Gatecrasher Festival - May 2008

On a cold April evening, I decided that after weeks of staring in awe at the Gatecrasher Summer Soundsystem line up, that it was time. Time to fork out my hard earned cash on a ticket to an Acid House festival.

As May 23rd drew closer, I literally couldn’t hold in the excitement, a little bit of wee even might have come out the night before the big day. In a fashion which mirrored the cheesy Disney World advert in which the little British kiddies exclaim ‘mummy, I can’t sleep, I’m too excited’, two of my friends quietly opened our bedroom door to crawl into our bed as they also couldn’t sleep.

My outfits had been planned for at least four weeks and my bag had been packed for two, I don’t think I’d been that excited since the day I got the long awaited Furby for my 10th birthday.

We arrived two hours after planned, and so the queue was about the size of eighteen full size blue whales and the wind made me feel like I was walking through the strongest part of a hurricane, but the thought of seeing Dizzee Rascal, Armand Van Helden and the Chemical Brothers was getting me through.

We reached the gate, and after a lovely man searched my bag and politely decanted my classy £2.68 Portuguese Rosé into a dirty bottle that had been trodden into the ground by many a turd-ridden shoe, we collected our free ‘Crasher tents’. Three hours later, our tent had collapsed under the sheer force of the wind, our Tesco Value and even the Tesco extra gazebo had blown into a neighbouring field and so we all huddled, smoked, drank, and prepared for the night in a surviving tent.

The arena was vast, with the wind blowing us from ‘Electro Stew’ to the ‘Dirty Disco Arena’, our first mission was Does it offend you, yeah?. Oh, my, God. What a start. With the electro beat of ‘we are Rockstars’ pulsing through my veins, I was ready for The Prodigy. Yes, The Prodigy. As ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Diesel power’ were mid blast, I think I may have actually said ‘I could die right now’ and be completely satisfied. I’d definitely already got my moneys worth, but remember when I said Arman Van Helden were one of the acts that were keeping me going?

I arrive at the tent, full of energy, ready for my 3-5am stint of dancing, and there has been an ‘incident’. The tent had to be closed. Rubbish. So, the drum and bass arena full of ‘Roni Size’ lovers, happy Larries and the occasional skeg head was where my night would end, and y’know what? It was ace. The ‘incident’ was only one bad fish in an ocean of goodness. Or so I thought.

I’ll skim over the fact that I tried sleeping in my collapsed 1.5 man tent during a torrential rainstorm and thus woke up in a puddle of mud, wine and water and move onto the ‘highlight’. Unfortunately it’s quite hard to detect sarcasm when reading an article so I will explain, in one paragraph. Hot Chip and The Chemical Brothers were cancelled, Dizzee Rascal was full and so they employed some lovely but large men to stop people entering, and the rain meant that every inch of my body felt like I’d constantly been on a slip and slide.

So, I was hoping that Dj Yoda was going to live up to his name – as he is my pre-lash soundtrack. And he did, we busted our moves to the ‘magic cinema show’ until our tootsies hurt.

Other than Yoda, I feel I should pay homage to Justice. When D.A.N.C.E blared out of the Cement arena speakers the whole tent when absolutely mental, with an in sync headbanging-Mexican-wave-type movement, and the rain unable to taunt us, this, (no sarcasm meant) was definitely my Sunday highlight.

Again, the drum and bass arena finished us off and we passed out to the sunrise, in a four man tent I managed to pike. We headed home and after a long and lingering shower and a Roast dinner, I look back at the weekend and ask myself; ‘Would I do it again?’ Not if it's going to rain.

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