I just went to my first festival. With my mum.
We arrived at Latitude nearly five hours later than planned, and no, it wasnât entirely down to my mumâs often questionable driving ability. I must admit there was a moment when we appeared to be heading to Suffolk via London(from North Wales), but the real bummer was the near three hour standstill on the country roads leading up to the festival site. After complaining via Twitter, upon my mumâs instruction, that a poor distressed elderly couple were caught up in the traffic, hoping to evoke some sympathy from the festival organisers, we eventually crawled our way towards the festival site (actually, on reflection, I could have crawled there sooner, but thatâs beside the point). Of course, the elderly couple followed us through the festival gates!
Dragging our overpacked bags behind us, we soon realised that the quieter, outer edges of the camping area, that obviously appealed to my middle aged mother, were just too far away from the festival arena. In fact, it would actually hinder her ability to have naps between acts, as the walk would just take far too long. As it turns out, the mother didnât actually go back for naps. Just to down her tesco value vodka. Itâs now that I should probably point out that sheâs not the average middle class Latitude mum - she even debated putting bags of alcohol down her shirt so that she could walk through the arena gates at a snails pace pretending to be pregnant in order to avoid the cost of festival pints.
I soon realised that I could leave her at the comedy tent, amongst the children, middle aged and non-music enthusiasts who had also been conveniently, yet happily dumped there. Mum isnât exactly known for her appreciation of stand up, her comedy experience no doubt heightened by vodka. I must point out that she did love the music, but seemed to be limited to a few acts a day, something to do with sleep apparently, despite leaving the arena before the headline acts had finished and wearing an eye mask and ear plugs to bed every night.
I was constantly busy, there was barely a blank time slot on my vodka soaked, just about readable timetable, which of course, my mum was responsible for. The main stages were all fairly close to each other, so it was easy to pop back and forth between acts. Wherever you were between stages in the main arena, you could hear the music from at least one stage, sometimes resulting in odd and magical combinations. At one point I could hear a spoken word artist bursting out the poetry tent against whatever band were on the main stage, but I must admit the combination of SBTRKT and Noel Gallagher didnât quite have the same effect. This also allowed for bands to attract audiences mid-performance, particularly beneficial to the lake stage, the open air, BBC introducing style platform. However I soon came notice that the crowds of people sat on the grass in front of stage were mainly there to receive the tactically placed wifi. The weather was perfect; sunny, twenty five plus degrees, the idyllic festival weather. The setting was beautiful too, there were stages wedged between trees in the forest and a lake central to the whole site, perfect for jumping into to wash off the beer, dust and bodily fluids that resulted from spending the last 45minutes in a mosh pit.
Once I had ditched mum, I soon released it would be near impossible to find her again amongst the thousands of festival goers. We thought with designated meeting points weâd easily find each other again, but apparently our planning didnât quite stretch to specific times and single locations. I must note, I wasnât bothered in the slightest. I had this new found freedom at the festival, which ordinarily I was unable to have, being a sixth form student, about to go university, with an unfortunate late August birthday. I was able to stay up late waiting for surprise acts and go to 2am raves, when ordinarily, 17 year old me would be kicked out my local Wetherspoons past 9pm for drinking a glass of lemonade.
The one time I lost my mum really early on in the day, I certainly noticed the consequences as I was reluctantly woken up the next morning covered in bites with bright red face. So it turns out that maybe your mum isnât the worst festival companion in the world.
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