‘Oh, so you haven’t booked?’.. unnerving words for any foreigner in Japan to hear, that.

It was Friday, July 26th 2019 and I had just arrived an hour or so earlier at Fuji Rock. Despite my 33-year association with Japan and music being a huge part of life, it was my very first one.

For the uninitiated, the Fuji Rock Festival is Japan’s Glastonbury, the biggest music festival event of the year attended by some 100,000 people. It's held not as you’d probably expect near Mount Fuji, but at Naeba, a major ski resort in the mountains a few hours northwest of Tokyo. It was now mid morning and I was in the massive Prince Hotel, the nerve centre of the event, just outside the main site.

I wasn’t staying at the hotel, instead I was all set to camp. On arrival I paid the ¥3000 ($30) campsite (read ‘ski slopes’) fee, got the veritable Mother of All Wristbands clamped to my wrist and had just finished pitching the tent. Despite the somewhat strenuous uphill hike, I’d chosen an area fairly high up on one of the slopes, because up there there was breeze.

In the half hour or so since I’d arrived, the sun had momentarily pierced the welcomingly cool veil of low cloud covering the site a few times and all of a sudden it was damn hot. So if, as seemed likely, once that cloud cover had burned off my tent was going to get a baking, come the night I definitely wanted cool breeze. As a just reward for my 15 minutes of intrepid clambering, there was one blowing up there, and a pretty stiff one at that. Also there was much less of a gradient. So come sleep time, not only would the tent be cool, I wouldn’t feel too much like Virgil Tracy descending the shoot into the cockpit of Thunderbird 2 either.
 

On the wristbands, ever since I was a kid I've always hated anything around my wrist. I never ever wear a watch, and the two bands I'd quickly acquired, the one particularly thick and uncompromising, were soon feeling very uncomfortable. During the first hour particularly, I was shifting them around and up and down with regularity and I wondered how on earth I was going to put up with them the whole time. Though it did get easier, I unceremoniously cut myself free at the earliest opportunity.

Complete with a 4am departure, I'd ridden up from Chigasaki by car with a couple of friends, Jyunichi and Hiromi. With the car safely parked up a mile or so away, we got ourselves onto one of the many shuttle buses and soon arrived at the site to be greeted by serious queues everywhere you looked. Most, it seemed, were for official merchandise of one kind or another, something I found incredible since they were like the queues at Tokyo Disneyland, famously renowned for taking two or three hours to get you on your ride. We were on the look out for the booth to pick up guest passes and, happily, in that particular one there were only three people.

We had our passes within a minute, and as we stood waiting for Hiromi to come back from the car (she’d had to retake a shuttle bus back after forgetting something), Jyunichi gave me a brief orientation. The site was enormous. He emphasised just how much walking was involved, adding that the stage I was most interested in, the idyllically named ‘Field of Heaven’, was the furthest away. About a mile and a half, it turned out. He and Hiromi, he said, would shortly leave to a nearby hot spring to chill for a few hours, then come back later in the afternoon. He must’ve caught my look of slight surprise and told me he’d been there about 15 times already and that it really didn’t hold much mystique for him anymore. He pointed to the huge hulking hotel and said that’s pretty much the domain of the artists and staff and that I may be able to get in there with my guest pass if I wanted to. He’s a senior music industry man so I asked him if he had ever brought any bands there himself, on his company’s behalf. ‘Oh yes, a few’, he said. ‘I brought Neil Young here’. Wow, fair enough, I thought.

When I picked up my guest pass I found out it was only for the day. Jyunichi guys were staying just the day too, but were heading over to the Niigata coast for the rest of the weekend so the question for me was how I was going to get back. I hadn’t known in advance if my ticket was for just one or all three days, so I decided to wait till I knew more before making any return plans. I had to be back for a gig Sunday night anyhow, so I’d kinda earmarked Sunday morning to make my move. I was just happy to go with the flow and see where it went though, a way of operating I’m very well-versed in and comfortable with. Now I’d found out it was just for the Friday however, it all became a bit more immediate.

