Splendour in the MUD

Splendour in the grass?? No, sorry, I missed that one, went to Splendour in the MUD!! Yes, Splendour weekend last weekend. What an event! Can I just say mud, mud and more mud! It rained on Saturday night, and the "field" soon turned into a big slush pile with 10,000 pairs of feet stomping around. The newest fashion accessory? GUMBOOTS! Yes, everybody was wearing them..and I must say I was envious of them. We even tried to get some on Saturday morning, but you would not believe it, but every shop we went to had sold out...damn! It was the funniest thing to see though. Girls wearing very fashionable clothes, and then for shoes, big, dark green gumboots!! Have you seen the fashion gumboots? The leopard print ones? The polka dotted ones? The green checked ones? The skull and cross bone ones?? I always thought that it was a bit ridiculous to buy gumboots like that, because really, how often will you wear them? BUT, let me just point out, that for a mudfest like the weekend, I almost bought a pair!! ;)


The festival itself was pretty good. My highlights: Snow Patrol, Wolfmother, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jose Gonzalez, Angus & Julia Stone...

Okay, I must admit though, that festivals and me just don't click sometimes. I have this uncanny ability to attract incredibly tall people. I'm quite short, which means when I go to festivals or watch bands, most of the time all I see is the back of the people infront of me, with little tiny glances of the people on stage if the people infront of me shift a little. But there are a few things that I cannot stand, that is the people that see me and stand RIGHT infront of me. They see me, they can probably tell that I am considerably shorter than them (although sometimes I think people are a little bit too wasted to notice) and they decide that standing infront of me is the best position. Which means, I get to see a back. Not the band, not glances of the band, but a back, the back of the guy standing infront of me... and yes, it is usually a guy, granted girls do it too.
If I am incredibly lucky and do find a spot that I can see whats happening on stage, I will undoubtedly attract somebody that is completely out of their mind. The people you see that have drunk/smoked a little too much... These are the people that come stumbling through the crowd waving their arms around, trying to talk to everyone. Then they stand there and dance around, using the people around them as support because their world is spinning so much. This means I get an assortment of body parts in my face, elbows, hands, shoulders, chests, backs etc. etc. yeah, great (SARCASM)
Me in a crowd equals a lot of things.. I have often found that I become a bit of a bar stool, or table for the people behind me. Which means I get a lot of elbows in my head, drinks on my head, or cigarettes way too close to my face.
But in all honesty, I give as good as I get.. haha.. yes I get a little bit evil in crowds.. For example: On the weekend, a very tall guy was behind me, and was standing right behind me, pushing his stomach into my back. All I could think about was elbowing him in the stomach! Haha, I almost did, but Brother G saved him by switching spots. Yes, I have been known to push back when people push me, digging elbows into people that are digging their elbows into me. Muwahahah! Evil little Liz... ;)
A perfect example: In the Wolfmother set, I had a spot that had a little bit of a gap between peoples heads. I couldn't see the stage, but I could see the lights (yes I am that short). Standing there quite happily when this GIANT comes and stands next to me. I am talking twice my size, and I am not exaggerating. Anyway, Giant looks at me, I glance at him from the corner of my eye, I'm sending him mind messages which are something like this: "Don't even think about it Gigantor". And 5 seconds later, you will never guess what happens, he takes a step infront of me. Yes, he stood DIRECTLY infront of me. DIRECTLY. I couldn't see a thing. No lights, not even a view over his shoulder of the lights. He was so freakin' huge he actually formed a little bit of a sound barrier between me and the stage. It got awfully quiet behind Gigantor...

The other quite annoying thing is having things spilt over me. Okay, so going to a festival you can be pretty certain you will have something spilt on you at some stage. I have had quite an assortment of liquids and other items...
Beer, water, spit, other alcoholic beverages, glow stick liquid, chewing gum (thrown right into my hair), and the new addition to the list from the weekend: Pineapple smoothie. Yes I am not kidding, pineapple smoothie. There I was, minding my own business watching Tex Perkins, sitting in a tent, when a very large pineapple smoothie was tipped right over the top of my head. A woman was trying to shuffle past the people sitting behind me and she somehow bumped her hand that happened to hold a large cup of pineapple smoothie with no lid, resulting in a drenching like you see on gameshows. Have you seen people sitting under a bucket of green slime or some other liquid, and had the bucket tipped right on their head? Yeah, that was what happened with the pineapple smoothie. Tipped right over my hair, all down my jacket, all over my jeans, all over my bag... everywhere. At first I thought it was vomit, which I am so glad it wasn't.. ew, never been vomited on, touch wood. Still, pineapple smoothie is pretty bad. And it happened quite early in the day on Saturday, which meant I had a pretty crappy day on Saturday. I must apologise to Brother G, I had a little bit of a breakdown after that.. wanted to go home. Sorry about that... But Sunday was a better day. No pineapple head for me!

All in all, Saturday would have been better with no pineapple, and Sunday made up for it. Much better day on Sunday... Much much much.
*yawn*
Now, its time to get some sleep!!
The damage: