Festival Memories: Part One

Brides, Your Demise, Flood Of Red, Swound! tell Rock Sound their favourite festival moments.

Download and Guilfest may be under our belts but festival season is still in full swing! Sonisphere starts in seven days time and Bloodstock, Reading and Leeds promise to make the Summer of 2009 one to remember for years to come.

Rock Sound recently got on the blower to ask a number of bands what their favourite festival memories were. We thought we might get a batch of serious, earnest answers. We were wrong.

Check out what Brides, Your Demise, Flood Of Red, Swound! and more had to say below. It's not big, but it is funny...


Jon Barmby, Drummer, Brides
“At Reading 2006, We where getting ready to go and watch Sick Of It All. We decided to eat the free Pot Noodles they where giving out before we headed to watch them - our friend Ed poured the boiling hot water onto his lap rather than into the pot noodle container by accident - We had to carry him to the emergency tent with his trousers round his ankles and while a nurse spent several hours rubbing his thighs with cold water we missed Sick of it All.”

Ed McRae, Vocalist, Your Demise
“Yeah that was me! I was in severe pain with blisters the size of golf balls coming out my legs. I missed Sick Of It All to sit in there in the medical area watching some kid pretty much die. I have eaten a Pot Noodle since to be honest, I actually ate a raw pot noodle instead of cooking it once!”

Darren Taylor, Editor, Rock Sound
“I was at Ozzfest when they held it at Milton Keynes bowl. I was a little tipsy (well, a lot). I went back stage and was taking a well-deserved leak (you know, one of those ones that are like Niagara Falls). Anyway, a geezer sidles up next to me and begins to do the same. Obviously, we don't make eye contact - that's not the kind of thing men do. But I decide to strike up a conversation that went something like this:
Me: So, you having a fun day...
Him: Grrrrr...
Me: So, who you here to see?
Him: I'm in one of the bands...
Me: Oh, yeah... Which one?
This is when the penny drops... I turn my head and it's only fucking Kerry King stood next me. I made for the exit quick sharp.

Jordan Spiers, Vocalist, Flood Of Red
“As soon as I knew we were playing Download for the second time I knew we were going to have one of the best weekends of 2009. It was an awesome surprise and it’s going to be an even more awesome show for all of us in the lead up to the release of ‘Leaving Everything Behind’, our first record.”


Danny Felice, Guitar, Breed77
“2004 was a magical year for Breed 77 as we playe Download but and I met Dimebag Darrel who had been my guitar hero for ages. I remember being in the backstage area when we heard a commotion, I looked outside our portacabin and we could see bottles, chairs and assorted stuff flying from the dressing room window opposite to us. To my amazment Vinnie Paul came out through the door followed by Dimebag carring a bottle of Jack. As I was on the opposite side I said hi, Dimebag said hi and then offered me some Jack, which I accepted and ended up having a chat with the man himself!”

Joe Staszkiewicz, Vocalist, Swound!
“A few years ago, we watched System of a Down on the main stage at Reading. The four of us spent the whole set down in the pit mixing it up with all the hard people who had taken their tops off. There were circle pits, walls of death, piggy back fights and at one point Rowan began dancing like a chicken and everybody around copied him. There was something very tribal about it.

I was going through a Hulk Hogan phase and had tried to grow a handle bar moustache. On reflection, it was crap and you couldn’t really tell, but the System of a Down dust stuck in it and made me look totally manly. I walked past women and flexed my muscles until it was time to go home at which point I threw up because I’d inhaled so much dry mud. We all had black snot and were coughing up this gross sandpaper smoothie. Tom spent the whole journey buzzing off the thought of ice cream to sooth his throat. He had a Ben and Jerrys from a service station, went on about it for a few hours, then spent the next four weeks with a chest infection. Good times.”



For part two of the feature click here.

Andrew Kelham