With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part . The last fling

And so for the final entry I have for With Full Force festival. This finds my merchandise stand / trader family and me, shuffling around the Earache stand aimlessly, as the main stage area is shut down and the public hustled out. The cool thing about right now, is in all faces you can see the relief and joy peeking out through the utter exhaustion and dirt at the prospect of not having to do this all again tomorrow.

Ben, Kim and me have had the most fun. We have truly burnt the candle at both ends. We have partied like rock stars, met new friends and caught up with old ones. We have quite possibly been drunk for the majority of the weekend. But holy fuck have we paid to get to live this extraordinary lifestyle for the weekend.

We have been up at the crack of dawn, working right through till midnight for three nights on the trot. We have built a successful merchandise stand from scratch, which we also have to dismantle and pack away in the van. We have excelled in customer service, acting as the faces of Earache records, since we were selling their stock. We have networked and smiled and there has not been one strop or falling out between us. Everyone loves us; yet again Earache is the undisputed reigning king of festival merchandise stands! And all this in 38% heat. Phew. I’m all tuckered out just looking back on it.

And now? We sleep, ready for the drive back home. Ha-ha do we fuck! Round 4 fuckers, we ain’t going lying down!

I cannot recall how this happened, I was steaming drunk following my Slayer day, but somewhere after slayer, and somewhere after realising none of us had it in us to start packing up, I bumped in to James Hetfield circa 1985! I was with Kim, we were heading to the real toilets in the trader’s campsite and boom, there him and his little buddies were. According to Kim they wanted to know where the party was. At which I retorted that they had missed the party but that there was a lake 5 minutes up the road with our names on it. And then I was off. Kim was calling me back to go with her, but I was not going to let stories of polluted lakes or possible gang rape by strange and random German boys put me off. I had even run back to Kim and said ‘I hope I don’t get gang raped’ before smiling and running back off in to the dark apparently? Oh dear…role model I am not.

I didn’t get gang raped it’s o.k. No, instead I had an awesome hour of splashing around with only the moonlight to help us see in the dark. The lake was so super refreshing and relieving. Us four were not a lone soon; there must have been about a dozen people all skinny-dipping by the time we left. I kept my pants and t-shirt on of course. Stiff upper lip and all. Stiff upper lip until the next morning that is. Skinny-dipping with James Hetfield circa 1985, which by the way is what I called him the entire time, was the first order of the day. Do as the Europeans do is what I say!

And here we are, back at the beginning. What happened next? We packed the Earache stand up, and our tents, all in sweltering heat, hung over and tired. We got in to our van, and drove off kicking up dust clouds, through a ghost town of tents and rubbish, back off to England. We didn’t drink all the way there. We didn’t keep Kim company. Well, I didn’t. I woke up for food in Holland, and then again in Belgium. The trip back is always sombre. Like soldiers coming back from the battlefield! I hate when you have to go home.