So here we go. I'd been looking forward to this festival for months and months and was determined to enjoy myself little realising just how self destructive my desire for fun would end up being. So, despite recent bad events, I was still determined to rock! I think things started off quite normally on the Friday with a shuttle bus journey to the festival site (via Stafford) but already I was getting pretty hyper! I quickly came up with classic song On A Bus sung to the tune of On A Rope by Rocket From The Crypt which provided me (but no-one else) with a little giggle. Me, Nick and Sam arrived and, despite rain, the tent was set up without incident. Then came the problem of passing a long festival day when there were no bands playing. But a moment of genius struck! One of us invented an awesome game where someone says a word and the next guy has to say another word... And on it goes and incredible sentences are built up: the word donkey being a firm favourite! A game for the ages I'd say. About the only other memorable incident of the day was when we were held hostage in our tent for what seemed like ages by a nasty wasp that refused to leave the outer lining. Ahem! If my recollection is correct (seriously, I think it is!), we took very little alcohol of our own and drank it all on the Friday. It was vodka mixed with some utterly horrible experimental drink that surely has been taken off the market but, because the thought of throwing away vodka was just unbearable, down it went anyway!

So it was slightly drunk and with the sun down that we ventured to the JJB Arena to enjoy the DJ who was playing for everyone who could squeeze into the tent. And now things start to leave the realms of normality... After a few Carlings (only drink available) and sitting around, we eventually chose our moment and joined the little bit of moshing going on. At first I really wasn't up for it and didn't feel like moshing at all. But something changed! The DJ (who obviously knew their stuff) kept playing good record after good record after good record so I just had to keep on jumping and jumping and jumping. The beer that had gone down was the first to go, and some younger kids were clearly very impressed by our moshing and joined in, spurring us on to show them how it's done. And something went. I don't think it was a sudden pain but I must had been moshing for an unbelievable length of time and with such energy (extremely high jumps you see) that the pressure on my ankles built up until it reached agony. I tried to resist moshing but I believe Teen Spirit was the one that persuaded me to screw the pain and keep going. Thankfully the music finished just before my legs snapped off and, with my ability to walk still just about intact, we got back to the tent. The rest of the night basically consisted of fairly random chit-chat which was surprisingly engaging and kept us (obviously not Nick who fell asleep hours before) awake for an astonishingly long time.

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And now the festival proper began with Saturday. I think this was the point where I managed to get through a full 24 hours without eating a single thing and I only visited the toilet once in that period, so immediately my energy reserves were low. I also had decided that this was the shit day and was eagerly looking forward to an evening of intense drinking so the day itself was of little interest (or so I thought). But I was still up for making the most of the line-up and decided that squeezing as much pleasure as possible out of the day might make it go faster and bring on the drinking time!

So now the "music" kicked off. I think we were waiting around by the main stage and the first act on were some group called Toploader who I think I'd heard the name of. They appeared onstage and proceeded to play extremely smug-sounding and just downright dull guitar music. There were just so many things wrong. The hair. The way his head moved. His voice. The total and utter lack of interesting things they were doing. But it still wasn't offending me too badly so we stuck it out for a little bit just putting up with the mediocrity. And then something horrible happened. Quite simply the cheesiest, most downright unpleasant intro I'd ever heard in my life came about. I realised immediately that I'd heard it a few times before and must say I hadn't thought much either way about it. But something was awful. It was so slow and drawn out it seemed almost like time slowed down and all I could think of doing was getting away from that horrible smug voice and appalling song. We immediately started walking away and just kept walking and walking and walking until finally the horror was over as we left earshot. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on had happened and the terror of that song and the arrogance with which it was delivered almost made me physically sick.

To this day, all I can think about whenever this affront to music and its distressing introduction comes on is leaving the room. And I do almost without exception before I actually end up being sick. And that's how I developed my biggest hatred of absolutely anything in the world and it's been building since that dark moment. Perhaps it was because there I'd wanted to enjoy everything the festival could throw at me yet here came a song so bad it immediately ruined the moment and its awfulness never quite left my mind despite all that happened afterwards. If you haven't guessed by now, I am referring to Dancing In The Moonlight, obviously!