So with the tent up, I made my way down to the Prince Hotel below. My guest status did give me access to part of the hotel area and I soon found myself in a nice little cafeteria on the side nearest the festival site. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was what looked like a genuine gourmet espresso bar. After the unearthly hour of our departure and the five hour car journey, this was a most welcome find.

Coffee in hand, I set about checking out my return options. Basically I needed to get down the 25km to Echigo-Yuzawa station, where I could pick up the Shinkansen bullet train. I managed to find a friendly and efficient-looking lady with a badge on, who, after listening to my story came out with the ominous ‘Ah, so you haven’t booked?’ line.
'Uhh, no.'

I learned there were special tickets up and back from Tokyo. And while she said she believed it was possible to get just a one way, she wasn’t really sure, especially at this point. She urged me to get on it at once.
A cool old guy in a cowboy hat who'd overheard the conversation picked up the thread. He told me the whole bus thing was a bit of a madhouse and if I wanted to use it I really had to get a ticket. If I didn’t, he warned, smilingly, it could take hours to get on one. ‘There may be hundreds of people coming out in the morning all trying to get on a bus. With no reservation it could take you all day, really’.

So I grabbed a second coffee, parked myself in the comfiest chair I could find and hit my phone. For the next 15 or 20 minutes I checked out all sorts of different webpages. Coming up though against ever deepening complexity or getting myself totally lost, I made little headway and I soon realised I'd hit a wall. Along with it came a solid hunch that this bus was not how I’d be leaving Fuji Rock. 
 

‘Shit, I’ll hitch’, I figured.
‘I mean, there’ll be loads of cars going down that way. How hard could it be?’..

I’ve hitched in Japan before, albeit not for a good few years. Hitchhikers are not a common sight here, Japanese people as a rule don’t do it at all, but foreigners do and it had always worked for me, often better than I would ever have imagined. With this idea providing enough comfort to go with, I closed my phone, my eyes too, and resolved not to waste any more time or invite any aggravation over this. I kicked back in my low comfy chair and breathed. No sooner were my eyes closed, than without intending to I slipped into a delicious, deep meditation. I stayed there for the next half an hour. It was a very welcome chill, especially after the early departure, prior to which, due to a confluence of mad reasons I’d only managed one solitary hour’s kip.

One such reason was that at 11pm I found I was still unhappy with the state of my tent and my attempts to get rid of the mould that had gathered from almost 10 years of non-use. Hanging it out in the direct sun for the previous three days and giving it a good hosing it off a couple times hadn't really worked, so I suddenly decided, literally at the eleventh hour, that it was going in the washing machine. It was a good move, it did the trick splendidly. So there I was hanging it out to dry over my second floor balcony rail at midnight, then rolling it up and packing it at 3am.

In the middle of all this, buzzing with the whole prospect of the trip, I decided to take myself off for a run. I’ve been into running since my early 20s, at first as training for my football life, and that was how I realised what a splendidly liberating, consciousness-elevating activity it is. I've always loved running at night too and have almost exclusively done so. The last few months though I've not been all that regular, and these days when I do go for the first time in a while my aging legs tend to sharply remind me of the fact for the following few days. Had I known the amount of work they'd have to do over the next 24 hours and the amount of gip they'd give me for this little midnight jaunt, I’d likely have thought twice. But run I did, a brisk 6k in the balmy midnight air along the wild ocean, stars twinkling out over it, the warm Shonan summer night breeze caressing me as I went. And it was magnificent.

Hanging there now at the hotel, I also had one eye open for Mike, whose band The Waterboys were playing that night and who’d got me my guest pass. The chance of running into him was the other reason I’d ventured in there, and though there were many people buzzing around and in and out, many of them artists or artist-connected, he wasn’t one of them.

