Our Big Gay Outing At The Big Day Out
We assembled at my house that night, armed with bags filled with clothes we would never use and food we would never eat. Catherine had an apple. Juan had Lion Bars. Watters had Penguin Cakes. We booked taxis for 12:30 AM so we could get into Glasgow to get the coach that would carry us to Milton Keynes, for our Big Day Out. However, we got bored and decided to cancel the taxis and get a bus in.
We arrived in Glasgow far too early and hung about while lots of drunk people went : "Aww, arrooo...Hozza finna," or words to that effect. We managed to bump into Andrew Beattie, an old school chum who was clearly pissed and talking shit like Fitzy on a cold night.
Our eyes viewed all the coaches lined up. There were four or five possible coaches. One horrible, manky coach had been there since we arrived, but we didn't think it was ours. As the hours passed, it turned out it was ours. Everyone else had a first-class TV equipped, air-conditioned, jacuzzied coach whereas we had something that resembled a tractor. We complained to ourselves.
The bus journey was long and tedious. 8 hours or something. However, we realised all was doomed straight away when the bus driver didn't even know how to get out of Glasgow, and got Fitzy to read the map. Eventually, after much freaking out by me, we arrived in Milton Keynes, tired out of our asses, and later than expected.
We chuckled at the first band Mercyful Fate as we sat quite far back on the warm grass. And then by the time Queens Of The Stone Age had emerged on-stage, myself and Watters went into the crowd. Realising it was crap, we came back out after a song or two.
Juan and Watters went into see Creed, who were crap.
Then came Symposium, who're Christian RAWK arseholes...still, we were in the moshpit; but we got too tired due to lack of sleep and came out (of the closet).
Then there was Sepultura, who also sucked. Lots of speaking in strange voices.
And then, alas, it was Pitchshifter with one of the best performances I've seen for a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Lots of leaping around to songs far too fast to do it to.
Ministry were kinda ignored by us since we were trying to find Tina, Lorraine and Catherine who had opted to go shopping (and meeting Tairrie B) instead of coming into the crowd for Pitchshifter...
Monster Magnet were crap.
And who the hell WAS Ben Harper? He was crap too, and so were his innocent criminals. They can't be too innocent, they've committed crimes against humanity with music like that. Damn Metallica for putting them on the bill.
Terrorvision didn't even play "Tequila". Which I didn't care about, because I don't like them.
Placebo's set was boring and uninteresting. I found myself counting the minutes on my watch. By the end, things seemed to be getting better, but then they decided to play the instrumental Evil Dildo, and bored the bodger out of me.
Then came Marilyn Manson, who, to begin with were equally as boring as Placebo, but as big Mazza became his Antichrist Superstar self once again, it got cooler. The sound was really bad, so we moved right up the front and saw him jumping into the crowd to beat some guy up and then smash all the equipment. There was no "The Beautiful People", but there was a kiss from Rose McGowan, a fight, smashing of equipment, and Kirk Hammett's nephew on-stage in place of Twiggy at the end, which, frankly, was well better.
Only Watters wanted to see Metallica, so the rest of us wandered around. Me and Fitzy got hamburgers smothered in onions and BSE, and no-one could understand our Scottish accents. We sat on the hill while Metallica played away, with songs like "Fuel" , "The Memory Remains" and "That One That Says Vagabonds" all being churned out like Es on a Friday night in the centre of Glasgow. The only reason we know these songs is because they were played about 400 times on the bus.
Anyway, after Metallica we boarded the bus and drove home, and I slept most of the way due to the fact I was sleepy and had my eyes shut.