Post Apocalyptica

You can bet your bottom dollar that when everything - and I mean literally everything - has gone to shit, I will somehow be caught up in the process. Usually without my knowledge or consent.

Keeping this in mind, it isn't difficult understand why, when parts of the UK were swept away by torrential rain and the avatar of Poseiden destroyed Bognor Regis in a terrifying maelstrom of foamy brine, I was currently camping at a music festival. As is obviously the case, I was there because of my inherent love for thrash metal and burning desire to spend five days surrounded by smelly peasants.

After six hours of near constant rain on Wednesday, the entire site had turned into a muddy quagmire lifted straight from Dante's vision of Hell. Initially, the consistency of said mud was fairly smooth, a little slippery but generally just deep, squishy and wet, and bore a passing resemblance to the sandy bit that passes as a beach for Blackpool. As seventy thousand feet pounded it day and night, the ground decided it had had enough of being trodden on by people who simply didn't appreciate it enough, and changed tactics to become a quivering, sucking, unpredictable mass of cookie dough that threatened to tear off your feet. It clung to your boots in the way that an emotionally needy partner could only dream of.

There was the odd drowning

The weather did eventually clear up, and the festival organizers put bales of straw down to try and absorb all the mud, with the end result being something like what happens when you go at a giant pile of horseshit with a chainsaw. After the heavens had given up trying to drown us all, I did enjoy Download. There were some sterling performances by the artists and a generally good atmosphere, but I doubt I'll be going again, and here are a few reasons why.

The entire thing was a test-run for World War Three.

The thing that is almost unique about Download at Castle Donnington is not mud. It is not overpriced burgers, teenagers, or toilets that have been found guilty of violating human rights. It is none of those things. What is unique about it is that it is the only festival I know of that is situated right next to an airport.

Imagine the scene. You are camping in a field for five days, surrounded by miles of perimeter fence and dozens of watchtowers. The ground turns into a lake of mud dignified by unmentionable floating things. Overhead, you are assailed by the constant scream of incoming planes flying so low they make the tents shake as they pass over. Couple it with a performance by The Prodigy and what you have is thousands of people wearing helmets and gasmasks, struggling through knee high mud whilst yelling and growling as the first wave of bombers descend from the skies.

It was ridiculous. I spent the first night eating beans out of a mess tin, shivering under a poncho as the rain cascaded down, surrounded by grim-faced, unshaven men in combat fatigues. By the time the actual music rolled around, the frontmen for various groups were trying to motivate the crowd by shouting orders at them. 'Get your hands in the air!" they screamed. "I want to see everyone jumping to this next one!".  "Make that fucking mosh pit bigger!" growled Dez Fafara of Devildriver. "Red Platoon is to advance west and clear out AT teams on the ridgeline."

No, really. It could have happened.

Metal is a parody of itself.

I don't really like the genre as much as a did when I was say, an angsty fifteen year old. I'm getting a bit more mellow.  The thing is, it's not that I don't like metal, otherwise it would have been a stupid way to burn a couple of hundred quid. It's just that I don't like metalheads. They make me ashamed to be human. Like fat, lager swilling England supporters, they just bring us down. As a species.

Black beanie hats were everywhere. In fact, just about everything was black. People were wearing vests. I cannot stress how important it is for grown men with hairy, putrid smelling armpits to not wear vests. Vests do not look good on anyone. Vests with band logos on them are particularly off limits.

And they have a whole musical elitism going on that borders on fascism. If it is not metal, it's shit. And everything needs to be brutal. With vacant eyes staring through tangled, matted bundles of jet black hair, they stumbled past me, growling, more animal than person. Occasionally, someone would just shout out the name of their favourite band, in complete defiance of whoever was actually on stage at the time. And as if anyone genuinely cared.

While I was queuing for overpriced noodles that were probably been boiled in cat piss, two guys blundered past having a completely nonsensical conversation. "LAMB OF GOD!" yelled the first ingrate. His protoplasm of a companion retorted by bellowing "SLAYER!" with a voice that could crack glass. They continued this debacle for about five minutes. Finally, one of them demanded "BOOZE" and they sauntered off, probably to neck ethanol, wrestle bison and take turns to smell each others fetid body odour.


People are deliberately evil and malicious.

This is not a problem limited exclusively to Download. It's a problem with festivals everywhere. It is the difficult subject of portaloos.

Welcome to Hell, maggots.

Queuing for the toilets, you get a creeping sense of dread. It's a collective fear that everyone shares. What is waiting for you inside the damp, plastic tomb that is a festival toilet? I've never seen people open a door so gingerly, as if they genuinely expected there to be a live bear on the other side, waiting to tear off their face. I half expected someone to stumble away, their face a mask of horror and scream "Oh dear god, bring up the flamethrowers!"

This is because, despite everyone approaching the toilets with the same apprehension, and complaining about how horrible festival toilets are, some people just seem actually dedicated to spreading misery. Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you visit a toilet and deliberately shit on the walls? Why do people do that? Everyone knows these toilets are bad. It is just you, you have gone out of your way to make everything as horrible as possible for everyone. This goes out to whoever took a dump on the flushing handle. I hope daemons chase you through your nightmares.