So now, feeling the molecules of my body having sufficiently regathered from across the universe and my vigour renewed, I remembered I had a festival to go to. I finished up my coffee and headed back outside, where the sun was still working on that veil of low cloud. After a bit of a walk, the first of many, I arrived at the main gates and passed through, for my first taste of Fuji Rock.

The first part of the day I spent wandering, taking it all in, the myriad sights and sounds. There were a lot of stages and I stopped by every one I passed. To be honest though I wasn’t much taken with anything I saw on any of them.

Jyunichi was right, it was a lot of walking, but that didn’t matter, at this point at least. The site itself was quite beautiful, creatively planned, with so many exquisite touches. There was so much to discover and explore, with always yet another inspired vista coming up to enjoy. Despite occasionally threatening to, even by early afternoon the sun still hadn’t broken through the cloud, so mercifully it remained nicely cool.

I was vaguely headed for Field of Heaven, the furthest flung arm of the sprawling site and where the Waterboys would be performing that evening. Also there, on stage right before them, would be Soul Flower Union, a band from Kobe with interesting Celtic/Irish connections. I’d seen them at the Kodo Drummers ‘Earth Celebration’ festival in 1996 on Sadogashima Island, not too far away from here, and I was looking forward to seeing them for the first time since. Irish music legend of legends Donal Lunny put together an all-star Irish supergroup of about eight or nine people especially for that event, which is what had lured me there from all the way Hiroshima, a 2-day drive. Donal had subsequently ended up marrying one of the SFU band members, Hideko, and had part-lived in Japan for a few years afterwards. Probably as a result of this entente, the band began using bouzoukis as a major part of their sound.

As I was about to leave the Field of Heaven around 2pm I ran into Jyunichi and Hiromi. They were heading for the DJ zone and I went along with them. A few friends were DJ-ing through the afternoon and for the first time that day I came upon a gathering of familiar faces. There were some truly great sets.

First up was a London-based DJ, Jim West (it’s the sounds Jim West rejects that.. nah, never mind), then our own Sir Peter Barakan, followed by Yutaka Kawanishi from K West music bar in Tokyo, and picking up the rear one of the ‘Founding Fathers’ of Fuji Rock and old Tokyo mate, Koichi Hanafusa. I spent the afternoon there and loved it. It wasn’t lost on me at all that here I was at what is ostensibly a live music event and the best time I’d had all day was listening to recorded music, and most of it recorded way back in the day.

It was during the afternoon that the leg muscle pain from the midnight run began to kick in. The large thigh muscle masses are always the worst and dspite regular stretching it failed to alleviate it. I knew the damage was done and I was stuck with it. It had been a daft idea and now I was hurting, but beers kept arriving so I didn't dwell on it too much.

A funny thing happened while we were there, something that people who witnessed 'part one' will especially appreciate. A couple years ago The Flowerpot Men, of which I was a third, played a Saturday afternoon gig at Jyunichi and Hiromi's cool vinyl music cafe bar in Chigasaki. We were seated for this one, and just as I was about to begin singing about my only song in the set, already in the count in fact, the wooden stool upon which I was seated, a large cushion perched on top to raise me up sufficiently, suddenly and spectacularly gave way with a loud, wood-splintering crash. The big cushion saved my ass, literally, as I suddenly found myself at floor level, my precious Martin D-41 guitar unscathed too, still with both my hands grasping it. Unfortunately though the stool wasn’t so lucky. It was in bits and well beyond saving. Even more unfortunately, it was bought while they were living in California. Jyunichi had worked a stint there in the 90s and it had come back with them.

Fast forward to now. That day they'd brought along a couple of lightweight portable folding camping chairs, small seat and pretty low down but definitely very handy. With Hiromi off exploring, Jyunichi and I were seated on them enjoying our beers and what the DJs were serving up, perched just behind their booth.

