(One Of) My Favourite Festival Moments
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Reflecting on festival moments is hard when you haven’t watched live music, or even socialised with people, for over a year. However, I have so many incredibly joyful memories from several festivals I’ve been to over the years. I could write about how ethereal Florence and the Machine’s performance was when they stepped in to headline Glastonbury after Foo Fighters pulled out, I could talk about how my friends and I bumped into Rob Beckett at Reading festival and the photographic evidence is horrific or I could tell you about how loud I screamed when I watched Mura Masa perform at Benicassim festival.
Festivals aren’t always just about the music. Your make-shift campsite, the people you camp with, the people you meet and the things you share are all part of the experience too. However, watching live music and discovering new bands are definitely what makes a festival memorable.
I first went to Dot2Dot festival in 2018 when Pale Waves headlined at O2 Academy in Bristol; it is a one day music festival that is spread across three cities, Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester, in all different venues. It was a hot and sunny, May day when I got tickets to go and I spent the most of the day either sat at Queens Square with my friends in between acts or walking from venue to venue to watch some incredible musicians.
My friends and I had made some notes about who we wanted to see and what time they were on, some of us splitting up and promising to re-group later. Within a day, I had watched bands at The Louisiana, the Island, Nova, the Lanes, Thekla, Rough Trade and then the O2 – I watched No Hot Ashes perform at the Island, a venue I had never been to before, and they were incredible.
Obviously we can’t spend so much time walking without drinking and when we were sat at Queens Square, I had unwillingly ‘broken the seal’ and was desperate for the toilet. So, my sister and I lightly jogged (read: ran) to Thekla, the closest places open that had toilets (I could write a whole separate article about the lack of public toilets in Bristol!), to use their loo.
It was when we were in Thekla that we stumbled upon a band I have since fallen in love with. Easy Life were playing when we ran into Thekla and they were captivating. I love music that you can sing and dance to and artists who don’t take themselves too seriously, like No Hot Ashes and Will Heard, and Easy Life were exactly that; the band played the trumpet, the saxophone along with a keyboard, drums, guitar and percussions. Their music is upbeat and undefinable, their sound heavily influenced by indie, jazz, hip-hop and R&B. I had never heard of them before but since that day I have heard them on the radio, on the TV, on nights out and people’s playlists despite only have released three mixtapes since they formed in 2017.
That’s probably one of the best things about festivals, you never know who you’re going to stumble across and it would most likely be someone you’ve never even heard of or thought you’d like. Since watching the rest of Easy Life’s set that day in Thekla, I have followed the band and their rise; their debut album was released this month and I’ve had it on repeat.
I have so many happy memories from large festivals to local gigs, I’ve made new friends, gotten closer to old friends and discovered some amazing new bands.
I’m devastated that Glastonbury has been cancelled for the second year in a row but Dot2Dot offers a silver lining when it returns in September! I can’t wait to get back to watching live music with some of my closest friends.
Written by Issy Packer
Hi, I’m Issy, the Music and Film Editor at The Everyday! I’m an English Literature graduate and have been passionate about all things to do with writing and journalism from a young age. I am interested in a number of things, including politics, feminism and music and am a firm believer that Bristol is ONE of the best cities in England for anything to do with culture, art and music. You can find me either at the cinema watching all sorts of films or trying to work my way through the long list of books I’m desperate to read.