Y Not? (amazing pun title)
I highly recommend you play this video whilst reading the post. It will set the mood. Also, I have to get my kicks somehow.
The ‘Y Not Festival’. I went there, and straight from the title, you get a feel at what kind of festival this is. I mean, It’s called the ‘Y Not’ festival. It has a ‘Y’ instead of ‘why’ which I think farmers must think is ‘ghetto’ or something. And without the punctuation the friendly question becomes some scary bullying tactics made by a guy with a field. Never heard of it? Neither had I, but, here was my friend telling me it would be a good excuse to meet up and do various ‘fun’ activities like standing in the rain, and living under a piece of canvas like some kind of canvas troll, spooning beans and tuna (not advised) into our faces. I mean, I went to Leeds Festival in (checks wristband) 2009, and it was pretty damn good. Mostly because the atmosphere is all tingly and there is amazing music (the year of Radiohead!), and because everyone is in a stupid/happy alcohol infused zombie state. So why not just go there? Well the ‘Y Not’ festival is £140 cheaper then Leeds Festival. Now I suck at math and even I know thats pretty good value for money, considering you get a full three days festivalling (a real word) and camping thrown in, and apparently a free shuttle bus. But it looks nothing like a shuttle, so we got a taxi instead. Also, as I’m sure the marketing people behind the festival realised…why not? I mean, it’s £50! So very naively I packed my belongings and hauled my ass over there.
So, now a little about the festival. It’s called the ‘Y Not’ festival, and is somewhere very near to Matlock in the Peak District. It has a few biggish indy bands playing, although to be honest I thought the line up was below luke warm, with the main acts being the Futureheads and the Subways. Still, there are a few tents with various festival based fun within. In fact one of the highlights of the weekend was trying to hit my friend in the face with a juggling ball, which I’m sure the festival doesn’t condone, but doesn’t care about either. It was around this time that weirdly I found out my friend had been practicing dodging shots to the face. Either that or I suck at throwing, and there is no way I’ll admit that online. Luckily, he lost his phone whilst dodging super light speed precision ball shots, which made me a lot happier and gave me a sense of worth. The food at the festival is anything you can deep fry, although there was a great vegetarian stand that injected some much needed health into my weekend.
And what a weekend it turned out to be. Why? Because of the atmosphere, music and drunken people? Well I guess it had those three, but not in the formally implied way. It was the primitive British side of me that loves it when things go wrong that was roused into having fun by things just, well going wrong.
Firstly our good friend informed us that he forgot that the festival wasn’t in Matlock city centre, so we had to get a taxi over there. Because I ain’t getting on a shuttle bus that doesn’t look like a shuttle. We met a girl who was alone and trying to find her way, so we got in the same taxi as her…man I just realised how dodgy this sounds written down. Well she was going to the festival and we shared a ride. End of. Kinda. The taxi driver got stupid lost, nearly took us to a beer festival, and my friends girlfriend was wasted on ‘POWER SHITE’ or whatever they’re calling energy drinks these days. But the taxi was really helpful, and dropped us off at the right spot, helped us with our bags and didn’t charge us for the time he got lost. Lol, not really. He charged us waiting time for HIS mistake. I don’t understand how he got so lost anyway, the venue was clearly marked with an A4 sign that had ‘Y Not’ written on it in biro.
We arrived in the rain, so the first thing we did was find a patch of grass that wasn’t covered in rubbish/excrement. Then we left the cow field and went to the festival. good friends girl freind stood around helpfully and energetically commanding us to put up the tents so she could drink her body wight in Lambruno, which is two letters cheaper then Lambrini.
The next couple of hours was a surreal mixture of cheap wine, a camera, and ‘Take On Me’ by ‘A-Ha’. Sounds like a mixture for disco themed soft porn, but it’s worse then that.
