V Festival 2005

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August 25th 2005

Published: August 25th 2005

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B C vs The World

Saturday

Ben and I in tent city

Hey everybody!!

This is the first realtime Blog Im putting on here, all the ones previous have been me transfering them from other websites as I think this is such an easy site to navigate and so painless to use!

When the V Festival tickets first went on sale, I mucked around and didnt get one straight away, so missed out :o(
It was as bad a Glastonbury though and sold out in 3 hours. All the Ashbourne crew managed to score tickets as always, so I knew they were at least going.
Gordy was in London a few weeks ago for work and Matt, Faith, Charmaine and I met up with him for some drinks. He mentioned then that he had some spare tickets going, which Matt and Faith promptly snapped up. Only fair, as they hadnt been before and were still to catch up with the Ashbournites.

So that was that, everyone was going except us. That was cool, we had a busy weekend ahead with 1 house party, 2 farewells, 1 birthday and I had arranged to take my English / European workmates to the Church for the first time.
I got an email from

Filling up

V Stage

Charmaine on the Wednesday though, that someone at her work had 3 spare tickets to V and they were going cheap! After a bit of to and fro, Ben, Charmaine and I were holding 3 weekend tickets!!!
I had to tell Matt we were coming so that he could save us some space, but everyone else thought we weren't going to make it. Yah, a surprise!

Me and Ben are officially the slowest people at getting ready, so it was hardly surpising we didnt get away from London until 11:30pm on Friday night. We were looking at a 3 hour trip North. That was until we missed the turnoff. We saw quite a bit of nice Northern countryside though and managed to get to the Festival at 4:30am. Ben is a hero. By this stage of the morning, Matt had had to let Gordy and Robbo know we were coming, as they were waiting up for us! After a bit of a hike and a few funny navigational phone calls between Matt, Gordy and I, we found the Ashbourne campsite and set up tent. In bed by 6am.

As to the festival.
Well, the weather was good both

Antipodean Contingent

Me, Charmaine, Ben, Faith and Matt taking the photo

days, Sunday especially was red-hot. Bikinis and skirts all round!
Bit of a blur generally, up in the morning about 10am, straight into the drinks, wander around exploring a bit, catch a few early bands, eat some grub, settle down beneath the speaker stands with a few beers, talk shit, take some photos, ride some rides, wander over to another stage. Really hectic stuff!
It did get a bit spicy when Ben decided he wanted to touch the front bar on the stage during Franz Ferdinand. Me, C and Ben made the mission, over many angry stares and grumbles. Touched and bailed almost straight away much to everyones disgust! That started it, we were then off to the Roots to do the same trick. Bit more of a laid back crowd there, no dramas. When we tried to get into the Prodigy though, it was a pretty heavy crowd. Ben was pulling the "I came all the way from Australia to touch the stage!" line, but he was still meeting pockets of resistance. Me and C gave up about 20m from the stage after Ben almost got in a scrap with a particularly hardcore fan. He persevered though and completed

Fun fair

Gotta have a fair!

his mission! The photos are cool!
Over the weekend we managed to see, Scissor Sisters, Oasis, Prodigy (Best Act), The Roots, Franz Ferdinand, The Streets (Mike lost his voice!),The Zutons, Maroon 5, Jet, The Chemical Brothers, Kaiser Chiefs, Goldfrapp, Bodyrockers, maybe a few more.

Sunday night we headed back to the tent about 11pm, Ben had a lie down, then the final packup and wandered down to the car. We were expecting hell getting out of the carpark, but after walking past people asleep in there cars waiting to get out, we were perfectly positioned in the field and were on the road by 1am! Poor old Benny dug deep and we were home by 4am Monday morning.

Another great V, another great time with the Northern Crew!!!

Thanks to one and all!!

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