Southside Festival

SOUTHSIDE FESTIVAL. 19th - 21st June 2015. Neuhausen, southern Germany.

We arrived with German-style efficiency on Thursday and set up our 'bargain' tent from Argos. Did you hear the rain? Before long our tent was letting in quite a lot of water. We closed the small zip window in order to keep the inside of the tent drier (a futile attempt) before trying to get to sleep. Friday's line up was incredible and we wanted to get some sleep beforehand.



My boots before and after I cleaned them

At about four in the morning we were all still awake, wet and (believe it or not) having difficulty breathing. Why was this happening? It turned out that when we closed the window to stop getting drenched, we cut out some of the air supply to the tent. There was a lack of oxygen in the tent so we begrudgingly left the window open, favouring oxygen over keeping dry (good decision, I think).



On Friday morning we woke up after a few hours sleep, now breathing at normal rates. There seemed to be beer drinking games going on around us, everywhere. 9am and people were downing can after can. I know it's Germany, but come on? I don't suspect many of them lasted to see Florence + The Machine 14 hours later. After finding some elusive and expensive coffee we headed to the arena with high hopes. Apart from Ben Howard pulling out due to illness, it was a brilliant day. The Vaccines, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Of Monsters and Men, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (he performed Don't Look Back in Anger. If that's the closest I come to seeing Oasis, then so be it!) and of course Florence + The Machine. That girl can sing.



Alt-J

Although Friday was the main event for us, we also saw some other great stuff. Amidst the mud, madness and Beck's, two newish bands that were really great were Sunset Sons and Nothing But Thieves, if you wanna check them out. We also saw Alt-J, George Ezra, The Tallest Man on Earth, Placebo, Kodaline and some others. Overall it was a brilliant weekend and another great memory for my year abroad. What a life!