At 4am I woke up on Sunday morning to get to the airport and fly to Manchester to meet Cal, Luke and Evan at Creamfields. Everything is going pretty smoothly until I get out of the cab at the wrong campsite ("Nah mate, this is where you wanna be for sure. 10 quid, please."). It takes about an hour for me and Cal to realise I'm at the wrong place, and the only way to get to the Southside Campsite is to walk something like 5 or 6 miles. I walk alot at home so the distance dosen't bother me but there is very little signage, and all the people they have doing security are muppets. At least 2 of them sent me back in the other direction when I asked for the 'Southside Campsite', sending me back to the other entrance where they wont let me in. I snag my arm on a barb wire fence somewhere (only got my favourite T shirt, not my skin), I lose a leather wrist band, my shoes fill with mud etc. etc. Anyway, it takes about 4 hours to get to the guys, and only because Cal drives out of the campsite to pick me up.
From here on in the day is great. I get very few photos of Creamfields, but the pictures in my memory are very vivid (at least, the ones from eariler in the day). We walk in to catch Deadmau5, and meet up with Meg Robinson (in the front left corner). Deadmau5 is great, but there's so much on it's hard to stay in one place. From there we move to a stage that's built on a London 2 decker bus to catch Matrix & Futurebound (a couple of my favourite Drum and Bass producers). From there the memory gets a little fuzzier, but I think the day went.. Eddie Halliwell (awesome), Cut Copy, John Digweed, Soulwax (awesome), Paul Oakenfold (the best set of the day, in my books), Underworld (awesome), Tiesto (awesome), Kasabian.
The way the festival is organized reminds me of Future Music Fest at Doomben earlier this year- Cal repeatedly says that Creamfields was better then the last Global Gathering (the biggest dance festival in the world?). I just wish I had been there for the Saturday also, where I could have seen Pendulum, Fatboy Slim, Paul van Dyk, Subfocus, High Contrast, Noisia, Judge Jules, Ian Brown, Sasha, James Zabiela and The Presets. Doh. Next year maybe ;)
The drive back to London is fairly painless, though long (3+ hours). Luke and Evan crash after we unpack the car while Cal and I head out to the Notting Hill Carnival. Apparently 750,000 people attend over the Saturday/Sunday/Monday, though it feels like everybody is there on the day we chose. I've never seen so many people in my life... The best stages seem to be those set up on the back of large trucks, that drive slowly through the streets with people dancing infront and behind. We only stay for a couple of hours, eat a couple of dry chicken satays, and head back to the house in Clapham where we crash out.
Today is Tuesday and Luke and Cal are heading out to work. Evan and I have the day off, but no plans have formulated as yet. I think it could be a good idea to stay in the Clap and do as little as possible...
I only have a few more days in London and I leave on Saturday night. Before then I need to get happy snappy with the camera again and do some sight seeing.
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