivals. There is one exception and that one is the best festival on earth, the annual Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland, CA. Well, I’m assuming it’s the best one. Mosswood Park is an unremarkable four acres wedged between a hospital and a freeway. It’s a bit scruffy, its charms subtle. The Meltdown is a weekend celebration of punk and punk adjacent artists hosted by John Waters, an American treasure. And he truly hosts the event, introducing each band with an eloquent, funny and dirty monologue before watching each set from his shaded seat, stage left. I’ve seen sets by Amyl and the Sniffers, Devo, The Osees, The Spits, Bleached, Fake Fruit and many others.
But more than anything the Meltdown makes you believe in the dopey power of positive vibes and a happy shared community, which is what a “festival” is supposed to be about. I love the East Bay and I love punk and for a moment cynicism is rinsed away. Everything seems right in the world, a welcome, fleeting delusion. The monumentally important Bay Area punk scene may be mostly a historical artifact now, but once a year it gets taken out of its box, dusted off and we have a hella good time kicking it around on the grass.
James Spearing
Exams results received, a huge gang of good mates from school meeting up, my first full camping festival away without responsible adults. Reading 2003 should have been the time of my life (ok, it wasn’t really the worst either, I still had a good time) but I got a feeling for a large part of it that I might be middle aged before my time. But when you consider all the things wrong with it, it’s quite an argument for the worst festival experience. And for context it was a different era of festivals – there wasn’t the bewildering amount of choice for different tastes and audiences that there is now. It was Reading/Leeds, V fest or Glastonbury…we went because it was where everyone went, and I went along with everyone. The headliners were predominantly metal acts, and I’m not a fan of the genre meaning I saw hardly any of the main acts of the weekend. One metal adjacent band I did end up seeing turned out to be possibly the worst live show I’ve ever seen – Staind on the main stage. All their equipment broke and, forgetting the had any duty to entertain an audience, stormed off stage in anger, leaving only the frontman to, even more miserably than normal, trudge through their songs alone with just an acoustic guitar. And lastly, there was nothing to do. Again it was a different era of festivals like today’s with their laughter yoga or weaving workshops or play areas or paddleboarding. It was simply bands bands bands all day and evening until a hard stop at 11pm when the guitars stopped and the lights went out. Festival purists may say this is better, but I definitely prefer having the variety, and variety was sorely needed when you’ve just hyped up thousands of drunk emo-angry teens with Linkin Park and they have no other release of energy other than to throw, smash and burn things. Ok it was no Woodstock ’99, but my tent, or rather, my parents’ tent, got burned down to the ground. Luckily we weren’t in it at the time.
So while I’ve slagged off Reading, Blur did play on the Saturday night and it was great. I hugged strangers to the strings of ‘The Universal’. But there was a lingering sense that I’d left seeing one of my favourite bands too late. We weren’t really into latest album Think Tank. Graham Coxon had quit the year before. Damon was similarly busy pursuing other interests – Gorillaz were already massive. The performance was overblown with gospel choirs and the best part of a full orchestra on stage. Were Blur as we knew and loved them over?
Fast forward 6 years and Blur are back. Graham is back. Proper Blur is back.The excesses have gone – Phil Daniels is the only addition turning out on stage for ‘Parklife’. There’s no new album to promote, just hit after hit. And so it was we sang or screamed nearly all the words to nearly all the songs. I remember my one sentence assessment when leaving the park that night: “it’s in the top one”, and I still believe this to be true. Every song had the crowd energy of the final song before the encore. And it’s hard to think of a live music experience of mine the atmosphere has matched or beaten it since.
Picky Bastards 