The Road to Hove Festival [Festival Fever]

The Road to Hove Festival

Posted on June 24, 2008 6:31 PM
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Hove Festival 2008
Norway

On-site review by Katie Spain

It’s day one of the Hove Festival and already we’ve had an epic journey. Not only did we leave it until the last week to find accommodation (soft, yes… but there’s Glastonbury induced dysentery due at the end of the week and I want to ease into it gradually). We’ve managed to score ourselves a Norwegian apartment five minutes from the Festival. I’d like to put it down to luck but the secret is having Norwegian mates doing the hard work for you. We owe them a beer if we don’t drink it all at Hove.

Tip one if you’re heading to an international festival:
1) Make a holiday of it and fly over a day or two early. You’ll settle in, visit friends if you have them and get a good night’s sleep and a decent feed in before you hit the muddy musical turf. If the lifeless bodies on the coach around me are anything to go by, these people have been playing Ryanair tango since 4am.

We have however, come a little unprepared; we didn’t bring wellies and the footwear we’ve seen here in Norge cots about £30 a pair. The hideous coloured jobbies we saw in Camden on Monday may have been covered with dodgy looking marijuana plants, but at least they were cheap. We live and learn. Wet feet are a certainty.

We’ve filled up on traditional Norwegian porridge, had a tour of the local police station, held big guns, had our mug shot taken, eaten at a Scandinavian riverside restaurant and watches Spain beat Italy… the best is yet to come. I’ve even been educated on the drug sniffing capabilities of the average police dog – did you know some can even detect cancer? It’s enough to bring you average drug dealer (or hypochondriac) out in a sweat.

Can I just stop to tell you how gob-smackingly amazing the landscape is here? Us tourists flock to the bus windows, cameras snapping each time we pass rolling hills and the amazing fjords down below. In true stereotypical Scandinavian fashion, ABBA is on the radio and hey, wouldn’t you kow it – Amy Winehouse is in the local paper. Almost everyone gets off the bus for a fag break and the guy in front of us has just told us we’ll hate the expensive beer but love the Hove Fest atmosphere. Hey, when the flights cost 1p and the view is this good, pricey beer is to us like a mosquito bite is to an elephant.

Today, Santogold, The Cool Kids, Jay-Z, Les Savy Fav, Black Kids, Animal Collective, The Teenagers abd Crystal Castles are amongst the artists billed. Me, I’m on the hunt for a strapping Viking for my sister and a little troll of my own.