What's the Best Music Festival You've Been To?

[mobs00]

Sounds like a lot of you guys have some great stories, so care to share a few?

My favorite festival was where for new year's 2005-2006 I spent 10 days at the Woodford folk festival in Queensland. It's billed as the largest folk festival in Australia.

Had a great time. Lots of crazy side shows and things going on and there was plenty of fun to go around. Thousands of people were camped out on a farm and they had tons of performances each night. We just wandered around in a daze stopping at this tent and that. Everyone was mellow and most of the folk music was pretty good. Only thing was in the daytime it was 45C+ so not much to do but at night the place transformed.

[friscofrankie]

Hmm is it OK if I forgot the name of it? sometime in the mid-seventies, Angles Camp, CA I remember Warren Zevon was there 'cause he pulled up in a chauffeur driven '54 caddy in the gas station where a few of us were gassin up our scooters. Guy is bouncing around like Toucan in teh back seat rolls down his window and starts shooting Photos like crazy. Guess he'd never seen long haird freaks on motorcycles before it was three or four days We got to park our scoots down in front and hang out there as well.

Camping where ever you could get it, pancake breakfasts with Bacon and Kessler to wash it down with. I got a ticket for loud pipes. sent 'em a money order. There was lots of topless girls plenty of loose parties roaming camp to camp was good way to meet people, get laid and stoned.

Really wasn;t about the quality of the shows but my personal experiences there. I met some good people we stayed intouch for decades, only ost touch after one dude died. The late sixties and early seventies Music festivals inteh Bay area were on the order of one per month. name groups, nekkid wimmen and good times. Picking one out wasn't that hard some of them though, have kind of melded in the afterglow.

Second best and in someways worst was Altamont, but that's another story.

[mobs00]

^ Somehow I knew you'd have some good stories....

Those are the greatest stories I've heard, from late 60's to early 70's. Surely you must have a few more Frankie?

Around that time my Dad hitchhiked from festival to festival all around the US from the time he was 18-24. I guess he came home every once and a while otherwise I may not have made it.

[Ciaphas]

Definitely not one of the best, but one that I will always remember and a classic Glastonbury. In 2005 on the first night the heavens opened and the following morning we woke up to water flooding past our tents down the hill. Walking down the hill we discovered half the fields totally flooded with people desperately trying to rescue their stuff, including two friends. They spent the rest of the weekend squeezed in with us, for a very muddy and drunken time.



The following year we opted to go to a festival in Spain on the beach with guaranteed sun, haven't been back to Glastonbury since.

[nedwalk]

ther,s another just up the road from woodford, in GYMPIE, its called the country muster, rock and roll in a cowboy hat, its held the last weekend in august, ferkin cold and the punters start rolling in about 6weeks before, it becomes a tent city of about 30,000, and numbers swell over the weeks, some great line ups local and international in about 15 different venues, main stage, blues bar [my favourite], its definately a to do if you are in the area, held out in the ammamor state forest'
i used to work the festival for years, now i,m just happy haveing a boogie in the crowd

[Marmite the Dog]

I've been to the Donnington Monsters of Rock Festival a couple of times.

The first time was in 1984. The line-up was as follows...

AC/DC
Van Halen
Ozzy Osbourne
Gary Moore
Y&T
Accept
Mötley Crüe

I can't remember that much about it, which is a shame as there's some good bands on there.

The second time I went was in 1986. This years line-up was...

Ozzy Osbourne
Scorpions
Def Leppard
Motörhead
Bad News
Warlock

I remember Lemmy from Motörhead saying that if anyone else threw mud at him, he'd fuck off, but the page I found on the net says he complained about a lit flare, so I dunno.

The Scorpions were brilliant that day. I know most people think of them as being a bit gay, but back then they knew how to rock.

I also remember Ozzy being very fucking LOUD! I couldn't make out what the first song was until about halfway through it. Needless to say my ears were rigning for a day or so after the concert.

I also saw Metallica play a mini festival at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993.

Now, I thought this was more recent than that, but no. It was 16 years ago. Jesus! How time flies. Anyway, it was a good gig, with some great bands; Metallica, Megadeth, The Almighty, and the newly reformed Diamond Head.

Megadeth & Diamond Head were the best on the day. Metallica were good, but not a patch on when I saw them at Hammersmith in '86.

Another thing I remember is that it took ages to find the bus home afterwards.

[Gallowspole]

Would like to say Live Aid at Wembley due to U2 and Queen absolutely rocking it but in reality it was pretty shite - crap sound, loads of technical problems, link with the States going down.

