Part III – The Road To A New Year

New Year’s Eve. Dublin. The year? Sure they’re all the same. The ultimate hallmark night out in the city. Half the Christmas street lights have frozen to death and yet there you are, forking out twenty quid to suffer frostbite in the queue of your weekly haunt just to see if you can count from one to ten backwards. Most of the night is spent trying to get a ‘Happy New Year’ text through to your Mam as you battle the dreaded network congestion.  What do you mean that’s just me? By the time you’ve managed to get a drink at the bar for that cute girl you were dancing with, she’s already been picked up, married, popped out two kids and is struggling with a mortgage on her overpriced flat. It’s tough going but sure neck that gin and tonic and act like she was never there.

One of my few fond memories of New Year’s Eve came during a torrential downpour. I had the wisdom to bring out an umbrella. Imagine. Huddled under it with my mate Rossco, smug looks on the pair of us like a man that slipped a deadly fart passed a packed congregation, we watched on as evacuated streets came awash with rain water and fake tan, only for an opportunistic taxi driver to swoop in too close to the curb and drench us beneath the cover of our defence. What could we do only break our holes laughing? Indeed if you’re not ringing a bell or downing a pint, there’s not much to do on New Year’s in Dublin. But this year I wasn’t in Dublin. Instead I’d got my hands on a camping ticket to the Falls Music Festival at sunny Byron Bay, and for once, I believed the hype.

What I couldn’t believe, however, was that one of the girls had set up a personalised Facebook group detailing every requirement necessary for the ultimate camping experience months in advance. I was unaccustomed to such levels of preparation but clearly I was alone in my bewilderment. You see, I had only travelled with my beloved friends from home and we were about as useful as Bruce Jenner’s condoms. Years ago on a tour of Spain we arrived in Bilbao and hopped in a taxi, only to discover that none of us knew where we were staying. I had a great book of useful Spanish phrases that I left in Ireland. Would’ve been ideal. Anyway, a few international calls later we’d found our hotel, but on that same trip we also went to a music festival. It was in Valencia and it was called Benicassim.

We arrived by bus from Barcelona on a sweltering afternoon, hungover and dehydrated. Looks like we’re camping in the poxy Sahara Desert. Battling the reluctant dirt with the strength of an ailing midget, we managed to pitch our tents just about deep enough to stop the ants from stealing them in the middle of the night. Nothing better than a cheap, warm can of Spanish piss to celebrate.  With the eye of the sun now slowly burning away my spirit like Hank Scorpio’s laser, I could feel myself fading towards the depths of hell. I made a limp dart towards the toilets but lost my vision along the way. Drowning in my own sweat, my mate didn’t believe that I had gone blind from dehydration as I implored him to take my hand and walk me all of four feet to the portaloo. To this day I swear that if poor ol’ Choco had left me hanging I would’ve collapsed and shat myself and probably gone viral all at once. Discovering a nearby cold shower soon after probably saved my life. And yet here I am still questioning the need for planning an event so far in advance.

So back to these camping essentials. Have you ever rocked up late to a festival and your mates have already looked after the set-up arrangement?  That feeling of hope as you approach. Multiple marquees, iced baths brimming with beers, barbeque fired up, sound system better than main stage and a hot tub on the back deck. Then you stroll passed that mirage to find your actual tent; half caved in under a lingering, solitary rain cloud and accompanied by an unwelcomed shite on your doorstep. Bless. Well this time the mirage seemed a possibility. Days before hitting the road to Byron, the boys were busy in the kitchen making mammoth amounts of chicken pesto pasta to last the week. We had continental breakfasts prepared for each morning and enough toilet paper not to have to worry about square usage. We had tarps, marquees, bean bags, coolers. We even had mangos.

All that was missing was our party treats and this is where Australian festival organisers get it so wrong. Permitting no outside alcohol and charging extortionate prices for mid-strength beers at the venue leads ticket holders, mostly scrounging students, to boldly sneak in their own resources.  A can of light beer would run a patron seven dollars. Buying five would be the equivalent price of purchasing twenty four outside the venue.  Having already paid over five hundred dollars for admission, what other choice do you have other than to supply your own stock. I’m just being realistic and here’s the major issue. Such is the extent of the rigorous bag searches at the gate, the smaller the item, the easier it is to sneak in. Therefore, spirits take precedence over beer. Nothing better than a few rums to start off a session relying on stamina, says the lad seen kicking off at six and choking on his own vomit at seven. And that’s where drugs come in.

En route to the Byron Parklands from Brisbane, the trippers among us can avail of a quick detour to Nimbin, the herbal garden of Australia’s east coast. It hosted of the 1973 Aquarius Festival. The event was obviously ‘highly’ successful because some of the psychedelic souls in attendance decided to never go home and instead created their own alternative wonderland amongst the trees. Although the village hasn’t quite retained its original hippie vibe, it remains a smoker’s delight and in terms of picking up a festival care package, you can see the smoke for miles. I’m not going to tell you how we passed the search or how our treats went unnoticed by the sniffer dogs. I mean… I’m not saying that we went to Nimbin. Sure seven dollar mid-strength beers- bargain! I don’t need to be intoxicated to have fun. Mammy wasn’t born yesterday John. She’ll soon find out.