Interview with a festival addict [Festival Fever]

Interview with a festival addict

Posted on June 15, 2007 11:57 AM
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Is there such a thing as festival addiction?
By Katie Spain

Festival season has well and truly hit and while the sun doesn’t seem to have followed with quite as much enthusiasm, the punters are out regardless. I even have mates volunteering to pick up litter in exchange for Glasto passes (right lads… I bet most of that rubbish will be sourced from the bar perimeters).

It got me thinking… what lengths would I go to for tickets to my favourite festival? Is the mud worth the new friendships? (yes!) and what is the ultimate festival story? Have people found love, long lost friends and the true meaning of life (hey, that’s what The Big Chill is all about right?). Or, have some people merely come out of their festival weekend with bug bites and nasty venereal diseases? Personally, I don’t there’s such a thing as a bad festival… but I’m sure my Nanna would disagree. In a bid to answer some of my burning questions, I cornered Julian Savitch-Lee – a true music fan with some heavy festival history. You name it, he’s been there…

After all, the music fans themselves know what makes a good festival and what rubs musical salt in the wounds. I chatted to Julian about his best festival experiences – UK and abroad and milk some advice from a true veteran. Saucy stories however, proved a tad difficult to extract…

Exactly how many festivals have you experienced?

I don’t know exactly but it’s definitely more than a hundred and not just limited to the UK. The thing with the UK is that there’s always something for you… no matter what type of thing you’re after. I actually used to work at a lot of the festivals....

Is that how you afforded it all - they can get pretty damn expensive!

I completely agree! It got to the point about six years ago where it was getting a bit too much and what I would do is make contact and send them my CV… saying “I want to volunteer - what can I do?”

Have you ‘done’ Glastonbury?

Yeah, Glastonbury is amazing – I love it. It’s just a great place to go, get lost and lose yourself, lose your friends, find some new ones and find old friends too. It’s just a lot of people having a great time together.

Have you had the mud-packed Glastonbury experience?

I’ve been really lucky. I went one year when there was a bit of rain but not so bad so we were alright. I have been rained in at other places and you really do have to be prepared for the worst – especially the British weather.

What’s your worst festival experience?

What I have found is that people when people are younger they tend to be a lot more riotous and as they get older they chill out a lot more. There are some real variances in the festival circuit; Reading and Leeds Festivals for example, will be full of kids. They’ll have rock bands, tension and angst and on the last night people will try to have a big riot. Then there’s festivals like End Of The Road where it’s much later in the year and there’s a lot of adults. It’s generally a lot more affluent and really chilled. You wouldn’t even see anybody wanting to have a fight or say a bad word to a fellow person.

Have you been to many free festivals in London?

The free summer festivals are one of the best things about living in London. A lot of companies have got on to it. Innocent Smoothies have a really good one (Innocent Village Fete), which can be thoroughly recommended. Last year they had Arrested Development headlining and some pretty good bands while you were waiting. Ben and Jerry’s do one on Clapham Common was five pounds (now £10) and then of course, there’s the anti-racism Rise festivals one the second weekend in July (15th). That’s really well attended and switches venues each year. I think it’s a South London park this year.

What’s the best performance you’ve seen by a band at a festival?

To be honest I couldn’t put my finger on just one but it’s always the ones you least expect. The Prodigy always give me a 10/10 experience, same with Basement Jaxx. But it’s best when you stumble across bands you didn’t know anything about… you’re usually half drunk or whatever and stumble in and think ‘Wow, they were amazing’.

The best one from the last festival I went to was a band called I’m from Barcelona at End Of The Road. There’s about thirty of them and they’re all from Sweden and they’ve got six dancers as well as one person who throws confetti in the air. They just have happy, sing-a-long tunes. They were on at 11.30 in the morning and it was great to just wake up and see the first thing that was on… it was them and they just kick-started the last day of the last festival of the year.

Are you a mosh pit battler or do you prefer to stay on the outside?

It comes with age – the younger you are, the more you’re up for being in that mosh pit. As you get older you head further back. I’m hanging around somewhere in the middle at the moment – probably a bit closer to the bar! There are certain bands I would go right up the front for though. When we went to Open’er Festival in Poland (which has a fantastic line-up again this year) we went to go see Basement Jaxx and The Streets up the front. Myself and six of my friends went up and waved our English flag at them, to which we got some lovely little looks from Mike Skinner and some of the dancers from Basement Jaxx as well.

Do you usually go with a group of people? Have you met people randomly who you’re now good mates with?

Definitely, I’ve kept up with quite a few people on MSN and MySpace or we exchange emails from time to time. It’s usually people we’ve camped near – the best example of that is Benicassim in Spain. Second to Glastonbury it’s the best festival in the world but completely different; you have music all night and go to the beach all day. It his forty degrees down there in the south of Spain – lots of British bands play there as well so there are quite a few Brits there. It’s a really good vibe… this will be my fifth year of going – I don’t like the line-up so much this year but I’ve made so many friends and met so many people out there that I kind of feel like I have to go – just to hang out with all those people again.

Kind of like a mass reunion then…

Yeah, well the first year we met a lot of Spaniards, Germans, French and a few other Brits. Then we all went back with ten other friends and made more friends with their mates and now I can’t walk around during the day, or where the bands are on at night without somebody going “Hey! How’re you doing?”. It’s really quite crazy. The same happens at Glastonbury.

Have you ever been to a festival by yourself?

Yeah I went to Frequency Festival in Austria by myself – to meet a girl I’d met at Benicassim a month earlier. It was the same week that all the flights were grounded in London. I decided to take a 24-hour bus ride each way and had an absolutely excellent time.

How did you manage that?

It was pretty bad actually. When I was in Austria I came back via Salzburg. I stayed there and had a crazy Saturday night – made some more friends and managed to have a good night’s sleep and a shower at a hostel so the 24-hour bus ride didn’t seem so long.

Have you ever had any romances while you’ve been away at festivals?

Yes but a gentleman never tells! But you can imagine - I’ve been to over a hundred festivals so… I would be gutted if I had to say no!

Any festival tips?

There’s a few…

1. Taking large amounts of cash is never a good idea – taking a cash card is.
2. Take wet wipes AND loo roll.
3. Always take after sun as well as sunscreen. So many people only think on one and not the other.
4. I don’t usually take a camera – just a phone charger and use that. I rely on other people to take the photos!
5. You really need to take somebody you really get on with and also take somebody you don’t know that well. It’s a really good way to get to know a friend of a friend better. Never be put off if the person you’re staying with invites someone else because you’ll get to know them a lot better and you’ll often find you’ve got more in common with them. I’ve had a lot of festivals where I’ve been a bit sheepish about somebody coming with me and by the end of the weekend discovered that I absolutely love them.
6. If you go somewhere far away, make sure that you stay somewhere really nice on the way home. Don’t try to rush back for work… give yourself a day or two to come back at leisure. It makes it seem a lot nicer.

The final word:

As far as British festivals are concerned, I’ve been to so many of them and there’s something for everybody. You really need to look at the line-up and have a little look at the festival websites and think about what sort of British people will be going there.
If you’re looking to dress up and have a bit of a fancy dress party, my favourite of last year (and ever) was Bestival. I can’t wait to be back on the Isle of Wight this September – hope to see you there!