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Your First Festival?

Mersea Island off the Essex coast.

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It's connected to the mainland by a causeway that gets submerged when the tide's high. This happened on the Monday and loads of people got stranded.

was that '85? I've tried in the past to identify which Womad was where and when and the web has very little detail. Great festival, anyway, I recall Nusrat and crew in a tent for many hours.

Then the next few years were at Carleon Bay, I think.
 
Reading '93. I was 15. It was beyond brilliant:

1993

Main
Alice Donut - Babes in Toyland - Bad Brains - Breeders, The - Butthole Surfers - Dinosaur Jnr - Eat - Fishbone - Gallon Drunk - Gary Clail's On-U Sound System - Gigolo Aunts - Goats, The - Grant Lee Buffalo - Jesus Lizard - Kingmaker - Lemonheads, The - Madder Rose - Ned's Atomic Dustbin - New Order - Ozric Tentacles - Porno for Pyros - Primus - Rage against the Machine - Senseless Things, The - Siouxsie and the Banshees - Stone Temple Pilots - The The - Therapy? - Tool
Mean Fiddler
22 Pisterpirko - American Music Club - Automatic - Belltower, The - Big Truth Band - Blue Aeroplanes, The - Burn - Candyskins, The - Captain Sensible - Catherine Wheel - Cropdusters, The - Daffodils - Dr Phibes and the House of Wax - Dylans, The - Edwyn Collins - Equations - Fatima Mansions - Five Thirty - Guy Clarke & Townes - Hollow Men, The - Into Paradise - Katell Keineg - Late Road Lunatics - Loves Young - Milltown Brothers - New Fast - Nightmare - Pooh Sticks, The - Popinjays, The - Power Of Dreams - Railroad Earth - Rain - Ratcat - Real People, The - Revolver - Rockingbirds, The - Southernaires, The - Sweetmouth - Thin White Rope - Thousand Yard Stare - Toasted Heretic - Van Zandt - Welfare Heroine - Well Loaded

NME / Melody Maker
Adorable - Back To The Planet - Bettie Serveert - Big Star - Bivouac - Blur - Boo Radleys, The - Cherrys, The - Chumbawamba - Credit To The Nation - Die Cheerleader - Doughboys - Drop Nineteens - Family Cat, The - Fenn - Flaming Lips - FMB - Frank & Walters - Green Apple Quickstep - I Mother Earth - Juliana Hatfield Trio - Leatherface - Magnapop - Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Oilseed Rape - Pastles, The - Paul Westerburg - Posies, The - Radiohead - Senser - Shampoo - Swervedriver - Truman's Water - Voodoo Queens

Subterania
DJ Charlie Hall - DJ Kevin Saunderson - DJ Mike Pickering - Grid, The - Inner City - Joy, The - M-People - One Dove - Sub Sub
 
Reading 1992. Was also my first gig. Only went for the day (got free tickets from a mate who had a mate who was connected to Nirvana).

Saw Melvins, L7, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, Pavement, Nick Cave and, of course, Nirvana.

:)

Same here, except I'd been to gigs before and I didn't get free tix:(

I asked my mum for money for the ticket though, and said it was for a reading festival e.g. of books. She totally fell for it, until she saw the state I came home in! :D I think the ticket was less than £50 though!
 
Glastonbury 1986. I took a sleeping bag and a spare t-shirt. Slept in the cinema tent and a mate's van. The Cure on the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night was the highlight. Lightening and snogging some random girl from Glasgow come to mind. Didn't have a shit for the whole 3 days. :eek:

that's the only glasto i ever went to, the cure were great! I didn't shit for 4 days:cool: stopped off at a service station on the way back to swansea :eek:
 
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This was mine.
Good times :) Apart from Stone Roses (my favourite band up from first album til then) breaking my heart by being shit. And being too near the front to be able to get out and go see Underworld instead lol
 
Good times :) Apart from Stone Roses (my favourite band up from first album til then) breaking my heart by being shit. And being too near the front to be able to get out and go see Underworld instead lol

Made that mistake at Ally Pally, no crowd barriers so everyone crushed into half the venue closest the stage. Did get to the back in the end though 10 square feet of dancing room for Fool's Gold:)
 
1990 Glastonbury for me - first day was a bit of a shock as i was a raver and surprised to see so many hippy types and families. But soon got in to it ;-)
 
Thank you, Moose, that was quite a trip down memory lane, if you get me... Must go there again sometime... First fest? Reading 88 - ta for the flyer! went back one year, post 2000 and it was horrible, saw guys with far right tatts on them, did not feel comfortable. Best fest? Exodus, had the privilege of being there in 2000 and 01, blinding.
 
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I just went for the Saturday, what an awful lineup! I was allowed for the day at Leeds by my parents who took me and my mate down and we stayed in a hotel!! I think I'd thrown a major strop at not being allowed to T In The Park and this was a 'compromise' (and also their anniversary, hence the hotel ;) )

Red Hot Chilli Peppers stayed in the same hotel but I was unimpressed and mostly excited about seeing the Pharcyde who I loved, and still do!
Also saw Roni Size & Les Rhythm Digitales. Must have seen some bands too but I wasn't into guitars at that age...
 
A few future stars lurking in the small print as well. Coldplay opening the Evening Session stage - I remember seeing them, thinking they were like a Christian rock band. Blink 182 on the Warped stage - missed them. And Muse on the new bands stage - saw them, they were fantastic.
 
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It was a bit crap really, to be honest. I've never really been a festival fan. The Lambeth Country Show is much better.
 
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It was a bit crap really, to be honest. I've never really been a festival fan. The Lambeth Country Show is much better.
I went to that!

The Stones came on so incredibly late that we'd drunk ourselves into a hopeless stupor by the time they reached the stage and I'd already managed to sleep through just about all of Lynyrd Skynrd's set earlier.
 
I was asleep, curled up in a sleeping bag in the pitch dark by the time the Stones came on. Plus my bag got stolen within about 5 minutes of my arriving.
 
Best fest? Exodus, had the privilege of being there in 2000 and 01, blinding.

Exodus fests were class :cool:

But are you sure these weren't 1999 and 2000? I was there in 2000, the only Exodus I made it to, but I feel fairly convinced that 2000 was the last one ...

Was the second one you remember being at, located at Junction 13 of the M1? ;)
 
First festival - Glastonbury 1990. Went on my own as the friends who I bought tickets with were not allowed to go in the end (bloomin parents!!)..
Got there, pitched tent and the nice ladies in the next tent looked after me all weekend... :D

I was hooked on festivals from that point forward and have only recently fallen out of love with Glastonbury..
 
Bob Dylan at Blackbushe Airport, 1978. They sold 125 000 tickets and - in an echo of the then quite recent Isle of Wight festival - twice as many turned up. It was an "old school" one-dayer, in that there was only one stage with a quarter of a million faces looking at it. The stage seemed miles away, but when I saw an aerial photo later on the news, I realised we were quite "close".

Apart from Dylan, the acts were Eric Clapton, Joan Armatrading, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Merger.
 
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