In the end of summer, Bestival

Early in the morning, said bye to Raf's family and head back to Finn's. Packed up my stuff and pushed them into a van. It was really hard just to close the door of the van because the van was completely full with other stuff. Stayed in Finn's for the night and we headed out to Bristol next day. Ben and lucy has joined us in Bristol, we had some fish and chips for the dinner and hit the road with 3 vans, Raf, Ollie, Finn, Lucy, Ben, Joel and Jo, to the location “Isle of Wight” the island in south England in the evening.

It was about 4 hours to get to the ferry port, took an hour of break at there, took another hour of ferry ride to the island and got lost on the way to Tesco wondering around for couple of hours, it was after 4 in the morning that we arrived in the car park of the festival. We had about 4 hours of sleep in the van and I woke up in back pain and shake of van.

The hurricane, the Ireen has come down to UK. The rush of the rain and the violent wind attacked our camp site furiously and we prohibited to go inside of the Bestival site. The radio told us the horrific news of hurricane, the cloudy dark sky gave us bad mood and the days of living in van made our back in terrible pain, we were absolutely not in the condition for the festival. Apple and chips wouldn't filled up our tummy so that we went to town for more sandwiches and coffee. In the end, we couldn't get in all day long. We stayed in the vans for one more day.

Next morning, we had a clear sky after the hurricane then we rushed into building up the Cafe Tango to get back our one day delay of work. When we get out of our van, it was the moment the I feel so much happy about stretching out my back and legs that completely frozen from sitting in a suits for two days.

When every one was working on building the cafe, I was playing guitar an gave them some tunes to cheer them up. The kitchen was done by the evening and I made pasta for everyone. Jo, Jon and I slept on the floor of the kitchen for the night and we started to work early next day.

The first day, Cafe Tango has started business nicely. We did have a Cafe Tango juice bar this time right next to each other. So our crew was around 20 people that I could change shift and had break as I want thus I enjoyed the festival well in Bestival. It was over 60,000 people participated in this event and I couldn't see the edge to the edge in the camp site. Too many stages, cafe and work shops, but the main thing of the festival was the artists in Bestival. It was just awesome.

First night, I went to see “Santigold”. It was a really huge stage so I only could see from the distance. But, she was impressive. Thousands of audiences were looking up the stage fanatically, the powerful sound of Santigold was shined in color in the big blue marquee and the bass was reverberating all around the stage. I was in the middle of the insanity, lost my friends and ripped off my memory, and the night was passed away.

The second day, actually we have been there for four days, I woke up in hunger and made my instant noodle for break fast. I was surprised how busy the break fast was. We set up Cafe Tango right in front of the camp site so that there were many people for breakfast and coffee. Anyway, this was the busiest breakfast in Cafe Tango. I manage to make my space and squeezed in my pot of noodle on the stove and threw into my damaged stomach.

Compare to breakfast, the sells of pizza was much less and quiet so that I could take some break in the afternoon and I went out to take shower. I haven't take shower for almost a week so that moment of the refreshment was like in heaven. Even though the shower room was 30 minutes walk away and it was cold water.

I had a couple of hours of break so I put out card board and blanket on the glass, had some nap under the lovely weather with Marla and we had nice chat about how happy I am to be there and all.

In the evening, “Danny Byrd” was playing so I asked my shift to my friend and I took away to the concert. This time of the day was bit busy so I had to go the concert by myself. It was completely opposite side of the site so it took me about hour of walk to get to the stage. I made it on time and Danny Byrd has started in a small marquee.

With the rhythmical sound of drum and bass, all the audiences have gone mad and the moshing has began. I run into the crowd as the insanity sound, push and scream, gone berserk. Covered in sweat, somebody stepped on my foot, some elbows hit my face, but get involved into this riotous crowd with joy. I wonder who did started, the violence would be justified by the music. But also nobody come here to fight. There wasn't a single hater but everyone's got satisfied in smiles.

