1. BYOG*
(*Bring Your Own Guitar)
One of the great things about music festivals- dare I say it, the greatest in fact- is that there is (shock horror!) lots and lots of music. Funny that. This however never stops some bold soul from bringing his own guitar on the off chance his friends tire of hearing world-class musicians, and require his tuneless reprieve instead. Always bewilderingly close to my tent, said BYOG-er has an inexplicable tendency to arise at 9 am to indulge the whole field in their Oasis covers, while their gazebo’s fake French doors can only flap mercilessly in horror. A warning- if you sir make such a decision to sit in your ill-fitting Olly Mur’s-esque fedora and un-ironic puka necklace, and strum that opening Em7 of Wonderwall any time before 11am, I can safely inform you that today is going to be the day that I brutally smite you with tent pegs.
2. Participate in cultural appropriation in the name of fashion
I’m afraid that sleeping in your glamping tee-pee for one night does not give you the right to whip out a Native-American style headdress. Likewise, many would find it insensitive and inappropriate for you to adorn yourself with a bindi you bought from Claire’s, just because you think it really sets off your septum ring. Please stop, and remember the old rule- just because Urban Outfitters sells it, doesn’t mean it’s okay.
3. Push to the front three minutes before a set starts on the premise you’re on the phone to your friend who is most definitely [not] at the front
I may have stood in the rain for forty minutes, and have seriously considered the sweet relief of urinating in a paper Bulmer’s cup, but I am certainly not an idiot. If, three minutes before a band whom I’ve been waiting half a decade to see starts, you decide to push everyone out of your path with the voiced intention of finding your friend ‘Steve’, who I’m pretty sure is not standing smack bang in the centre at the front, then I am going to be slightly annoyed. What’s more, if you nonchalantly abolish said mission directly in front of me, meaning that my view becomes solely your bucket hat, I am going to be well and truly peeved.
4. Wear a massive rucksack in a mosh
Boom, boom, boom- that’s not the base reverberating through me, but your enormous day-sack of God-knows-what. Recent fashion trends for fringed and studded rucksacks have regrettably resulted in people appearing in moshes who look like Top Shop made over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I never thought that I’d enjoy being whipped by a 100-pronged whip, but I can now definitely conclude that it is not my thing. I came out from one set this year with a bleeding head wound due to one particular River-Island-made missile. Not cool.
5. Film all of a set on a selfie stick
In today’s society, cramped spaces and long metal poles no longer just exist in the vicinity of strip clubs. As with strip clubs though, there is never any need, or flattering way, to take a picture as proof of your presence; you’ll have many an anecdote you don’t want to explain to your mother to verify that. I don’t want to be melodramatic, but selfie sticks are the literal invention of the devil. They are the only proof I need that evil exists in this world, and that when a zombie apocalypse does come, we have no chance in our selfie-stick-filled hell of surviving. They are on a level with people carrying around iPads as cameras. At a festival, the BBC is likely to be filming every minute, on multiple cameras, in a better position, and at a better angle than you. You do not need to hit someone in the head with an extendable golf club multiple times, only to manage to film a racially inappropriate headdress, or worse, me in rain-soaked anorak, with eyeliner (or is it mud?) running down my face, chastising the bucket-hat clad 6-ft spruce who has decided to stand in front of me.
