way back in december after the bournemouth show, we decided that portugal was happening. we told all the guys that we'd be there, so we had to make it happen one way or another. it ended up being the easiest to plan, and we agreed that we'd make it into a little holiday/mini-break for us. just sun, the beach and pool.
the day before we flew out, we were at mcbusted's hyde park show with our lads on tour and were staying in the hotel over in kew gardens - the other side of london to where we had to be... our flight wasn't until around 10am but we had to leave at 5am to make sure we had plenty of time to get to gatwick (a bus, a tube and a train) and print stuff out at the airport. as usual, we left ourselves with a hell of a lot of spare time so we had another posh breakfast at apostrophe - they do the most divine cinnamon swirls and their orange juice is perfection.
lovely breakfast finished, we went off to go and wander/wait for our flight. of course, there was an hour's delay. we had entertainment in the form of a girl who i'm pretty sure must have broken the world record for 'most selfies taken within 5 minutes' - her (i'm assuming) boyfriend looked absolutely done with life.
once we were on our flight, it was fine. we got a little in flight meal which was a surprisingly tasty ham and cheese sandwich, a snack and a little smoothie/juice pot thing. and free wine! when we were coming into lisbon we flew right over where we'd be staying and we saw the festival stage from above too!
we ended up landing almost on time despite the delay and caught a cab to our hotel since we had no idea about the public transport, and neither of us could speak a word of portuguese (apart from 'obrigada'). it ended up being quite a long drive, costing €30 but it wasn't too bad.
left: beautiful drive through portugal! | right: optimus alive posters!
our hotel was so nice! it was right on the river tagus where the river meets the atlantic ocean. the pool overlooked the river, and there was a cute little restaurant and terrace too. our room was more like an apartment with a huge kitchen/living area, a separate bedroom and a huge bathroom.
we went and sat by the pool for a little bit and i braved the water for a while too - first time i've been swimming in years! it felt amazing. i could get used to that kind of life. before it got dark we wanted to go find food, and ended up taking a walk up the river before coming across a cute little riverside restaurant - baia dos golfinhos - just by caxias train station.
because we were obviously tourists, we got given all the starters on the menu before we even got asked. olives and olive oil, lovely bread rolls and butter... not that we were complaining, it was super nice! and inexpensive in the grand scheme of things. we got margaritas (which were lovely, i just couldn't seem to stomach all of mine - probably lack of sleep and too much heat) and marnie ordered pasta carbonara and i got a lasagne. oh my god, best pasta ever. i know, so exotic and daring. but we made the right choice, there was just too much to be able to finish!
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the next day consisted of more pool time. we got up early to take advantage of the buffet breakfast (oh my god, the cold meats were to die for. why does continental europe do such good meat?! uk, take note please) before snagging a couple of sun loungers. we spent the majority of the day there, before heading out again to find somewhere to eat.
we walked through some ghetto parts but then came across a lovely little park with an outdoor café. we got a ham and cheese sandwich/toastie each and a plate of chips to share. one thing that upsets me about europe is that diet coke seems to be like gold dust - everywhere has coke zero but not diet coke (or coke light, as they call it) though thankfully european coke zero actually tastes nice, not like the crap we get in the uk. after our food, we got an ice cream from the little stall/van by the café and went on another wander. we walked for ages and came across some super cute beaches where i regressed into a five year old and wrote in the sand.
we eventually had to turn back and that's when we realised how far we'd walked, oops. we got a drink from a little beach shack and started our walk back to the hotel.
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another day, more pool time. we only stayed out for a little bit before getting ready and heading into lisbon to explore the city, which ended up with us getting lost in a park with a terrifying homeless man wandering around, having lunch in another little café. deciding to call it a day and head back to the hotel, we took a stroll down back to the centre of lisbon through something that seemed to be for the world cup with super loud music. we took a break because it was so warm so we sat on a bench for a little while before we saw a tour bus drive past us with a driver that looked suspiciously like imagine dragons' driver... cue a semi-wild goose chase around lisbon to see if it was actually them (it wasn't, it was later confirmed that it was the arctic monkeys) and we ended up meeting some nice people from spain who were in town for the festival too. eventually we did have to head back to the hotel, so we said our goodbyes and that we'd see them in the morning.
lisbon is beautiful. so were our passionfruit smoothie/juice drinks that were as big as our heads!
when we got back to our hotel we got room service and worked out our plan of action for the next day and scared ourselves by looking at some videos of the festival before trying to get some sleep...