When the bass sound fading out, everyone kept some distance, made a circle and take a look around. Suddenly, the sound would come back in rhythm, then all of us went back in to the mad moshing. Moving my conscious and body as I feel like and jumping into the sound of bass hard. Was I stupid to other's? Pushed so hard that got me out of the space, stepped so bad that ripped my shoes in pieces. Got really tired and the sweaty heat steamed me like chinese food. I squeezed out from this stifling stage and came out to the refreshing breeze after moshing till I died. I felt so content. But my shoes was torn like cloth. I walked back to Cafe Tango on bear foot but my agitation would not stop that I showed my shoes to everyone and talked about great moshing and played more drum and bass tune at the Cafe Tango. I changed the shift so I had to work till close but I worked like I was still in the concert. The constant pure ecstasy filled up my conscious, I was dancing and jumping till 4 in the morning in Tango.

Next day has also started like the day before, hangover, instant noodle and busy work. But this time we had lot crew and the day has gone smoothly.

“Diplo” was playing for the night and we all got together and seen his act. Diplo was also great and I had friends so that we all got high together. I lost the one another colorful night, only the anacatesthesia has staying in my memory. I got lost once and wondering in the thousands crowd. When Jo found me in the wonderland, I was impressed of the chance of encounter in the crowd. We all back to Raf's tent, drunk till we don't remember.

The finale is always.

I could get out of the work by 9pm, we went to see the long waiting “Bjork”. It took me a while to convince everyone to go but we made it on time. We have seen her from distance but I was laying down on the mysterious sound of Bjork and my mind was dancing in the air. After that, Sarah has a friend “Ben Haward” who's performing in Bestival so we all went down to his little stage.

A guy plays acoustic guitar and sing, and a woman plays cello. It was surely an art. The melody was flowing through my exhausted mind beautifully and cured my messed up conscious. All the audiences were sitting down on the ground, some were looking up Ben Haward like goddess and some were closing their eyes and seeing something invisible. The line of the note was written in the air slowly in front of the stage, it was like that I found the calm ocean in a dark forest.

It is interesting to describe about music. It's like to express something that I don't understand, it is also luck of the clearness although it can be a way of a communication without a word even if it's incoherent. It is simply complacency expression if other's complain, but I can not write for the other's sympathy. When I write the impression of music sincerely and accurately, the beautiful scenery will appear in my mind. This is the reason I started to like writing.

Anyway, after the concert of Ben Haward, we did some wrestling on the ground for pump up. We were all tuned down by beautiful melody. This was the last night, we had to go for parties. It was fun fight. When I got Ben in crossed arm, everyone's yelled for me. It was cool. And then, we all head to a marquee and got dance together. We all back to Raf''s tent and played with balloons till we passed out.

Monday, I always be surprised but the when I got out from the tent, the camp site was completely different world from last days. Most of the people has gone back to home, there weren't much people around us but rubbish. I had an illusion for a while that I came to a different planet or its the world end. The tents lost the weight of the bags and people inside, the remaining power of the hurricane blowing though the entire field and no one would care to stop things flying anymore. Then, the tents were rolling around involving more and more tents and shit. Most of the trees were dressed in colorful tents, mysteriously beautiful. And the shelter-belt tree was like a bank filled up by the non stoppable flow of the rubbish.

We kept packing up in the dark night and we head back to Bristol around 10 o'clock.

It is really straight and long highway in the night time, and the reflecting lights on the side of the road continue forever in the darkness. That brought us the drowsiness and the mental fatigue inevitably in the car which running high speed on the plain highway. The unchanging view of the front gave me the suspicion whether if it's going forward or not. I could feel a magical power in the car engine which runs without effort of mine, made me believe that I was on a flying carpet heading towards to a magical land. I listened carefully to my breath in between dream and reality and I saw the illusion of the traveling through the time in the flowing light. The well designed buildings from the world expo appeared all around me. Raf was driving the van and Ollie was sitting next me but they come out in front of the front window, wearing clown clothe and jumping around the highway. The brightest light came into the darkest sky, then I feel that I can go further than here. But there was weird feeling from my instinct that I should not cross the line. A circus started with cheerful music. There was a paradise reflecting on the front window much clearer than I could say its imagination.

In a moment, I woke up. Raf was also exhausted that he parked the van and having a rest. After that, we all got to Bristol at 6am. Safe journey and the comfort of bed, I still appreciate that feeling.

I took a rest for three days like a hibernating bear.