Well it seemed after the horror of Toploader that the second stage and not The Samaritans was the chosen stop and we just listened to an unsigned band called Birdhouse who'd won the right to be there. The fact I haven't found a photo of them suggests they never made it. They were OK but certainly nothing to write home about. And this is where the sitting down started. Fortunately, I was the only one with the foresight to have taken any sun cream so felt confident I'd be the one who wouldn't get burnt to a crisp. How wrong I was!! As I was happily sitting out in the sun soaking up the rays I never realised that the cream was one of those you needed to reapply every five seconds. Indeed, by the end of my day I had been out in the sun far too long and I damn well knew it!

Best band of the day so far by a long, long way were The 57th Dynasty, who were unsigned like Birdhouse. They were a very interesting rap collective who knew how to entertain people. They threw an inflatable chair into the "crowd" (there were still very few people there), which Sam was lucky enough to get. A surreal moment also occurred when a band member appeared a few songs in from the crowd, climbing over the moshpit barrier and clambering onstage (forsaking the traditional backstage entrance!). Pretty good stuff! The sun really was burning now...

The crowds really started to come in when The 57th Dynasty finished and things were set up for Coldplay. We still comfortably strolled to the front though. After the buggers had went and pulled out of their very early Wolverhampton gig I had tickets for they really had started to become quite massive since Yellow had hit the charts. We were glad to catch them before their popularity started to reach offensive proportions! The stage was characterised solely by a globe. The band themselves were fairly charming and went down quite well with everyone. Yellow was a highlight of the day and I think Shiver wasn't bad either. It was basically a fairly perfect chilled-out mid afternoon slot and it seems tragic that they've now grown beyond their worth.

The crowd thinned and Sam skanked us to go and see Kelis (who played Teen Spirit apparently). We decided to stick around though since we had a front position and The Dandy Warhols were next up and we wanted to be at the front for Feeder (yeah - it really was that sparse a line-up!). As for the Dandy's, their cowboy outfits were interesting but they seemed to be having quite serious problems with the deepness of their bass. The tunes just drifted by and I have a sneaking suspicion that they didn't play Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth, which would be quite unforgivable. Still, not bad enough to interfere with the good vibrations still present despite the total lack of exciting things going on!

So, for lack of better acts to see, the second stage continued to be the venue as Sam rejoined the fold and Feeder took to the stage. Their set was OK but really wasn't anything that spectacular. They may have played Buck Rogers, which was a new song then, so the horror of its lyrics weren't known to me. Key moment was when they quite fairly pointed out that they were the hardest rock act at the festival. Slightly sad I thought, although perhaps not a bad thing when you consider the tedious nature of the then rising nu-metal scene! However, they did rock enough to try and make me mosh, which was halted immediately by my legs collapsing beneath me! Fortunately I had the barrier to break my fall but I was now starting to worry about the severity of those leg injuries (no doubt made many times worse by the countless times I aggravated them over the weekend by walking non-stop, standing up all the time and trying to mosh no matter how much pain I was in). My legs don't give me trouble as often now but I still can't quite believe how many months it took before I could walk more than fifteen minutes without pain!

Well the "action" had finally dried up to the point where there was no point even sticking around so it was back to our tents until the evening. We passed James who were playing the main stage. They might have been performing one of their hits, but I can't recall. In retrospect we should have watched them. When we got back to the tent we had a little shock as one of the pegs had come loose and it looked like the tent had been slashed! After a little inspection though we saw it hadn't although it was an unpleasant scare. Then I think an uneventful period followed before we returned to the action at nightfall. So far crippling injuries and Toploader were the defining (and quite horrible) moments but I was still very much up for it and getting more enthusiastic all the time!!

Sam had gone off again (to reserve his place by the front for Moby the fairly clever git) leaving me and Nick to wander off to catch the last ten seconds of Paul Weller. We really had absolutely no desire to see him, just to be able to add him to the list of "legends" I've seen. No opinion was formed in those ten seconds.

The plan had been formulated. At this point I had absolutely no idea how good Moby was but had been persuaded to see him anyway. However, we edged our way forwards for Richard Ashcroft in the hope that he'd quickly play The Drugs Don't Work and Bittersweet Symphony so we could then go off and see Moby without having missed anything. By this point I was already getting pretty tired but energy levels were still high and my anticipation for drinking time really kept me going! Dickie came on to some unknown song and then launched into the glorious highlight of the day - The Drugs Don't Work, which damn well worked on this night better than I ever imagined. It was almost like living in a movie for a few precious minutes as everything was perfect and the slight drizzle lent a melancholic air to the song that just made it even better. It was an awesome moment that justified all the effort in trying to see him and perhaps turned the Saturday into a worthy musical experience beyond what I'd hoped for after hours of mediocrity. We hung around for a bit after this but it became clear he wasn't going to play the other song before the end so we rushed off to catch the whole of Moby.

