There is a new danger at Britain’s festivals. Serious party heads, intent on having fun are being assaulted with the wrong kind of audio – the sound of whining and complaining. Without question we are undergoing a rise in a shocking trend, the emergence of the festival fascist.
The Times they are A-Changin’
Once upon a time festivalling was the enclave of the bohemian rebel. To even say you went to one of these green field events in certain circles was akin to saying you bathed in LSD by the light of the new moon, whilst slaughtering a virgin lamb on the rocks at Stonehenge. Now with the scene becoming more sanitised and open to the masses, a more consumerist visitor has been wooed to the UK’s numerous festivals. Many of them are taking a break from their nine to five jobs, £2.50 lattes and box set driven weekends to experience a delve into their truer selves. The trouble is that a mass capitalist agenda has given these people a taste for complaint culture – when they take a swipe at poor service in a restaurant, provisions are made to take the coffees and desserts off the bill. It is therefore quite difficult for this agenda to be left at the gates when they enter a festival.
Alongside the arrival of a more consumerist class, with the festival explosion of the last ten years, we’re all a little spoilt for choice. Back when there were just three big events in the UK, people were happy to sit in dog shit and rub shoulders with cider drinking crusties, because hell, you’d arrived and could finally have fun outside of society’s boundaries. Now, with the calendar stuffed with all kinds of musical spectaculars and four day extravaganzas, everyone’s become a little over indulged and many people feel no shame in letting loose when they aren’t getting the exact experience to which they feel they’re entitled. These people and now appearing all over our party landscape and are wasting no time expressing their displeasure at all the details that aren’t quite how they imagined.
We’ve put together our very own list of festival moaning Minnies, to help you hopefully identify and avoid these bring down, too-close-to-reality types who simply can’t just let it go. So without further ado, here is our list of festival fascists:
Mobile Phone Worriers
Rasheed can’t get a signal on his iPhone 6. He is certainly getting his message across to the bemused security guard however, who is hearing all about his desire to upload some pictures to Facebook and to call Diane and let her know he arrived OK. Ahmed, his best friend, feels like he has an emotional involvement in this situation now after being dragged to the charging tent and doesn’t quite have the heart to pull Rasheed away from the increasingly agitated, crew cut, six footer in the high-vis. In a small bubble of difference, floating away from an increasingly technologically dependent branded world, where everyone else is switching on, Rasheed has not even managed to switch off yet.
Too Cool for School Crew
Martin, Dale and Andrew have managed to master the effortless look that takes all too much effort to engineer. Girls are looking at them in awe of their haircare techniques. This godlike performance in personal beauty standards, coupled with a slight vintage dress theme and full sleeve tattoos obviously comes with a free pinnacle on which they can stand to judge everyone else in the party. Anyone who comes within their radar who looks like they might be having fun receives a complementary sneer and an ice cold prick in their bubble of fun.
Dance Floor Police
Maureen and Alice are having trouble making themselves heard over the noise of the speakers, but they are making a great go of it. Don’t all these dancers know that some people have turned up to enjoy the music and not throw their arms around wildly, charging into one another in what they are fast understanding is known as a mosh pit in festival parlance? Whilst everyone else is happy to compete with each other for that precious space in front of the band, Maureen and Alice seem to be content going toe to toe with a Funktion One to see who can grind out the biggest whine.
Leeds 2013 via ITV.com
Queue Thumpers
“This simply isn’t good enough” remarks Dominic as he stands in line with a thoroughly cheesed off Lydia halfway down a queue. “The organisers should have known that I was going to sleep in late with a hangover and made enough provisions for the six aerial helicopter rides of the site” he continues. In his titanic strop he manages to sink the upbeat Lydia’s mood along with her idea to run back to the car and grab some beers for the duration. And as for her attempt to spark up a conversation with some fellow revellers… What does she think this is, some kind of social gathering?
Performance Analysts
These guys and girls put the anal in analytics. Tyrone and Naomi are running a big black raincloud over everyone else in their group’s final evening, because New Order played a slightly different interpretation of the classic hit True Faith. It is fast becoming apparent to their friends the entire event has been a shambolic disappointment due to a dropped chord from Johnny Marr and Chase and Status appearing fifteen minutes late. And whilst most members of the clan didn’t hear these performance faults at the time, they sure are hearing about them right now.
Michael and Emily Eavis via Western Daily Express
Nostalgia Victims
Bruce feels let down. No, Bruce feels completely deflated. He can remember when this all started off as a barbeque and a few tents in someone’s back garden and now it’s become popular, the whole vibe has been lost. Despite the three thousand happy faces tripping the light fantastic around him, Bruce is overcome with a sense of loss and how things simply aren’t like they used to be and is as a result is inconsolable. Never mind the bigger headliners, the improved facilities, the lights and sound shows and the tents, what happened to all the free party favours and eating Peter’s mum’s chicken satay in the kitchen?
Very Irrelevant People
A famous psychologist once said “when you compare, you despair”, but we wish these people would simply disappear. Grace cannot resist telling you how much better the Sim Salabim festival was, where she and Ronan acquired VIP tickets and spent the event elevated on a flurry of rose petals, drank free vodka and red bull in the back stage bar and even met Phil Jupitus. At first this does not sound like moaning, but listen carefully and you will discover that it is actually an artful, neoliberal and ever so fucking hip way of putting down your entire weekend.
Acidic Bloggers
Kes and Kieron aren’t really at the festival. They’re actually right back in their heads, observing all the different kinds of moaners they can spot for some Festival Mag article. They like to call it people watching, whilst everyone else thinks it’s veering a little on the judgemental side. The irony of the whole situation is that in putting a label on everyone else’s whinnying and hot-air-ballooning they’ve turned into the biggest pair of gut-busters going. Well done lads, why don’t you put down the laptops and go and have some fun?
The Last Word
In conclusion a fair percentage of the festival audience needs to lighten up and remember what the festival scene is all about. This is not a five star hotel and there is no one around to give you service – most of the security are all about your safety, not about whether or not the facilities come up to your expectations. A fair comparison for the price would be a sketchy week away at some kind of holiday camp where the only entertainment is getting away from the kids for a couple of hours in a self-catering chalet.
Ultimately, and as a final thought, if you’ve been guilty of being a spoilt, entitled, brattish festival fascist yourself in the past then remember this – it’s your party. Your are a living, breathing cell in the giant entity that is the mass festival collective and you can change the whole dynamic with your attitude and actions. A dance floor only needs that one person to go into the middle and start dancing like they’ve been hoodwinked into performing in the set up slot on Britain’s Got Talent for the whole place to explode into a riotous expression of stupid moves. Become the atmosphere you want to experience, make the vibe your own and be at one with the masses – as no matter who is on the set list and what the weather is like – this is your key to unlocking the true festival experience.
