Fields of Metal.

There's blossoms in the trees and the land is waking up from it's winter slumber.  Which means the rock festivals will soon be here.  I don't go to as many as I did when I was younger, I prefer smaller venues and the festivals in mainland Europe have a much better vibe than ones in the UK.  Not as many beer monsters, I suppose.

However, when myself and my mates were younger the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donnington was one of the highlights of the year. These days it is called the Download festival. It didn't really matter who was on, we would hire a Transit van and pile as many people and as much beer as we could and usually be lathered before we even got there.

Here are some of the things I remember from my festival days:

Standing waiting to get into the arena and passing an empty plastic cider bottle around to piss in. When a bottle fight started in the crowd my mate pulling his arm back to throw and showering us all in our own urine.

Dressing as vicars and havng a custard pie fight in the car park using shaving foam and paper plates.

Cadging a bin liner off a bloke in a burger van during a downpour, punching head and armholes in it and using it as a coat then watching Iron Maiden.

Nine of us trying to sleep on the floor in the back of a van.

Trying to put an unconcious drunk bloke in the recovery position and not remembering how to do it. He ended up looking ike the Isle of Man coat of arms.

Pouring a load of beer into a binliner so we could take our own booze into the arena to beat the bottle embargo and drinking it by shoving our heads into the bag.

Arguing with the security outside the arena because they wouldn't let us take our own food inside. We had to eat as much as we could then give the rest away. One bloke thought we were a Christian aid charity.

Going to a pub outside the Readingarena that would let festival goers buy beer as long as they stood outside in the road to drink it. Then realising that we were standing next to Faith No More.

Not washing and being covered in mud for days.

Having some of the biggest laughs of my life with some of the best mates I could have wished for.

Oh yeah, we saw loads of great bands as well, too many to list here.

So get yourselves off to at least one festival if you can and enjoy it.