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Published: June 13th 2008
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Amsterdam Group Shot
At lunch on Thursday waiting for our Crepes! We arrived in Amsterdam (50 minute flight) on Thursday morning around 7am (after getting up in London at 4.30am!). We found our way to the backpackers we were staying in which was really nice but in a pretty dodgy area.
We spent the day checking out Amsterdam, had Crepes for Lunch and lots of Stroopwaffles (my favourite). In bed by 9.30pm as we were all feeling very tired by this point. Up 8am Friday to head to Landgraaf by train (2 1/2 hours out of Amsterdam where the Festival was held). Walked with our massive travel packs on to Camp A (about 40 minutes from train station) only to find that it was completely full of tents and people already set up.
Not wanting to travel any further we put our stuff down and a few of the boys went searching for a spot. They came back 10 minutes later and led us to the spot they'd found. As we started heading off track, away from the food and other facilities it wasn't until we reached the grass up to our knees that I started to have second thoughts.
Seeing as this was the first festival i'd been
Walking down street in Amsterdam
Danz asked us to stop and pose and this was the result.. to I didn't want to question their judgement but thankfully Danz piped up and said 'Guys this is disgusting i'm not camping here!'. We were literally standing in gorse up to our thighs! The boys kept saying 'just push the grass down' but we insisted on going back to camp C (not worrying that it was another half hour walk) to try our luck and thankfully we did because we got a great spot -even if we did have to queue for another half an hour for it!
At around 4pm after setting up we stood in line to get food and drink tickets and Kyle came out of nowhere (friend that was camping with other friends from Dollis Hill) and I was amazed he spotted me as there were SO many people in just the one campground that I thought for sure I wouldn't see them in the whole three days we were there!
I reluctantly left Nicola and co. (not knowing how i'd get hold of them again) and went with Kyle and some others to see a band called Flogging Molly who they rave about, it wasn't until we entered the festival ground (25 minute
Group shot by Camp
I was off watching Flogging Molly when this was taken.
Clockwise from Left: Gibbs, Brent, Baynes, Marty, Jim, Nicola, Tony, Danz, Courtenay, Marie, Nix walk from Campground) that I realised the sheer size of the area. The whole place incl the campgrounds were referred to as the 'Megaland'. There were 3 massive stages and loads of food and drink stands, rides etc.
We ended the night watching Incubus and Metallica who of course were just INCREDIBLE.
Day two, Saturday I woke up feeling bright and fresh, headed for breakfast (Omelette at a caravan food thing) and showered, the facilities were actually really good and we didn't have to line up for too long either.
We spent the day watching Bad Religion, Eagles of Death Metal, Stereophonics, Groove Armada (in an indoor stage), Kaiser Chiefs and ended with Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters put on such a fantastic show and Groove Armada were also a highlight for me that day.
At one stage it started to rain and we sheltered under a massive piece of plastic that some people had been sitting on, it was like an umbrella with fifty people holding it over their heads. We eventually got tired of that and got our own ponchos until the rain stopped and the sun shone again!
After such a long
day in the sunshine drinking and dancing you would think we would have been exhausted but we were all on such a high from the awesome day that we didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night!
Sunday was a scorcher and we all felt the effects of the day before so had a very slow start and struggled with the heat. We headed off around 1.30pm (keeping in mind the long walk in the heat ahead!). We spent the day relaxing on the grass (not drinking quite so much) and watched Cavalera Conspiracy, The Hives, Queens of the Stone Age (they were brilliant) and ended with the long awaited performance by Rage against the Machine.
The crowd was the biggest it had been in the whole 3 days for Rage (you could buy day tickets). They came out in orange boiler suits with Black Gas Masks on (faces covered). The Air Raid Sirens went off and then they were handed their instruments after a few minutes and played 'Bomb Track'. Was almost a bit scary!
The crowd around us went pretty nuts too (all 100,000 of them) and we spent more time off our feet
Ponchos
Day two when it started to rain! (Only rained for forty minutes or so -thank god we didn't have to wear these for three days!) than on them, was heaps of fun but if it weren't for the people around me pushing the crowds back in I don't know how long I would've lasted there! (I hate to think what it was like any closer!)
Monday morning came far too quickly and the walk back from the Campground to the train station with a Travel Pack on back, backpack on front and tent in one hand (Nicola had the other handle) was officially the worst in my 24 years of living. We headed back to Amsterdam for some McDs before catching our flight at 7pm. In true London fashion the weather was bad so we were delayed for an hour and there was a bit of turbulence on the flight too!
Lots of people said that it was up there with the best Festivals they'd been to so I felt very lucky for it to have been the first one for me. We had great weather, the crowds were really well behaved and we didn't have any hiccups at all (except for Jim losing his ticket on the way in and having to get it replaced!).
Oh, I forgot to mention, the
people were SUPER tall -like giants. Apparently it's a Dutch thing but even the people in our group that were tall couldn't compete with them. At one stage we thought we saw a Dutch Dwarf but it took us about 20 minutes to work out that he was actually a dwarf cause he was so tall!!
Anyway hope you enjoy the pictures!!
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