I'm not sure what it was. Perhaps the rather bland way his photograph was taken. But I really needed to be dragged to Moby and had very little idea of what to expect. We never got that near the front because the crowd was so gigantic but we still made it in time for him to grace the stage. And then he kicked things off, everybody started dancing and it was just INCREDIBLE and I couldn't believe it! I certainly wasn't the only one as everyone around me was also dancing around like insane moomins whilst shouting their approval and surprise at just how damn fine it was. He played Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? which I had no idea was by him. He also delivered a rocking James Bond Theme and I think I recognised Porcelain as well. It was so loud and the lighting so awesome and I just couldn't believe it! Things were drawn to a close after an hour of continuous dancing with what was introduced as "the fastest song ever." Yeah right was my reaction but I was shocked to see he wasn't kidding as things reached a crescendo of astonishing volume and speed. I guess I stand corrected! Go!

So the musical day drew to an end with a performance hailed by Moby himself as something truly special. It was hardly jam-packed with awesomeness (and Toploader will haunt me forever) but, by the end, I was very happy with it all. We found Sam again then it was back off to the tent for some hardcore drinking!

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Already Nick was being his usual sleepy self by refusing to join us which just left me and Sam to wander around the site in the hope of finding exciting things, whatever they were! I had a beer or two (first drink of the day) and we went into the cinema tent but I wanted to leave when it became clear I couldn't concentrate on the film (The Sixth Sense) and wanted to find something interesting enough happening to meet my excitement levels! We wandered around a bit more before deciding to return to the tent for Nick. On the way back we met old school mate Ben who allowed me a big glug out of his vodka cup. We then got back to the tent where Sam threw a wobbly and refused to go out again claiming there was nothing to do - of course there isn't with that attitude!! After pleading but eventually realising I wasn't going to get anyone out again and that there was no alcohol in the tent, I wandered off in the hope of finding some refreshments to meet my needs. Substantial wandering around (translation - I got lost) eventually let me to a lorry selling beers but there was just CONFUSION! I wasn't wearing my glasses (since I didn't in those days) so couldn't see a thing. I could see a counter dispensing beer and some totally bizarre sign on the walls saying something about getting beer tokens. What the fuck?! Quite distressed with the confusion I tried to talk to a steward to ask what the hell was going on and where you got those tokens. But the fact I looked so desperate to drink, plus no doubt the fact I'd been limping around in such a way meant he deduced I was either on drugs or was far too pissed to be served so he mumbled something about me not being able to get beer from there so I just had to give up and return to my tent in a very agitated state.

I tried to explain to my mates about this ridiculous token thing and how it had confused me and upset me so much but nobody believed me and just assumed I'd made up the whole incident! Here I was, totally and utterly up for it, but unable to buy alcohol and with mates who only wanted to nap after PROMISING a big night of drinking! I was also getting pretty unwell now and put it down to the vodka I'd got from my schoolmate, swearing that it had been spiked or something since it was the only way to explain the effect it was having. But I did go to bed then after what at the time I deemed a total failure of a night. Apparently I was mumbling to myself for hours about beer and tokens, which enormously pissed everyone else off, but I had absolutely no recollection of doing this and perhaps it was my justified revenge for their total lameness! Call it bad communication but if Nick or Sam had TOLD ME that an early Saturday night would pave the way for a big Sunday I might had understood and things would had ended somewhat differently! So here I was on Saturday night, extremely tired, with horrific sunburn (borderline sunstroke), two non-functioning legs, a violently upset stomach, in dire need of the lavvy, generally feeling bad due to greasy hair and lack of showers and having not eaten a morsel for a possible 24 hours. Maybe I should had gone home (ha!), since all the signs were pointing to something bad but, hell, I was up for it and taking it all in through some kind of massive sensory overload (perhaps explaining why I recall so many details for this account written well over two years on!). But the lightweight day was over and Sunday was where the dangerous excess really started and this story mutates into what I'd consider to be unsurpassed insanity!!

SONG OF THE DAY: Richard Ashcroft - The Drugs Don't Work