Tips while attending an out door gig

Our recent trip to see the Zutons in Bedgebury Pinetum and Forest(you should hear the scouse lead singer attempt to pronounce it) in Kent got me thinking of some helpful information to anyone who attends an outdoor gig. Don’t worry, the BlackLOG is not going to suddenly turn into some awful public service site (unless Google offer me buckets full of cash to do so, which quite frankly is not very likely). It will remain, as ever, a space for my inane outpourings, with the odd comment from Teach, correcting anything that Mrs B managed to miss.
So the BlackLOG top tips for attending an outdoor gig are:

• Bring a torch. Remember, the lights don’t go on in the middle of a forest when the group finally leaves the stage and the lardy lady is warbling in the wings, or if it does get light it will be very briefly and invariably accompanied by a large thunder clap and a deluge of water. No, that is not a sprinkler system - unless you count Mother Nature’s ultimate version. P.S if you do bring a torch don’t leave it in the car – Doh!

• Don’t run over any of the car park stewards, especially on the way in, no matter how pathetic their directions happen to be. I suspect their colleagues may take a bit of a dim view of this type of action and direct you to the worst parking space they can find. For the record I was tempted to put one of them out of her misery but resisted the urge at the last moment. Not only did she give the most pathetic of directions, more of a twitch than a defined gesture, she had bright red straggly hair as well. I probably would have got a medal for services to the human race, but to be honest the car had recently been washed, I did not want to get it blood splattered or indeed covered in clumps of straggly (almost pubic-like) hair…..

• If you wear prescription sun glasses don’t leave your normal glasses in the car. Doh! You might look like a rock star but you are not going to see much of the performance once it starts to get dark, are you Mrs B…?

• Bring a large picnic blanket; most people stay clear of other people’s blankets, at least during the support acts so you end up with loads of space, very civilised.

• Don’t rely on Nafman , he will probably get you to within about 5 miles of the venue before going all stroppy and not taking you any further. It might be something to do with the fact that trees don’t tend to have post codes. Nafman could have mentioned this before we set off.

• Don’t lose your Oakley custom-built sunglasses on the way out. Especially if they are the ones you recently purchased to replace the ones you lost when skiing – A bit of free advertising here Steptoes. Although I get nothing out of this apart from: a 20% discount which is open to all; and good service, which I suspect is also open to all.

• Leave just as the headline act announce the last song. While there is nothing like wringing out every last ounce of value out of an event, there is also nothing like spending 3 hours fighting your way out of a car park to dent the memory of a great evening. That’s if you can get past the thousands of people wandering aimlessly around in the dark hopelessly looking for their car, because they also happen to have left their torch in the car.

• If you happened to have run over one of the stewards on the way in then you might want to consider leaving before the main band comes on, as it will take you a couple of hours hard hiking to reach that far flung parking space they found for you.

• Bring all the music that you have for the artist you have gone to see. That way you stand a good chance of having the closing track on you and can listen to it on the way home. Get Mrs B (or rather your Mrs B equivalent) to jump around excitedly screaming at the top of their voice. For added authenticity they could throw beer all over you and then vomit on your legs.

I would like to point out that no car park stewards were hurt during the production of this Blog, for the more dangerous parking manoeuvres we substituted highly trained stunt stewards who could think at the same time as being able to breathe....

For those of you who like pictures I'm afraid I was so busy keeping people off of our picnic blanket that I did not have time to take any better ones.