Glastonbury Festival 2007 - Dan
Shaw - Continued...
... Sally told us shortly afterward
that jack was known for always having the strongest
of everything, but that became self evident later on.
James, in a not unusual show of recklessness, bound
off into the darkness to keep an appointment with a
girl he’d arranged to meet over the other side
of the festival. In truth I began to forget about it.
I was fucked any which way. When we met again, Sally,
Mark and I were lounging under the large white flags
adjacent to the cider bar, James ambling along out of
the abyss to spot us. It was about an hour later, and
the curious effects were beginning to turn royally prevalent.
Things were definitely a lot funnier than they had been
90 minutes ago. We were apparently bound for the stone
circle, but James’ brain and my brain soon began
reflecting on our inability to think and move as normal
people. Spastic children, senile pensioners and instinctive,
fight or flight beasts all felt like next of kin to
our aimless, hysterical, sorry forms. Shades of childhood
came flooding back, along with ear enraptured stereo
sound that Electric Ladyland captured so raggedly. Snippets
of conversation passed crystal clear into comprehension,
and then back out through a bizarre industrial mincer
as another wave of delinquent insanity sweeps the mind
like a windscreen wiper. Again and again. It was nonsense.
Sheer madness. But like good little boys we followed
the trail of pilgrims up the hill, every step resembling
an epic part of the journey.
I found that I’d been holding
a box of white wine for an unknown period of time, and
had a stab at opening the tap. Without clarity in my
senses, I watched as the wine appeared to explode out
from underneath the box, the look of bemusement on my
face was matched only by Jonny’s confused laughter
at the vision of a lanky corduroy clad special needs
boy holding at arms length a spurting box of chardonnay.
It wasn’t my fault. I still maintain that. But
try arguing your case with a head full of acid, to friends
eager to see yet more mental failure. Just as we began
to sit down, it was approaching the witching hour, and
the merry band of pagan jamboree members all around
us began to turn into threatening bushmen, with their
samba beats and wince inducing yelps. The landscape
around us became a bona fide Mordor. Skulls on spikes
in the fences, fire in the chasm down below. All the
while we were happy to reflect on our state of mind
with hilarity, mocking the others, and supposing what
might happen were we fed to these cannibals screaming
down their horrible instruments. Noises we’d never
heard before. Probably just Kazoos. The others decided
it was time to go and so we followed, unable to adapt
to the geography on our own.
Knowledge means nothing at this
point. The brain can only manage five seconds of stimuli
at a time, before submerging again into a simmering
pan of breakdown. After hour upon hour of walking, miles
and miles, we got back to our campsite, at which point
the nights exterior high was replaced with an introspective
psychedelic journey in our Tardis tents. The next hour
or so was spent in communication between James and I
from our lilo beds, through nothing but chuckles and
guffaws. Then the nightmare began, for both of us. James
saw three Muslim clerics wearing burqas in his tent,
turning into witches of some kind, and I thought monkeys
were eating everything in mine. Over and over again.
Aquariums with fish swimming in the tent lining, and
then the sensation that my arms had been sawn off, spider
webs in my mouth. We just prayed for sleep. But it never
comes. On the train that wont stop for anyone. I got
up at about five and braved the toilets, peoples faces
turning into hideous Scream masks as I stumbled forward.
I can’t say for certain if I slept or not that
night.