Well, it happened again. I leaned back a bit too far, partly stretching out my legs, and yikes, there was a crack and next second I'd tumbled over backwards to the ground. I'm not sure Jyunichi was too impressed, but he did say they were cheap, and freebies from somewhere. I got up quickly and headed straight to the beer tent on our behalf, so hopefully there was no lasting damage. Hiromi when she came back saw the funny side.

Around 5pm I decided, with some reluctance given the distance and my increasingly grumbling legs, that I'd better head back to the tent before the evening hit full swing to swap my shorts for jeans, on account of the voracious mosquitoes I was hearing tales of. That’s when I realised first, how bloody far it was back to the camping area, and second, how torrid the hike was up to the tent, both compounded mercilessly by my increasingly uncooperative legs.

For footwear for the weekend, I'd gone with crocs, well, croc-a-likes actually, a cool Japanese imitation.. cheaper, better grip and a lot more durable. However, many people were in full-on hiking boots, and whereas I'd likely have found them too heavy for most of the day, indeed downright unbearable if we had've got full sun, I was now making a mental note-to-self that on any further visits here the big boots should probably come along.

When I hit the campsite, the first thing that hit me was how many more tents there were now than in the morning. In the gathering dusk I began my tortuous tramp up the mountainside. At first I was more in search of my tent than actually headed for it, but fortunately the people vaguely next to me had what looked like a mediaeval-style thin streamer flying from the top of their fairly high tent pole. I’d seen it in the morning, when its happy flapping had first clued me in to the breeze up there, and, once spied now, it provided a welcome landmark to help me hone in on my own.

Despite the beers, the legs and the fact it had taken nearly an hour, I made it, and still in good spirits. After stealing a quick ten minutes meditation - I'd have loved more but knew I was in real danger of crashing - I quickly changed, and with waterproof and flashlight stashed in the backpack, I headed back out and down the slope, by now in almost full darkness. Another fair hike and an overpriced, small portioned but nevertheless seriously yummy plate of Indian curry later, I passed through the gates and made a beeline for the 'Field of Heaven'.

There were many more people on the site now. I quickly charged past and beyond the 'Green Stage' and the main part of the site, where the throng was thickest, and once out on the other side, I came upon a most enchanting vision. In the wooded areas, dark voids to either side of the paths, there had appeared zillions of beautiful small points of shimmering white light. It was a quite magical touch. I was in Rivendell suddenly, and the elven hosts were afoot!

Soon I hit on a short cut from the 'Gypsy Avalon' area that I'd somehow missed in the daytime, despite a big sign saying 'Field of Heaven' and an accompanying arrow. This took me away from what hubbub there was and down a quieter, narrower path less traveled. The 'elven lights' were present in abundance off in the trees to either side here too. There were also big trees lining this path, and their trunks too were tastefully and multi-colourfully light-adorned.

About halfway along, a little girl of about three who'd strayed ten yards or so ahead of her family was gazing off in wonder at the array of tiny, dancing lights. When I reached her she glanced up at me. As I caught her gaze, with barely a change of expression she pointed with her little hand into the trees. It was a sweet moment. I emerged into the back of the 'Field of Heaven' just in time to see Soul Flower Union take the stage.

Contrary to how I’d envisioned, the cloud cover of the day had actually progressively thickened. It hadn't given way to any real rain while it was light, but with night coming on that was changing. Soul Flower Union were certainly giving it some on stage and the sizable crowd that had assembled for them was digging it, but there were some pretty sharp showers during their set. I didn’t mind too much. I had the waterproof, but my natural Brit stoicism with regard to rain meant I didn’t actually put it on. I was the odd one out of course, my perennial default in Japan, with just about everyone around me frantically uncrumpling and slipping into theirs almost as soon as the downpours started. Despite being high in the mountains it was really pretty warm and I really didn’t want to be all wrapped in plastic. And after all, this was a rock festival, directly inspired by our very own Glasto no less, where mad rain is traditionally very much part of the deal.