A mate, his lass, and myself had got the Clipper night bus down to London after a night out in Newcastle and proceeded to drink ourselves sober. Arrived at Wembley very early and continued to drink on the steps outside. When the gates opened we found out that we couldn't take our cans of Brown Ale into the stadium so we bought bottles of coke, emptied them out, filled them full of ale and got back in line. Unfortunately that didn't work so we had to neck about 4 pints each in about 30 mins, eventually staggering into the stadium and burping our way onto the middle of the pitch.

The temperature was up to 100 degrees by midday when the fanfare began and Status Quo, my mate's favourite group of all time, kicked off with Rockin' All Over the World. Suddenly my mate's lass starts doing the 'dying fly' on the ground. Odd choice I thought as this was a headbangers' song not a punk number. I then heard some women screaming 'get a spoon in her mouth' and realised she was having an epileptic fit. Spent the next 5 odd hours at the St John's Ambulance station at the opposite side of the stadium to the stage waiting for her jeans to dry out (she'd pissed herself), nipping out now and again to watch the bands with a 5 second sound delay. Dehydrated and heavily hungover I was glad to leave early, straight after Queen finished (who were excellent, though).

[crazy dog]

Stonehenge 1975 but only because it was the first and last time. Spent a lot of it in a tent having a bad experience due to substances ingested while the GF pissed off with someone else. Saw a bloke stark naked on crutches who seemed completely mad, at least I think I did. Horrible and never even went inside the stones at sunrise, easy to do then. God knows who was on but most of the music from then seems ridiculous now, Hendrix and Clapton excepted.
These days I go to festivals of a Thai nature

[Bangyai]

Watchfield Free Festival , 1977. Went alone to see my favourite band...Global Village Trucking company. They turned up but decided not to play. Went back to my tent and shared a spliff with some strangers then watched Henry Cow. Got pissed around a campfire in the evening and nearly scored but someone older than me and with better chat up lines stole her away. Went back to me tent and had a wank and a spliff...in that order. Then it started to rain but I had to leave my tent to puke up and got soaked.

All in all a memorable event.

[Loy Toy]

I think it was about 1972-73 at the Randwick Race Course in Sydney and it rained for most of the day leading up to the start of the festival.

There were 4 Aussie and 4 British Bands planned but because of the incessant rain the aussie bands were cancelled.

The 4 Brit Bands were

1. Can't remember but I believe that it was Buffalo.
2. Lindisfarne who were great



3. The third band, who in fact were the headliners and because of the rain come on early was Rod Stewart and the Faces and of course they were brilliant


4. Now everyone started to leave and when the next band come on (nobody had heard of them) and it was so funny to see everyone racing back and they rocked the show IMO.

[tjyflhol]

Glastonbury 95, hitched down there with a handful of LSD and a big bag of weed.

Might be planning a trip back next year for Glasto 2010 if I can rally the troops.

[The Fresh Prince]

Homelands, cant remember the year. As we pulled into the carpark a guy dressed in a flack jacket who looked like a cop came to our car window and said.

"Excuse me gents, you guys were all looking a little suspicious on the way in, we'll need to search your persons and do a full car search."

We all sank in our seats and thought we were done for, until the look a like cop pulled a sticker out of his pocket and slapped it on the drivers fore head shouting, "Don't Be A Dick!"

I looked at my mate driving and the big black sticker on his fore head read "Dont Be A Dick!" in big white letters.

He was just a carpark attendant winding us up. We all fell about the car pissing ourselfs with relief.

Had a great night. My friends found me asleep on top of the speakers in the drum and bass tent at about 10 in the morning with the tunes blaring out. For some reason I'd stripped off down to my undies and had neatly folded all my clothes next to where I was a sleep. Luckily no one had nicked them.

The black and white sticker stayed on our fridge door until we finished university.

[Loy Toy]

My friends found me asleep on top of the speakers in the drum and bass tent

Sounds familiar........................... Well at least they found you!

[The Fresh Prince]

Yep, there's definitely a pattern!

[Marmite the Dog]

What would've been the best festival would've been Hannington Rock Festival in around 1993, as I was supposed to be playing there.

I remember Saxon were supposed to be headlining and there were a few other bands, but it got pulled the day before it was supposed to happen. about 15,000 people turned up at the site to find nothing there.

Shame that.

[The Fresh Prince]

What were you going to play..?

[melvbot]

Donnington was always a ggod one for me as I only lived 20 mins away from it. I remember the 95 one better than most, I think it was Metallica and Slayer which was pretty good.

Ive worked at a lot of festivals and in general theyre a mixed bag, the odd decent band mixed in with a load of tosh so Im going to include my favourite gigs to widen the scope a bit.

In no particular order

Sepultura at Nottingham Rock City, memorable as I had only been discharged from hospital the day before after having surgery on my nose and being told not to do anything but rest for a week, feck that, front row.

Guns N Roses at Wembley Stadium. They were OK but its the gig that turned me onto Nine Inch Nails who were supporting, blew me away from all that poofy hairdo cock rock.

