52 New Things by Nick Thorpe

Author:Nick Thorpe [Nick J. Thorpe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781352069
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Published: 2014-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

29

Go to a Festival

WHEN OUR parents’ generation was young, the best they had to look forward to was a monthly dance at the village hall and an occasional treat of dripping on toast. Gigs were in their infancy and the riskiest thing most people did was skip church on a Sunday. A few decades later and live music has been propelled by the festival scene, the seeds of which were sown in Woodstock and Glastonbury in the dying embers of the ’60s, and that has now grown into the yearly gathering of hippies, crusties, flower children and accountants from Reading to drink, snort and party their way through the summer months.

Festivals are brilliant. They are a melting pot of cultures, counter-cultures, people and music. They offer the chance to do what you like, where you like and often who you like, all in an environment super-charged by low-quality burgers, high-quality cider and some of the biggest bands in the world. And with the collapse of the traditional music industry, thanks to their stubbornness to recognise the advent of the digital revolution, live music is now the main way that artists get to connect with their audiences, as well as get paid.

I’ve been going to festivals for more than half of my life, and they are one of my favourite things in the world. Sadly, if you believe the likes of The Guardian and Buzzfeed, festivals are now nothing more than groups of hipsters, chavs and coked-up teenagers trying to build bonfires out of damp cardboard pint cups. They are, of course, wrong.

Here are some reasons why festivals are brilliant, and why everyone should attend one at least once in their lives:

• Let’s start with the economics. Pay £30 to see one band on a Friday night in a small venue. Pay £170 to see 100 bands in a massive field over the course of an entire weekend. There is literally no cheaper way to see live music without hiding inside Bono’s ego and sneaking on stage.

• There are now around 700 festivals in the UK each year alone, with every single music taste catered for. Most feature a range of genres, meaning you can experiment with music you might otherwise avoid.

• Although I’d probably avoid the death metal festivals unless you want an angry man with a ring through his nose to wee on you.

• Same goes for any festival playing garage music.

• Festivals tend to be lawless, anarchic places, meaning you can do a lot of things that you might not be able to do at home.

• Yes, including drugs, although I really wouldn’t encourage it unless you fancy snorting a line of washing powder sold to you by a man with more hair on his feet than his head.

• We’ve come a long way since Glastonbury kicked things off with a £1 entrance fee and free milk. Today’s festivals usually include a range of activities and entertainment well beyond music, such as poetry, comedy, cinema, art, debate, workshops, practical displays and so on.

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