The thing with festivals is if you've been one of the many that have made the anticipated journey to this years chosen home of the music tribes camped out for the weekend and longer it's very much a subjective experience.
For some lives can be changed, new friends made never to be seen again and many new sounds heard and missed by the time the weekend has been rolled up (in more ways than one) for another year.
For those not in attendance amongst the great unwashed hordes it can all appear a completely different bag of tent pegs. Writers and critics now spend the following days making sense of it all.
And talking of tent pegs, announcements were given to make sure tents were properly pegged down at the Download Festival with high winds and rain in attendance. Yes it's June again in the UK.
When the musicians have to fight their way through the weather conditions it just makes it more of an effort. Hands are cold, instruments are stubborn objects that take time to warm up, singers shiver, audiences slightly muted. It's all just a bit of a struggle.
And looking at how the Download bands fared has to be put down to the weather. From what was a stellar metal lineup on Saturday the general consensus was they all struggled to get the sound to penetrate through the conditions to reach the entire audience. At the Main Stage front the open air mosh pit was fully exercised but past that the onslaught of metal began to fade even with amps at 11 the wind was the heavier element.
To illustrate that here's what virtualfestivals.com had to say about Iron Maiden..
"Maiden's return to 1988 with an old-school classics only affair split the crowd better than the yellow clad security ever could. Their headline set will forever be thought of by the the barrier huggers as a stand out moment of 2013, but sadly for anyone who wasn't within a stone's throw distance of Bruce Dickinson, it was a chilly evening of intermittent sound; "
See.. not easy for the band. You've got to have some sun.
So now travel about 170 miles south of Download at Donnington and there the Isle of Wight Festival sits in that very sun. Unlike last year which turned into a prehistoric swamp due to unprecedented levels of rain, this year the gods of mainstream rock decided the record breaking downpour would be before the festival.
Since the epic festivals of 1968, 69 and 70 seized the island up completely it was some 30 odd years before the good citizens of the isle dared venture into the festival business again, but now to move the old allotted August date for that of June and reduce attendance to a mear 50.000 as opposed to the small matter of dealing with half a million in 1970. Judging by the turnout over the weekend a substantial part of the 50.000 were in fact veterans of those early days or anyway from the same generation. Again a quote from virtual festivals.com
But the festival’s small site - just two big stages with a civilised curfew - makes it perfect for families and festival rookie teenagers, as well as older groups of revellers who are drawn in by classic headliners. It was noticeable how many teenagers were accompanying their parents, or vice versa, apparently out of choice. "
Good grief. No doubt barbecues and early nights then.
It should be noted here at The Garage we saw the telling signs of that by the amount of video blogging going on from Download as opposed to the Isle Of Wight. Which was next to nothing. So either the phone signals were failing on the Isle or Ma and Pa just weren't up for a selfy report on the weekends progress. Mind you there were a whole pack of media gurus all doing interviews with 'no one much' in preparation for gathering the weekends bigger broadcast due to air on UK television next weekend. Unlike last year when it was broadcast live (hear the cry of cutbacks?).
Back at Download no such media circus was evident but there was a whole load of metal nerds vlogging away showing the scale of the devastation or miserable long shots of the campsite while raining. It was noticeable the audience phone videos all had rubbish sound.. worse than usual that is, again probably due to the wind.
To prove that point here's an audience video of the young Jake Bugg playing 'Ballad of Mr Jones' at the Isle Of Wight. Somewhat of a throw back in himself. No theatrics, just delivers good songs with a good band. So nice dry weather, good sound, good music.. just how it should be.
End of this month Glastonbury! Stay tuned for more news of rain.
