Special Post #17: More mash & cider

the highly anticipated second part of my Guilfest post

Every year Guilfest provide all the crew with free food. In exchange for 1 meal voucher you can choose from a selection of hot and cold snacks ranging from pastas to curries. However, presumably due to the credit crunch, we got one option: mash. But where’s the choice, you cry? Here’s the menu:

1. Choose your mash:
   1. Traditional mash
   2. Cheesy mash
   3. Carrot and potato mash (what are the others if this is potato?)
   4. Cabbage mash
2. Choose your topping:
   1. Gravy
   2. Cheese
   3. Onions
   4. Beans
3. Choose your little something extra:
   1. Meaty balls
   2. Veggie sausages
   3. Veggie chilli

Now considering the whole van was veggie, what was in the meaty balls!? It pays not to think too much. I don’t know what was worse, the fact that I felt compelled to eat there because it was free or being served by a 20-something man wearing a flowery apron and no shirt.

I managed to consume a few of these “meals” before I had to eat some meat. Fortunately Sally, the manager of the smaller tent I was working on, supplied chocolate, pasties and even bacon sandwiches in ample proportions.

Other than trying to find, buy and consume vast quantities of mash in 30 minutes, I also tried to see Motorhead. That venture was very crazy considering the thousands of people who turned up to see them. I managed to get quite far into the crowd before it was time to go. Also had a look at the rock cave tent.

On Friday evening Josh came down to the festival and I managed to get him in for FREE! Not bad considering his ticket would have cost £100. And it was a VIP ticket which got him to the very front of some of the stages, something I would use for my own advantage later on :)

Each day finished at about 11:30pm and then Tolley gave us a lift back to the house. Me constituted of Gibbo and Tonks most days, who stayed in the house too.

On Sunday, after all the complaining about the mash, we finally got a decent dinner: BBQ! I had a burger which went something like this: bun, beef burger, gammon, mushroom, pineapple, salad, coleslaw, bun. With a sausage on the side, yummies!

The King Blues played in the Rock Cave on Sunday evening, and those keen-eyed will have noticed their songs appearing on my song of the day a few times in the past. I got right to the front with my VIP pass and was practically standing on stage, such a great view it was unbelievable. They played most of my favourite songs, although I missed a bit of it because of the whole changeover every 30 minutes thing. But as the Rock Cave is right next to our tent, I could run back and forth in no time using the backstage link.

During The King Blues set it was funny to see random people running on to the stage and one even stage dived. I liked that the gig was big enough to have a really vibrant atmosphere, but small enough that the band enjoyed having randoms on stage without security worrying too much.

After the festival finished at 11pm on Sunday we had to pack it all away. Yes, all 7 stages. All put into cases, loaded into trucks and taken back to the union. One bus was strictly filled with beer. 15 cases in all. Needless to say a drinking session ensued once we’d all got back to the union at about 4:30 in the morning. By 5:30 we headed back to the house and had a bit more to drink. I hate going to sleep after sunrise…

You can look at all the pictures I took of Guilfest here. And see my video of The King Blues gig on YouTube here. I’m more than looking forward to doing it all again next year!

tomorrow is a great post called ”no signal”