Their set was great - a strong folk-rock sound with a fair tinge of Okinawa ‘minyo’ traditional folk in their vocals and use of 'sanshin', the snake-skinned Okinawan shamisen (3-stringed traditional Japanese instrument), and even a tabasco-style dash of Celtic faerie dust on one or two songs. It’s not often you see a Japanese rock band with one bouzouki, but these guys had TWO! I felt sorry for Hideko though. The very instant main man Takashi brought her out and introduced her as former-member-come-back-as-guest, the Field of Heaven heavens well and truly opened, enough even to bring even my waterproof swiftly out of the bag.

Next up the Waterboys!! Yeah!! 

I won’t critique their set here, except to say that they were stunningly magnificent.

Jyunichi and Hiromi appeared before they started but I didn't see them till it was over. Despite the now constant drizzle, a sufficiently large crowd had gathered that we couldn’t find each other easily and had to rely on text. However, I wanted to be fairly close to the stage while they stayed in front of the sound tent, where the overhang offered a modicum of shelter.

 

When we met at the end, Jyunichi‘s reaction was very telling. He admitted to me then that he’d never really got what all the fuss was about with the Waterboys before - Hiromi on the other hand is a big fan of more than 30 years - but that now he had. He was utterly blown away.
‘That was unbelievable!’, he said, ‘UNBELIEVABLE!’, and he kept repeating the word. High praise indeed from a veteran global music biz company exec who’s seen just about all there is to see in music. Hiromi told me a few days later "He thought they were just folk musicians!'.

As for me, I was high as a kite, and absolutely naturally too I should add. Contrary to the UK/western norm, drugs are not openly available or in obvious use at festivals in Japan, though of course they are present. In my case my high was solely down to what had just come off that stage. While interesting and certainly having their place in the cauldron of the human conundrum, those things haven't been part of my life for a lot of years now.

As for The Waterboys, they had not had the most ideal of preparations. Though Mike himself had been in Japan for a week or so already, the rest of the band had a nightmare trip over. They'd got stuck at Amsterdam airport for a couple of days en route, some issue with refuelling planes in the abnormal high-30s temperatures, and it had been touch and go whether they’d even make it in time for the gig. I’m not sure exactly what happened in the end but logistics had suggested they’d probably only made it to the site with a couple of hours to spare. You would never have guessed though from the energy, edge, power and precision of their performance. I wondered what they must be feeling like now, probably a mix of wild post-gig euphoric buzz and absolute exhaustion.

At Jyunichi's bidding I decided I'd try and get into the backstage area to say hi. Once more, with a wave of my guest pass I was through. There right in front of me was their shuttle bus, and just about to leave by the look of it. I strode forward and peered in at the door. There were a few what looked like guests still onboard and standing in the aisle so I stepped on too. 

First up I got a very lovely broad smile and humble namaste-style greeting from keyboardist Brother Paul, sitting in the front seat to my left.
Then, the very next second, I suddenly caught the gaze of Zeenie, backing vocalist and meltingly mesmerising African princess. Radiant and smiling, her short spiky blond hair her crown, she was sitting in the seat behind, I looked into her eyes and I was zapped. For a brief instant all else kinda disappeared, the molecules of my body seemed to turn fluid, then back to solid again. I really don't know if either of us said anything, maybe a 'hi'. There's something glorious about the vision of a beautiful young woman totally in her power, and she was the epitome of it.

Drummer Ralph Salmins was sitting next up on the other side and we shook hands warmly. He told me he'd seen me from the stage. I'd actually had a funny feeling he had. I found myself locking deeply into his grooves on occasion during the show and it almost felt to me like we'd locked eyes a few times, even though it was dark and I was in the midst of a fairly dense crowd at least 20 yards back from the stage, more like 25 from him. So I couldn't have really been sure, but now here he was confirming it. I had met him once before, at Zaragosa on the Fisherman's Blues Reunion tour in 2013.

