Well that was funny, but I was only able to laugh about it once we actually left the site. 4 hours a day looking after drug casualties, for a free ticket sounds good but manuevering a plastic bag trying to catch the puke of an acid casualty is just not any skill I want to develop. I realised I am actually not a very nice person. I've got a lot of admiration for the sort of people who can do welfare at festivals, I'm just not one of them. I actually felt violent towards the sort of sad faces "welfare" attracts.We were sharing showers with security, who were dropping drug casualties off on us, but had to argue with some nob-end in black every time we wanted to use them. The bosses were OK once we kicked off enough to get refered up to them but with a security firm with the initials SS what do you expect eh?
In between sessions I couldn't take psychedelics because the last thing I wanted was to be coming down off of psychedelics myself with people who were freaking out on them. I did a few mushrooms on the Sunday and had to "welfare" myself in my tent to be OK for work at night. All of this probably coloured my vision of the festival, what can I say, I've never been so happy to leave a festival site in my life and believe me, I've had some seriously bad times at festivals.
The production values were excellent, particularly the ID Spiral chill space.
The toilets were cleaned regularly, the music shut off at 4am and started at midday the next day. It was like raving with L-plates. I was struck by how seriously conservative rave music is. Trance all has to sound the same, chill-out music sounds the same. It was nice to see Juno Reactor, they did a ten-year old set but played my personal favourite homit so I was happy. On the monday I couldn't help de-rig fast enough and did a line of ketamine before getting into the van. As we cleared the site exit I started laughing and laughed most of the way home. I did more K and laughed hysterically into the night.I met a few very dear friends who I hadn't seen for years so I don't mind really, I will just NEVER volunteer for welfare again.
pictures from London Alive
