Friday, September 11, 2009

Electric Picnic

"You should at least bring some sandwiches, Kerri"



I got a bit behind on my blogging there trying to finish up the ones about Scotland, oops. This is about September 4th - 6th.


This year was my first electric picnic ever - hooray! Earlier on in the year I spent two days at Oxygen, which should've been enough to put me off the whole idea altogether.


Several reasons why I've never been to a weekend festival:


• I hate being outside

• I hate camping

• I hate rain

• I hate large groups of people

• I hate small groups of people

• I hate anything that involves people standing too close to me

• I hate hippy crap

• I hate big gigs


The boyfriend is pretty much a one-man festival wagon so he bought me a ticket in May and decided that by the time it rolled around, I'd want to go. Wrong. Well, that's not true, I was excited, but a very big part of me was still pretty pissed off that I had to spend a whole weekend combining the things I hate most.


By I came back from Scotland I was actually quite looking forward to it, if not a bit scared. But, himself is a seasoned festival goer so I trusted him to look after me and tend to my every need. (I'm so pleasant sometimes)


We spent most of the week coming up to Electric Picnic sorting out what we needed for the weekend; we decided to book our tent, mats and sleeping bags online so it meant we could just collect them when we got there. Anything to make the weekend go a bit smoother was fine by me. We also went to the camping shop and got some seriously hideous wellies for trudging through the mud.


I was kind of at a loss as to what exactly to pack, so I went on what I learned at Oxygen: Dress warm, have a rain coat, lots of socks and lots of booze. So a packed just that. And in retrospect, I should've taken another few jumpers. By thursday we had sorted out pretty much everything we needed and our bags were packed. All we needed was some beer so we headed off to the local Centra were we proceeded to look like alcoholics. Clearly this was the only Centra in Dublin that didn't know EP was going on, and it was the only one with any drink left in it!


Friday morning we were up and atom, getting a lift from one of the lads we were going to be camping with. After a late start, a few stops and some general getting lost, we made it all the way there without a scratch. Even the incredibly long walk to the camp site couldn't bring me down because I was all smug with myself that I was going to prove I could last a whole weekend doing things I hate. I've never laughed so hard as I did when I came back from the portaloo to see that my boyfriend had put the tent up all by himself. Luckily, it was a pop-up tent, so I didn't have to help put it up, but I swear my dog's kennel is bigger then that tent was. The tent was about 5 foot in length, once our bags were inside, and neither of us could sit up in it. But I wasn't going to complain - it wasn't raining and we had somewhere to live, so I was happy.


If, like me, you're a bit iffy about festivals, then one thing you must always remember to bring is toilet roll. Really. Portaloos are the single most disgusting place in the planet, and the only thing that makes them bearable is if you can clean up before you have to go. I wont go into any more detail then that, but do remember toilet roll. And hand sanitizer.


After we'd set up camp, we got some food - festival food freaks me out so I played it safe and got a roll - and headed on into the actual festival. I have to say, it was pretty amazing. Once you get rid of the thousands of food stalls, it's actually pretty cool there. There was loads of fun, random stuff to do. And also, I got to see lots of DJs I wanted to see, so that was a plus.


I think it's a sign that I enjoyed myself because I didn't find time to take a single picture. Also, my memory is a little fuzzy because I drank my own weight in cider. Another must in enjoying a festival. I will probably go to EP again, the fact that it didn't rain all weekend is a very big plus, and there was just a nice buzz in spending the weekend with other people who are in the same boat. Besides the crappy tent, the portaloos, and some seriously dodgy plain-clothes coppers hassling me, I had a whopper weekend.










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