have more fun

It turned out to be a great day even though it started off with me regretting having organised it in the first place. This is because before we set off I sensed a lack of enthusiam from everyone to go all the way to the south coast to see a few bands. At the back of my mind I was also worried that:

1) Even though I liked some of Bristish Sea Power’s punk rock material on their early album (The Decline of B.S.P.) I was worried that their set was going to disappoint me and my friends. http://www.britishseapower.co.uk/

2) Because Fort Rox is a ‘new festival’, it was happening for the first time thise year, that the turn out wouldn’t be too good and that therefore wouldn’t be much of an atmosphere.

Luckily none of these worries became reality.

The rainy weather didn’t help the mood either. On the way there nobody was really talking. Some of the scenery we drove through was very picturesque. There were fields with loads of bails of hay tied up into cylinders that I caught a glimpse of that made me realise I was glad to be out in the countryside and away from the city.

Once we got to the venue we were told we couldn’t bring our drinks in with us and had to trapes back to the car. We eventually got in and the we caught the last three bands. The Duke Spirit http://www.dukespirit.com/ were really good. The female lead singer was very charismatic and she sung over these very heavy dirty baselines. I imagined her to be a like a young Pattie Smith/ PJ Harvey. They were even better, I thought, than the headliner band British Sea Power who were pretty good.

The weather cleared up by the time B.S.P. were on. And amongst their Pixie-esque screams the band was joined by their signature dancing/head-banging bear. The big brown bear, for some reason, amused me to no end.

On the way home everyone was chatting and laughing and I felt relaxed knowing everyone had enjoyed themselves. So it turned out to be a long but worthwhile day for me as I did the all the driving. We also made an impromptu visit to Brighton which was only 12 miles west of Newhaven where I hooked up with an old friend of mine and met his new girlfriend for the first time.

I had fun but boy did it take me a bit of time to get into that groove!

I find it hard to tune into new people sometimes, but when I have a fun conversation, which isn’t often, I do feel a little cheered up. So I will try to banter a bit more.

I’ve just booked tickets to see British Sea Power and a collection of other bands on an August weekend, high on the cliffs at Newhaven Fort along the East Sussex coast. I’m going with my girlfriend, two of my friends and one of their girlfriends. It’s been a long trawl so far this year with the stress exams and moving in with my girlfriend – so this will be a well deserved break for me.

And one of my friends deperately wanted to play Halo 2 on the X-box. I often think I’m too grown up for computer games and that I’d be slaughthered even if I played because I’m a novice. But luckily another of my friends teamed up with me so I wasn’t the one to get my butt-kicked. In fact I had a really good time.