Anthrax at Leicester De Montfort hall. One of my first real gigs, a supply schooltecher at the time crammed 6 of us into his VW Beetle to go there, teachers are usually boring, he rocked after that night but left a year later. I lost my voice screaming the lyrics.

[ItsRobsLife]

Glastonbury '93.

Took Magic Mushrooms and LSD at the same time, mushies first then a trip 5 minutes later. Best.. er.. festival I've ever been to.

Apart from the one before that and most of the ones since, seeing Prodigy on the NME stage at Glastonbury in '95 after the fences had been knocked down was incredible, Keith Flint and well over 100,000 other people concur.

[ItsRobsLife]

Glastonbury 95, hitched down there with a handful of LSD and a big bag of weed.

Might be planning a trip back next year for Glasto 2010 if I can rally the troops.

It wouldn't be the same, some memories are best kept the way they are.

First time I went to Glastonbury '92 or something, I crashed out behind a straw bale on the first night and woke up the next day to lots of naked people, mostly wimmin, some body painted, worshipping the sunrise, that's when I though being a hippy could have it's advantages.

[ItsRobsLife]

a classic Glastonbury. In 2005...Walking down the hill we discovered half the fields totally flooded with people desperately trying to rescue their stuff.

That's what I mean, it's changed.

Back in the early 90's you didn't have stuff, and if you did you'd probably have forgotten where you left it within 24 hours.
You turned up with your best gear on, pockets full of drugs and a bit of cash and left when your ride sorted his head out or the police turned up.

Wish I'd gone to Castlemorton.

[phuketbound]

I've heard many stories from friends about Glastonbury. So many Brits on here (down with the Brits).

I have two awesome stories of concerts I've been too. One was in Toronto, Ontario during the SARS outbreak in 2003. The city had a rock concert that was supposed to tell the world that it was a safe destination to visit, having had numerous SARS outbreaks around that time. The rock concert was called SARSapalooza.

The Rolling Stones were the headliners, and they started off with 'Start me up,' which until you see the energy that Mick still exudes at his age, you won't believe it.
I took a bus for five hours to get to Toronto. A few friends and I, stayed in a hostel the night before and got onto the grounds at 5am in order to get close to the front of the stage. Other acts included Rush, AC/DC, The Guess Who, and quite a few Canadian groups such as Blue Rodeo, Sass Jordon, etc.

I remember drinking so much that day, but still remember the concert like it was yesterday. We ended up almost missing the bus, back to my home city the next day.

--
I also went to see U2 in Montreal, Canada for their Elevation tour. Quebec is so laxed as to what you can do in the concert hall. We had beer, and weed, and no one seemed to mind. The way U2 came onto the stage, with the lights on for their opening act (singing Elevation), was really unique.

[sabang]

Stonehenge 1975 but only because it was the first and last time. Spent a lot of it in a tent having a bad experience due to substances ingested while the GF pissed off with someone else. Saw a bloke stark naked on crutches who seemed completely mad, at least I think I did. Horrible and never even went inside the stones at sunrise, easy to do then. God knows who was on but most of the music from then seems ridiculous now, Hendrix and Clapton excepted.
These days I go to festivals of a Thai nature

I did Stonehenge in the mid or late 80's sometime- had a great time.

Muddy everywhere, tents selling drugs (mostly weed & acid), crazies, women & blokes walking around nekkid. People dancing with themselves. 'New Age Travellers' were there in droves, the optional dress code could be anything from tie-dies & bright colours, to army surplus fatigues. The real revellers were muddy, and revelling in it.

The Police were there, but at a respectful distance- they were no trouble. I believe things went pear shaped in the next few years. Stonehenge is no more- in fact the place is even rooted as a tourist attraction now- Avebury knocks socks off it. I had a great time there myself (just for an afternoon), and no I have no idea what bands might have been playing.

[celtic]

Not really festivals but in the late 60's early 70's, American University in D.C. had free concerts all the time. I saw Santana, the Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage and B.B. King to name a few.

In the late 70's early 80's I worked at a nite club called the Ritz on the lower east side N.Y.C. got paid to see Prince, English Beat, The Ramones, the Clash, the Police and many more. U2 played there a few times , the first time they were the opening act,(not the headliner!!!), the men's room attendent was from Dublin I think and knew them from Ireland so after we closed they hung around with the staff drinking and nose packing, practices that were prevalent in those days.

My bar station was about 30 feet from the stage, so ever since I've not been able to bring myself to pay for a concert and be 100-200 yards from the music.

It's just a cross I have to bear!!

[The Zapster]

Stone'enge...I see Spinal Tap are playing Glasters this year - talk about mudflaps!

[Marmite the Dog]

What were you going to play..?

Metal of course!