A Tale of Two Festivals
On two Sundays running at the end of July/start of August I saw Ash headline two very different festivals.
First up was the Ben & Jerry’s Sundae on the Common (Clapham Common in London to be precise) on 27th July2008. This was a particularly memorable weekend because the sun was shining brightly and it was boiling hot. The free scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and chilled fruitiness from the big Pimms bus, went down very well indeed.
The next Sunday (3rd August 2008) I popped down the road (relatively speaking) to Cardiff. When I left Bristol it was dry and quite sunny, but later on in Cardiff the heavens opened. After watching ‘The Automatic’ in the pouring rain we went to a local bar where I attempted to dry my shoes under the hand drier.
Ash’s set was pretty much the same at both events (bar maybe the encore of Jack Names the Planets…I think that was only Cardiff).
Weather:
B&J – wall to wall sunshine…leading to sunburn, dehydration and suspected sunstroke
Cardiff – rain, rain, drizzle and rain…leading to soggy feet and frizzy hair
‘Celeb’ sightings:
B&J – Jerry of Ben & Jerry’s fame posing for photos with a cardboard cut-out of a cow
Cardiff – ex-Bristol City striker (and alcoholic) Christian Roberts (now with League One side Swindon Town)
Crowd:
B&J – There were a lot of families and the vibe was more chilled out than ‘up for it’. As a result there was a disappointing lack of movement….apart from the extremely drunk girl by us who was struggling to stand up!
Cardiff – An absolutely brilliant atmosphere. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time Ash came on. It took a little while for the crowd to warm-up but they soon got into it and went nuts. There were even crowd-surfers! At the end of ‘Jack Names the Planets’ (the encore) the sky filled with fireworks.