With the couple of people standing in the way it was a little while before Mike saw me. When he did he yelled, and mirthfully came out with ‘Hey everybody, this is Paul. He’s not Japanese!!’.
I wish I’d been sharp enough to pull something out to come back with, but with all eyes on me nothing came. I can’t remember what I did say, but right about then I heard a stern English voice behind me, presumably that of road manager ‘Reliable' Robinson (of whom I’ve heard tell), announce that they had to get going. So saying my goodbyes, I turned to make my exit.

As I reached the door, I noticed fiddleman Steve Wickham had just stepped aboard. I’d never met Steve before and we shared a hearty handshake and brief conversation. As I was making my way out Mike had shouted ‘I’ll be in touch!’, so possibly Steve had heard that. I don’t remember what we it was we said, but what struck me most was his luxuriantly rich Irish accent. In a couple more seconds though I was back outside in the rain, waving them off as the bus ambled slowly away into the dark, damp night.

Still tingling, I went back outside to try and find Jyunichi and Hiromi but they were gone. Jyunichi told me later they thought I’d gone off on the band bus so they'd made their way. My head was still in the stars from the buzz of everything, but with my feet finding more and more puddles on the ground I didn’t tarry there long. With the still fine but now steady rain in my face, I made my way out, joining the hoards walking back in the direction of the main part of the site. Once more, the scene in the dark of the trees on either side of the narrow path was trippy, the myriad tiny, shimmering white Rivendell lights were everywhere.

The narrow path led to the next stage, where Tom Yorke of Radiohead's performance had just ended, and soon we hit a human log jam. We must have been stood there not moving a full five minutes when suddenly I became aware of some young folks, Japanese, slightly behind me and to my right, who seemed to have taken an interest in me. I could feel that the guy was gearing up to start a conversation.

‘Uh, where are you from?’ he asked smilingly. I turned sideways to look at them.
‘Do you mean in Japan, or in the world?’ I asked.
‘Ahh.. in Japan’, he decided.
‘I live in Chigasaki’ I said.

I’ve found that the mention of the town I live in regularly elicits a certain reaction and this time was no exception. The Shonan area south west of Tokyo, basically a bunch of surf towns along the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture of which Chigasaki is one, is imagined to be a very cool place to live by people in other parts of Japan. And they're right, it is.
‘Ah Sugooo~i!!’ (great!)

At this, a woman in front of me suddenly turned around and with a beautiful big beam of a smile said 

‘Oh really? I live in Chigasaki!’
‘Wow! How about that!!’ I said.
‘Which part?’

I hardly seem to venture outside of the area where I live, basically south of the station and close to the beach, so my Chigasaki geography is not the best. Oftentimes I give back a bit of a blank stare after receiving an answer to this question and in turn get an unspoken reaction like 'do you really live in Chigasaki?'. This time though I was on solid ground.
‘Nakakaigan’, she replied.
‘Oh really?! So do I!! Whereabouts?’
‘4-chome!’..
‘Hah, you’re kidding!! So do I!!’
There was a chorus of ‘Haaaahh!!’s from all around. It was quite a moment.

‘Do you know Wishbone?’ she asked - a great little izakaya (eat/drink place) with a local pub vibe and a real neighbourhood hub.
‘Sure’, I said. ‘It’s a minute up the street’.
‘I live just behind there!’ she said.

We just stood there, in incredulous laughter, the two girls and guy who had initiated the conversation too, for all this was not lost on them one bit. What an coincidence we'd all just witnessed. And there was more.

The guy asked her how she'd come to the festival and she said by car. He then asked me the same question. I told him I had too, but with friends who couldn’t take me back. She turned to me and in an almost apologetic tone said that she’d love to offer me a ride back but that she had to go back that night. I told her I did too. Her eyes lit up.
"I'll take you!!" she said. ‘If you want’.
I said that would be absolutely fantastic!!
She explained she had to get back for work next morning and as she would drive through the night she was concerned about staying alert all on her own. I said I’d be more than happy to ride shotgun and make sure she did.