So we ran around in the rain for two hours, had a hazy go on the bumper cars, saw fleeting moments of OK!GO, and found the place where the cool stoner kids hang out, even thought it’s a massive turtle shaped tent. One thing I liked about the evening was the bar. The furniture was straw bales. That sounds incredibly boring and lame, but have you ever sat on straw? It’s so warm! And way comfier then you think. Also, how many bars have you been into where it’s ok to wreck the furniture? Not many I should think.
Commence Sleeping Period.
Oh hi world, it’s…..5am!? wtf?! how and why did we wake up at 5am?! I normally have trouble seeing the mythical hours before noon, and here I am voluntarily waking up at the crack of dawn. Nice sunrise though. Like something out of Star Wars. Or any film with a sun rise come to think of it. By the time noon actually arrived we were all stupid tired, and running on only a sachet of tuna and lime and some blacks bits. Not sure if they’re edible or included in the sachet. Also it looks like cat food. But at least the sun is shining…oh bye sun.
We decided that because we got up at ridiculous O’clock that we’d walk to the nearest shop.Which was ‘only a couple of miles’ but felt like a triathlon. But milk is a cure for anything. Well that was the goal anyway. On the way we met a guy known only as ‘Ant with the field’. His name was Anthony and he owned the field the festival was hosted on. He must have seen our desperate plea in the way we walked, because he scooped us up and drove us to the shop/garage and brought us back. Then my friend ran at a cow like he wanted to hug the damned thing, and look really confused when it shit itself and ran to the nearest bull. Btw, bulls are scary man. They look like cows on steroids. They look like the only two functions that go through their heads are ‘what can I head butt next?’ and ‘what can I hump next?’. I know a person like that.
Day two is fancy dress day! Luckily, and not at all a marketing strategy, there are fancy dress stalls on site! I decide upon browsing that I am way too cheap to buy a costume, and my friend agrees. Then we see matching capes which we immediately buy, and decide we are some obscure but very worthwhile crime fighting duo. Although judging by our conversations, should a crime actually appear, we would probably just a pose a lot and argue about who has the best cape/super name. My friends’ girlfriend wore some flowers on her head and called it a day. To be honest though, any excuse for her to wear flowers is met with enthusiasm.
That evening was a crazy evening of complete debauchery. Not really we fell asleep, woke up, ate a burger, went back too…oh man we had a pretty lame evening! Refreshing though. And filling. Better then the last time I went camping with ‘good friend’ and the only nutrition we managed to get in us was Guinness and Doritos. I am sponsored by neither. But they are both delicious and have great pension schemes.
Anyway, the Peak District is a great place to host it the festival, the festival itself was really friendly and the people were pretty chatty and easy going. No self involved wannabes. The festival is still in it’s infancy, apparently four years old this year. But I can see this one growing in the future. It’s almost like a beginners guide to festivals. You get all the festival fun, without the soul crushing fatigue and thousand of drunk people to contend with. Ok, so there are thousands of people there, but 5000 isn’t a lot compared to the 100,000 of this years Glastonbury. Also it’s £50.
I got some pretty cool pics too, which are on this page.
So to sum it up,
Pros
It’s a festival
It’s £50
Beer
‘Take On Me’
Bumper Cars
Cons
Lineup
Rain
Deep fried menu
Sunburn (it rained for two days!?)
Sandals
NB, Man I just remembered our first encounter with a Matlock resident. We’ll call her Betty. Betty works at a nameless super market called Sainsburys on check out. Someone in the queue asked her why we were wearing camping gear and buying alcohol. Because apparently it’s dangerous to ask a hiker what the fuck he’s doing in case he goes for the jugular with rabid teeth. She informs…Sandra…that we are going to a festival, and then proceeds to, well caution us that we shouldn’t forget to take some lubrication! Seriously! She just very quickly decided that we were promiscuous hippies or something. It took me completely off guard, it wouldn’t have been so bad if she was reminding us to take ‘protection’. But what really got me on the way out was that lubrication was on this woman’s mind the moment she saw us… I blame the sandals.
