Field of Dreams

 

What in the giddy dribbles of knackersackery is this? Remember when you knew summer was coming because your parents finally allowed you to take off your kagoole? And then because you found yourself barking about the price of sunblock in Boots? Well, by Christ, that’s changed. See, in 2013 we now know summer is coming because the middle class has declared it festival season and is insisting that we party by its olive-strewn rules.

No, really. Time was when festivals were attended by wild-haired revolutionaries who took pride in dropping out. Now festivals seem to be attended by well-coiffered respectables who seem to think that festival-going needs rules in the same way that operating theatres need sanitising. Thing is, as festivals have become cool again, this transformation has been like watching badly-dancing, cardigan-wrapped dads stampede a teenage disco.

Look at it this way: just a few weeks ago The Times printed its 2013 guide to the UK’s festivals. This weekend The Sunday Times Style magazine turned several of its pages into a festival style guide. That’s right: The Times. Now that as sure as shit didn’t happen when I was a keen festival-goer in the 90s, sleeping in the back of a transit van, swigging warm Strongbow for breakfast and generally pissing down my own sunburned leg.

See, whereas festivals used to be about free spirits, now they’re about The Rules. I shit you not, I swear that right now there is a Festival Committee hunkered down in the Churchill War Rooms, creating a 21st Century-style ten commandments for festival goers.

Suddenly, if you believe the spaffingly-desperate media, you can’t set foot on Worthy Farm unless you are sporting the right – whatever the fuck ‘right’ is – shorts, wellies and tent. In fact according to The Sunday Times Style magazine the only way you deserve a ticket for Glasto is if you’re wearing £85 shades, glittery nails and eyelids, print jeans, £140 boots, a £1645 (yes, £1645) gillet and a fucking fedora. It’s as if George Orwell had a terrifying vision of outdoor entertainment 60 years before its time.

Oh, but that’s not all of The Rules. Hell no. The Rules include everything from hiring the right yurts and buying organic falafels to listening to obscure bands just to out-cool the guy in the tent next to yours. It sounds bloody exhausting, as if Michael Eavis himself will smite you down with an unplugged microphone stand should you flout any style guide to this year’s event.

In fact The Rules make festival-going about as free-spirited as an interview for a job with the Civil bloody Service.

Is this a British thing? Perhaps we are nationally incapable of enjoying an outdoor event unless it’s given the same lemon-sucking smile that we give queue-jumping. It’s as if we are determined to drain the fun out of festivals. Rather than free ourselves up let down our hair, the endless bloody guides to the likes of T in the Park are swiftly becoming to-do lists. It’s just like being at work but in a pair of bum-scuffing cut offs.

Seriously, back when I went to three day festivals I don’t even recall taking a clean pair of knickers with me. Now, if I haven’t blown a month’s salary on the hottest tribal prints and shag-me wellies before I’ve even reached the perimeter fence I’m about as cool as dried maggot drool.

So, if we really are going to embrace festival season, can we just drop The Rules? It’s enough that we have to spend an hour queuing for a toilet before being forced to wee over the turdery pokery of the fifteen men who went in first, without having to do it in on-trend t-shirts. In fact the coolest way to attend a festival is now to be decidedly uncool. Stuff the style guides. The next time I hit the Pyramid Stage I’m doing it in an Elvis jumpsuit, a tricorn hat and orthopaedic shoes.

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3 Responses to Field of Dreams

  1. Andy says:

    The silver lining is that anyone who abides by the rules is grade A tosspot and by conforming they are easy to identify and avoid. This isn’t a British phenomenon and your post reminded me of a clip I saw from the Jimmy Kimmnel show where they let tragic hipsters humiliate themselves on TV. Watch and laugh – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_IzYUJANfk

  2. Rootietoot says:

    shag-me wellies!! HAHAHA!!
    Is there anything left in this world that is sacred? Festivals were the last great events where you could come as you are!

  3. Shirls says:

    “Cool as dried maggot drool”? Can’t wait to drop this gem into some conversation!

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