31st
The Greatest Music Is Secondary
On the evening of October 31st, 2008, some time around midnight, I was standing in a parking lot in Florida, at the back of a hire truck full of instruments and amps and a band. Several hundred other people stood around me, an excited chatter filled the air. Somewhere, a generator fired up and guitars fed back. The crowd cheered, and I was totally drunk. The band burst into a song, and almost immediately all electrical instruments stopped making any noise. Their makeshift energy system clearly couldn’t handle something this radical. No one gave a shit. The band kept going, the drums pounded and a thousand voices screamed along. Some folks had managed to get on the roof of the truck, which must have been about fifteen feet above the tarmac of the car park, and were leaping of into the crowd. Some guy landed on my head. This, I thought, is completely fucking awesome. It was the end of the first day of Fest 7, a music festival in Gainesville, Florida. Three days of incredible people, loud fucking music, and too many beers. And it is the best time EVER IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE to get drunk off your ass. Let me explain just why. As we all know, the only bad thing about going on a crazed beer fuelled bender is waking up in the morning with that Goddamned Guilt. Hangovers aren’t great, and suddenly having to scramble through your pockets to check that your wallet isn’t still on a stool in some bar is no way to wake up in the morning, but it’s the fucking Guilt that really gets you. The “Oh shit, I can’t believe I said / drunk / put my wang in that! My peers will never respect me again! My social life is ruined!” The feeling of dread as you realise what a low fucking bastard you really are, as your self respect drains into the toilet and you flush it and feel sick. That sucks. But at the Fest, this will not happen, because YOU WILL NEVER BE THE DRUNKEST, LOUDEST, NAKEDEST PERSON IN THE ROOM. You may feel like a total stupid boozy fuck up for three hundred and sixty days of the year, but at Fest, you’ll think you’re somebody’s sensible mother. You could be at any venue on any day, before the first band has even set up a drum kit and find a group of drunks getting awesome at the bar. You could turn up before the venue even opens, and there will be someone making a drunken tit of themselves in the fucking queue. This is so, so brilliant. It is a true holiday. A holiday from being a jerk. It’s like Disney World for dudes. And I’m going back.
