“Well, it's like a festival but smaller,” I explained when someone asked me where I was going that evening.
“So, it'll be like mini Glastonbury?”
“Er...” I hesitated. “Very very very mini baby Glastonbury.”
Oh, yes. Angouleme's music festival, the Nef Garden Party, had managed to amass quite a line-up. On Friday night, there was Mumm Ra, !!!, Lily Allen and the headliners, Muse. Saturday saw Klaxons and some others, and Arcade Fire headlining, but Sarah and I only went on Friday.
From this very mini festival, I've learnt a few things:
o Portaloos are the root of all evil
o Bring your own bog roll, or befriend someone smarter than you who did
o Don't drink too much or you'll need to pee and lose your good place in the crowd
o Beer is over priced. Merchandise is overpriced. In fact, everything is overpriced
o If you must get merry, best hit the wine bar, which is a fraction of the price of beer!
o Nearly everyone's friendly and willing to try to speak English with you. They can also be quite generous with the beer!
o Seeing people that you know can really wreck your fun for a while
o Also, moody short people in the crowd can dampen the mood by yelling at everyone moshing and shoving everyone who gets too close to them and/or stamps on their toes
o Dancing can be more fun than moshing violently
o Even the weirdest bands can turn out to be pleasantly surprising
o Hardcore fans that scream and yell “Mattioooouuuuu!” While Muse are creating some seriously sexy music are off-putting
o Never take a free bus if you're not sure where it goes; especially if it's 7km on the other side of town
Mumm Ra
After two overpriced beers each, a flip through the disk tent's vinyl's and the merchandise's overpriced band shirts, and taking a free condom (oh, very hopeful...), we made our way to stage A to get some good places. We saw the Sasquatch and Co., AKA his entourage of really annoying girls who seem to worship him. Probably because he has a car and he's older than them but still approachable. The really pretty blonde one was kind of pointing indiscreetly at us and saying something to the others, so I nervously smiled and waved. And scarpered.
It takes ages for them to get all of the instruments ready for the bands. From time to time, you could see a really cute guy in skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt wandering on and off.
I'm a convert: I like Mumm Ra. Their hot, charismatic front-man may have something to do with it, and so may their bassist with really big hair, but they're good! The singer broke his glasses (“this is the third pair of sunglasses I've broken this week. Damn.”), and insisted we clap our hands (“OK, I wanna hear plenty of hand clapping on the next one!” *cue the handclapping* “No, not yet! Don't get excited!”). He was really... really... really hot. I am such a girl.
Mumm Ra sounds a lot like Sun Ra, a dEUS song. Hmm...!
!!!
Nothing could have prepared me for the weirdness that was !!!. After changing all of the equipment, the first band member out was met by a chorus of voices, all saying the same thing: “What the fuck is he wearing?!?!” A man in shorts even shorter than mine emerged, but without the legs for it. Oh dear Lord he just looked wrong. Seven more band members followed, and I was already a bit dubious. Half way through their second song, it was time for a toilet break. I didn't want to hang around to listen to their freakiness and watch the damned shorts-man do his little gay dance all over the place. I mean... damn that dance was bad. I would demonstrate but I have some sense of shame. It involved a lot of strutting and arm movements. As we tried to get back to our good places near the front, we realised with dismay that there was no way we were getting them back. We settled for a spot just to the right of the centre with loads of people that seemed to be really getting into it. When you're with people who are dancing, you wanna join in. When you're with people who have their arms crossed and are as stiff as boards, you feel you can't dance. So, actually, it was better we ended up with them than the people we were with before, who were really cool but didn't like !!! much either.
Cue endless dancing, shameless shorts-man slut dancing (“He should have been a stripper!” Sarah yelled in my ear as he dance-skipped from one side of the stage to other to show the other side of the audience his fabulous little dance) and some hip movement, and my conversion. Yes, I like !!!, they're fun! The bassist looks like Jesus, the main singer dares scary clothes, and they manage to make something that should be really messy neat. So, yes. I like !!! despite hating them at first.
Albert Hammond Jr.
I can't say much about this guy. I know that he's a guitarist from The Strokes, and that he sports that very Strokes look and has some pretty weird hair. Bad weird. I didn't really pay much attention to his set, I'm sorry to say, but I think it was the case of all of us. I was knackered from dancing and being blown away by hot-Mumm Ra-person, and was saving the last of my energy for Muse. He was good and seemed like a nice enough guy (or so I thought until he said “let's blow you assholes out of the water!”, at which point I hardened a bit).
He was the replacement for Lily Allen, who fortunately couldn't be there. At least I didn't have to sit through some spoilt mockney brat singing about London town or whatever.
He was pretty good, and played acoustic during nightfall, and once it was dark he went back to his white Strat.
Muse
My back was starting to hurt, so I sat down. Every now and again there'd be some mad screaming from the totality of the audience in the response to someone coming on the test the lights, or the drums, or whatever. I suppose that's what you get if you unite a shit load of overexcited fans in one place. The cries of “Matiou!” Got annoying pretty fast.
It seemed to take an age for them to come on, but when they did they were met with some impressive screaming. Even I joined in on that one.
The crowd sucked. No mosh pit formed until I needed to pee and couldn't join, and I was stuck behind a small group of short-arsed pricks who didn't even jump, and I was tempted to tell them to fuck off – you don't get a place near the stage just to sulk because people around you are getting into the music.
My highlight was Plug-In Baby, for which the confetti-filled balloons were released. One got sent on the stage into Matthew. I thought he'd ignore it and continue playing as though it wasn't there, but the first time he ducked under it and played on the floor for a while, and the second time he headed it to Chris, who headed it back to Matt. At this time Matt was singing, but he stopped just to head it back into the crowd. I thought that was really neat.
They finished with Knights of Cydonia, which got me moving despite being scared of peeing myself. I instead headbanged, and anyone who's been trampolining without peeing first will understand why.
It was really neat. Next year, I'm so getting a two-day pass and bringing a tent and some buddies.