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thankfully we were only a 5 minute train ride from alges, where the festival was, but we still made it later than planned. we intended to get one of the first trains at around 8am but ended up not getting a train until almost 9am. once we got to alges we made our way to the festival site and there wasn't really much of a queue system going on, most people were just kind of sat around in groups, so we went and sat in some shade. a short while later the people we met the day before came along so we went to sit with them, and then someone came to tell us we needed to join the queue because they'd been there since 2 the day before... (okay, i'm not going to judge because i've done much worse for concerts, but when it comes to a festival there is absolutely no need for that? i don't know man, each to their own i guess!) so we end up joining the 'queue' by claiming a spot at the front of this gathered bunch of people. we made some more friends in the queue, who all seemed to be there for the arctic monkeys. thankfully someone had a parasol, so we could catch a little bit of relief from the sun. i'm telling you now i don't think i've ever been as hot in my life.
we decided to go on a quick mcdonalds trip to get a drink and go to the toilet before going into the festival, and on our way back what do we find? that the whole crowd has been moved up into a completely unorganised shambles by the gates to go in and we've lost the people we made friends with. fantastic. we've been sat in the sun all morning and now we've lost our place. but it's okay, because me being me i weaselled my way through the crowd and got to a pretty good spot and i think a few people must have recognised us from being in the queue because they didn't protest, so that's good. there was a girl beside us in the queue who was from italy who had also come for imagine dragons which was nice. the stewards started passing out water and some girls came out with sun cream too.
eventually the first set of gates opened and oh my god, nothing prepared me for it. there was no hesitation, people just lurched forward but i managed to get through pretty quickly and was 4th in line at one of the bag searching lanes. i got through fairly quickly as i only had my bumbag, and marnie was close behind too. then we got stopped at gates further in to get our tickets scanned, and neither mine nor marnie's scanned but the staff could see we were panicking and just took them off us and let us through. thank god! one good thing is that there didn't seem to be too many people coming up behind us so i think they were staggering the entry a little bit, which worked out really well for us.
the actual barrier run after that though, oh my gosh. so there was a 'T' shaped barrier meaning a split down the middle - obviously we have our spot on the left hand side of the stage but as you come into the arena you're faced with the righthand side of the stage so it all seemed to be filling up there and it felt like me and marnie were the only ones running for the other side - yay! thankfully this run was on solid concrete which made it a lot easier than main square festival with it's grit and cobble stones, and when i got round to the barrier there was a bit of space left just in front of our regular spot so i grabbed it (much to the dismay of the girl next to me, sorry honey. you don't need five people's worth of space for yourself!) and we ended up being next to a couple of the girls we'd met too!
left: queueing! | middle: happy barrier faces :) | right: the usual spot (ft. big ass speaker)
i have one thing i want to say right here. festival photographers - why so many and why so aggressive? i say this because with any luck i'll be a professional music photographer one day, but any gigs i've photographed in the past i have always been respectful of the audience. at the end of the day the crowd have paid to see the bands and the music - not the back of some photographer's head. i had so much trouble seeing the bands on stage for those first few songs when the press are allowed to take photos. i just thought it was very inconsiderate, i always try and keep as low as possible so i don't ruin it for the audience. also, what's up with optimus alive not giving out water to the crowd? they expected us to leave the crowd and pay for a bottle of water and manage to get back to our spot - if you're not going to let people bring their own bottles in then you need to provide it for free. we got given a couple of bottles but we had to really, really complain to get them! disgraceful. anyway, moving on...
first up we got to watch ben howard. he's an artist i've always wanted to see live but never really wanted to pay to see him specifically - until now. he was brilliant, and i will definitely be going to see him again when he tours!
next up, the lumineers. they're another one of those bands i've always wanted to see live but could never quite get around to doing so. they were great too! they did this awesome thing where they all came out into random parts of the crowd. they were literally sat in the crowd, up on the lighting rigs, right in front of us in the pit... it was insane! such a good, tight band. definitely will be making the effort to see them again.
after the lumineers it was time for our boys! we warned the girls next to us that we don't hold back, and i don't think anything could quite prepare them for what they were about to witness. i don't think anyone ever really takes us seriously because we're 'just girls'. ha! annoyingly, the big speaker in front of us obstructed our view a bit but it didn't really bother us in the end.
during hear me, the photographers went crazy with us. they were stood in front of us for the whole song just taking photos of us, it was equally hilarious and weird, but in case you ever wondered what we look like at an imagine dragons show, here you go.
when it came to their cover song, we were expecting with or without you or something. nope, they pulled out song 2. i love them but i hate them. it's like they were conspiring against us.
they actually had an onstage discussion about it...
ahh they played so well, the energy was ridiculous. dan came right down to the crowd and ran down the split in the barrier during on top of the world and the whole place was just electric. it was another short set of about an hour but it's up there with my favourites!
i hate that the first one is so blurry but these guys are just so cute!
once their set was over we left the crowd (with great difficulty, apparently people think it's cool to sit down in the middle of a main stage festival crowd) and managed to get ourselves a drink. we had a wander around the festival whilst interpol were playing. we got the greatest kebab known to mankind, and then a massive churro with nutella. heaven. we ventured over to the clubbing tent but there wasn't much going on, it was so empty because everyone was getting ready to see the arctic monkeys. we tried to stick around for the arctic monkeys but honestly, i wasn't all that impressed. i actively like a few of their songs but we couldn't be bothered standing around for a two hour set just to hear two or three songs that would no doubt be played at the end of the show so we headed back to the hotel a few songs in. that ended up being for the best though because we had an awful lot of packing to do before we had to get up at 4am to be at the airport for 6:30!
and that's all for portugal, tune in next time for our t in the park adventure! and the flight from hell...
love,
the wolfpack
xo