Looked like I had my ride home then. I yelled a silent inner "YES!!'.

She later told me on the road home how she'd tried to rope a number of other people to come to the festival with her. One, it turned out, was my lovely neighbour and friend and SoCal native Sarah, who lives right opposite me.

Her plan was to go right to her car and sleep for a few hours, then leave about 3am. She asked if that was that okay with me, I replied it absolutely was. We had a big hug, which the other three joined in on, then took a photo of the five of us to forever capture that moment of wonder.

She told me her name was Momo. We exchanged contact info and off she skipped into the night, leaving me with a big beam of a smile now on my face, a heart all expanded and about five hours to kill.

With the rapidly advancing night, the main site had come alive in a different way. Lots of cool-looking late night hangout spots in small but elaborately decked out tents seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere, massage parlours too. I wasn’t much interested in any of these though, more in what might be happening on the stages, and though I stopped and checked out every one I passed, I couldn’t help but feel the same sense of disappointment as earlier in the day.

Around the area of the main 'Green Stage', where I now found myself, the procession had once more come to a standstill. Though the main thoroughfare, it had become virtually impassible due to a dense crowd having gathered there. They were focussed on the stage, about 100m to the right, from which was coming something horrendous, a bloody loud, sonically assaulting barrage of discordance. There was no groove, just noise, jarring and unrelenting, menacing low rumbles with sudden high screeching 'sound bombs', all accompanied by a brilliant-white crazy strobe and laser light show that would have surely done for any epileptics. People were just standing there meekly, bemusedly, non-plussed looks on their faces, as if bearing passive witness to some kind of bombardment. Jesus, what the fuck was this? Somehow I'd strayed from my Rivendell reverie into the belly of the Beast. And that beast was a Balrog, after a vindaloo. 

As one more volley from the stage seemed to screech over our heads, I realised I was stuck. There was no forward movement anymore along what was the path, and these morons were completely unaware (presumably anyway) that they even were blocking it. I found a few others also intent to escape from this Moria though, and together we gradually pushed forward and shoved our way through. It took a painstaking fifteen minutes but it was an immense feeling of relief to be finally out of range of their 'bombs'. When I reached the gate and saw the day's line up posted there, I realised that what I'd just ridden out was part of the offering from that night's headliners, The Chemical Brothers. Ho hum.

Having got through that, I decided I wanted out of earshot too so I kept going, out through the gates and out of the main site. Almost at once I spied the Taiwanese chicken stand I’d passed on my way back through in the early evening. I remembered just how juicy and tasty it had looked, the sumptuous smell, the copious amounts of black pepper they were garnishing it with, but the queue had been just a bit too long so I'd gone for the curry instead. I made it my first port of call now. It was an excellent choice, so was the big Heartland bottled beer to wash it down with.

Refreshments in hand, I retreated away into the shadows at the back of the stall and found myself a nice little spot, there was even a little chair and something or other for a table. While eating, I feasted my eyes on a very odd display going on nearby. It was basically a bunch of huge and strange heads, brightly coloured, elongated and possibly Easter Island-inspired, that were moving around up in the air on wires. Adding to the weirdness, emblazoned in large neon behind them as a backdrop (though nothing to do with them I'm sure) was 'CRYSTAL PALACE'. I’ve no clue what it was about but it was wonderfully bizarre and and perfect for that moment. I hung out there till it was over.

The chicken and the beer had grounded me and it felt good. I knew I was done with the festival site. With the rain getting ever more pissistent, I decided to head back to the solid shelter of the hotel cafeteria again and chill.. get a coffee, charge my phone, get my legs up, enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.
  

To be continued..