Tuesday 14 July 2009

Hellfest Festival. Clisson, France. Oh dear...Part 3.

Ahh a new day a new dawning of debauch rock and metal mayhem ahead of me. Fantastic. We only trot up to the Hellfest backstage area to day at gone 10 am since it took us hours to get a ride home last night resulting in not getting to bed until 5.30 am. 4 -5 hours of sleep a night during this weekend is the norm. I’m in a pretty foul mood. My feet are killing me, including the fracture I incurred a month ago and my impressive collection of blisters, my feet do not want to be encased in Chucks today and certainly do not want me rushing about on them all day.

Today is Marilyn Manson’s day. He is the diva we shall flit around. He is the ungrateful sod who will never know that no one is being paid except for his staff. He is the one therefore to never show any appreciation or thanks towards us and is more likely to be quite rude to us. I mean, who are we?!

Wanker. He is getting minimal input from me I tell you. Rachel on the other hand is in heaven to work with a hero of hers and happily takes on the main role of assistant to his assistant.

Leaving me free to work with some decent bands, get drunk and fuck about some. See, last night Pascel rubbed me up the wrong way somewhat. Accused me of being drunk when chance would have been a fine thing. I as a half-breed Geordie find it incredibly offensive to be accused of being drunk after a couple of drinks. Mr, you don’t know me and you certainly don’t know how much I can put away. I’m a barmaid for Christ’s sake. I’ll take anyone on. So I’m damned if I’m gonna break my back for the ungrateful and offensive bastard today! Instead…I shall get drunk, show him what drunk is since apparently he has no concept.

This is a relief though, that he has been pulled down somewhat off the pedestal I had put him on. And that this festival is such thankless work. Cause now I can take the piss a bit and not feel guilty!

On top of this, Scarlet, his right hand woman is away today. Picking up the slack is Greg, a funny French guy who is not really ready for this newfound responsibility. Due to this there are far too many times during the day which find us all being sent on the same bullshit task, or running around needlessly.

Fortunately my mates are at hand to help me loosen up. Nashville Pussy are the best fun to hang out and knock back some drinks with, as is my new friend Pat, and of course staggering around all over the shop is Orange Goblins Ben, Crobar’s Steve and Nathan, looking progressively funnier and worse for wear every time I bump in to them. Then there’s Olivia and Shane, who it ravelled here with and who my not yet used tent is pitched next to. The Terrorizer magazines massive are here, as is Alice Delal and co. There are plenty of people to spend time with, all of which are for the most part kicking back in the backstage garden area getting wasted.

God Forbid have gone, the bassist for them was a great one to have bumped in to and met yesterday, taking the piss out of my limping around and spending time chillaxing together was cool. I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again till the next time they tour the U.K but will definitely stay in touch on the ol’ web.

Machine Head have turned up, yeEAAAA! I fucking love Machine Head, they rock. Their tour manager is an old face I bump in to a lot so it was great to work with him, and of course fuck about U.K stylee! They are one of the headline acts that I have been looking forward to working with and are a total pleasure to do so.

Clutch are also here, who we all love and make sure that they are happy and that we catch their show. Everyone was at the side of the stage when they played, it was great fucking fun. Everyone was mega trashed by this point too, maybe had a little something to do with it eh!

One of the bonuses to festival season it is becoming increasingly clear to me, is that you see the same people and bands etc throughout the summer and so do end up becoming friends of a sort and staying in touch with each other. Of course the other side to this is that there are some bands and people you don’t want to be continuously seeing. I heard a few artists breathing a sigh of relief that they would not have to hear Trivium play that weekend merely cause they have hit the road so hard they have been pretty much everywhere.

Today I only have thoughts for one person in particular though. And he is guitar teching for Sacred Reich, who has just turned up, finally. They’re O.G’s turned up a few hours ago and have been sizing me up and acting strange around me. O.G standing in this instance for old groupies. Still, they are nice enough and I’m frankly completely uninterested in them so whatever. I met the guy I’m waiting for at a German festival where he was stage-managing a month ago and have been in contact ever since. As soon as we see each other we are pretty much inseparable, as much as our jobs allow.

So forgive me for skipping over the best part of Saturday evening, but some things never leave site! Quality time was spent and by the time he left I was on cloud nine is all anyone needs to know.

Marilyn Manson’s staff are fucking well funny. They were like ‘just so you know, he is just like what you read..he’ll probably trash all your hard work…he usually does’ I was like honey we don’t give a shit, don’t worry none of us are taking massive amounts of pride in our work anymore. His staff looked down trodden and miserable, unlike the xanax chirpy of Beth the day before. They happily fill us in on what an arsehole he is and tell stories from their time with him much to our amusement. He turns up, and although a short 30 second walk to the main stage from his dressing room, insists on the tour bus taking him between the two and also that the whole back field is cleared. What a twat! Ha!

By the end of Saturday, we are all wasted, exhausted and ready for bed. Ready for home to be honest but tough shit, one more day of Hellfest, literally is left ahead of me.

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