This weekend it's San Francisco's Outside Lands festival, a smorgasbord of music and culture (but mostly music) in Golden Gate Park. Dan and Fiona had a spare ticket and very kindly passed it on to me.
For some reason most people thought that the Pearl Jam show was the main event of Friday. They were badly mistaken. For a start, the legend that is Tom Jones was playing (on a smaller stage! What?!), and also there was an entire tent dedicated to The Beatles: Rock Band. I found myself arriving, with my usual British punctuality, about two hours before any friends. What else was I going to do with my time?
There is one tragic note. I had taken along my old, long-forgotten, super-cheap Rock Band rip-off guitar that I had purchased from a charity shop in the distant past. My aim was to recreate a live Rock Band session while Pearl Jam was on. Actually writing that down makes it sound a lot more stupid than it did in my head...
At the gate the security lady looked at the fake instrument in my bag, called over her supervisor, who called his supervisor over the radio...and I was told that as I could swing it and hit someone I wasn't allowed to take it in! "But it's a plastic guitar!" I protested, a devastatingly argument if ever there was one! And unsuccessful. I nestled it between two recycling bins, wiped a tear from my eye, and decided there were few better places to inter it than a rock festival.
Everything present and correct in the festival bag.
The party bus! Actually it was hot, smelly, and I had to stand for an hour...
Goodbye, thou good and faithful friend :(
Heading into the outlands.
When at a festival you have to get your free (Toyota branded) tattoo.
The crowd gathers.
Now this is more like it.
Me and Dan rock out.
So impressed (I'm sure!) was a photographer from the San Francisco Chronicle that she took lots of pictures of me. It was like being a real Beatle! (Fiona directs).
A friendly helper in the Intel tent. Dana used to work for them, I wonder if she had to dress like this...
Oh, and apparently there was some music playing somewhere.
But there were plenty of other distractions.
Fiona and me (trying to look the part with my free bandanna).
With Dan, and much more sensible head wear.
It's not every day that you find yourself in the presence of divinity.
Here he is! And yes, there are the knickers that were thrown at him.
Tom, Amanda, David.
Pearl Jam. It's tough when you have to follow Tom Jones.
Pretty lights.
And that was it! You find me in the post-festival comedown, filthy, tired out, dehydrated...and with an unquenchable craving to sing in close harmony with a Liverpudlian accent. Not long now.
