Welcome To Paradise

Holy SHIT.

Well, this weekend, I 'ave been mos'ly bein' in MILTON KEYNES watchin' a couple o' me favourite bands. That's right. Wham, with Elton John. Shut up, Cassie.

We arrived at MK at 11:30, after a reasonably unhectic car journey, chauffeured by the lovely Mum of Stalker. Thank you, Mrs. Stalker. Unfortunately, there was then the challenge of finding the correct gate. Now, usually, things like entrances are numbered consecutively. But, in the land of Concrete Cows, this is not so. Gate Six is somewhere near Gate One, Gate Sixteen is next to Gate Ten, and Gate Four is seemingly nonexistant. So, like, that wasn't confusing.

Anywho, after about an hour of walking up and down the same dusty strip of road, complete with scary hat selling men and bushy things as far as the eye could see, we eventually came to a stop about five metres from where we started. Cough. So, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to be sitting outside this entrance, in all honestly, six thousand years. The more sensible of us (i.e. me) slapped on the sun cream, and lay down for a nice nap. The not-so-sensible of our group (i.e. Ben) sat in some scary looking green gunge, and proceeded to try to wipe it on Roxy. He was, however, forgiven, after he bought as all twisters. Yay.

The gates were opened early, and the more eager of us (that's you, Stalker) ran full pelt down the steep, steep, leg achy hill, and joined the rapidly pullulating crowd. Rozza, Chris, Bob and myself dawdled down slowly, and pushed in with Alex and Ben, much to the dismay and annoyance of the rest of the queue. The queue pushed forth, and we were granted entrance to a pit, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BLOODY STAGE. Hell yeh. It pays to get there early and be part of the lucky first-thousand-to-arrive who got to be so darn close to the stage. We planted ourselves in a spot we were destined to stay for the majority of the afternoon, and proceeded to melt.

Hours floated on by, we got hotter, we got sweatier, the overpowering stench of weed mixed with perspiration... uh, overpowered us, but we sat in our spot, undeterred by the fat, old woman, toting her equally ugly children, who had parked their bottoms in far too close a proximity to be comfortable. Eventually, even with the constant flow of water fighty water, it got too much, and so, some of us left the annoying woman and her gaggle, in search of greener pastures.

Sixty five THOUSAND people, and yet we managed to be in the first one thousand. HaHA. So, on escaping from the "look how close we are to the stage" enclosure, gaining our snazzy wristbands, we found ice cream, Fati, Amy and a Dave. We gloated, and waited for the first band, Hard Fi. Who were alright, but had the amusing element of a keyboard that you play like a trumpet. And play it they did. Through every one of their songs, including a delightful rendition of Seven Nation Army. Stick to yer day jobs, lovies. Next, Taking Back Sunday. By this time, we had migrated to a cooler area of our "haha, we got here first" patch, where we could lie and listen. Ahhh. Jimmy Eat World (abbrieviated to JEW. Thanks for that, Roxy) played, and were darn fantasmagorical, playing such delights as Pain, A Praise Chorus and The Miffle. Hahahaha. I mean, The Middle. Fuck, I'm tired.

At long bloody last, ten freakin' hours from when we arrived at the Bowl, Greenday boarded the stage.

I have seventy five thousand more on my flickr account. And be bloody impressed, as I had to jump for each one of those shots. Damn my shortarsedness.

Basically, the whole set was fucking AMAZING. I cannot even begin to describe it. I don't even want to.

And then she sighed.