this is the one where we decided to surprise the band by showing up without telling them we were going - best idea ever! main square festival is in the centre of arras, about half an hour out of lille. amazingly, you can get the megabus to lille in around 5-6 hours for about £20, which was perfect. we left my flat at around 8:30 so we could be at the coach station in plenty of time to check in and pick up some food for the journey but halfway to the tube station marnie realises she's forgot her glasses. so off i run back to the flat, back up four flights of stairs and hope one of my flatmates got my message about letting me back in (i was key-less). thankfully they did, and off we went again.
i always forget how long it takes to get from my flat to various parts of london as i haven't been here very long and i'm still getting used to the commuting times, so we end up being really early. better that than late though! we sit for a while before hunger kicks in, and thankfully they've seen the sense to open up a sainsburys over the road from the coach station now. i picked us up some breakfast and snacks for the bus and when i got back the departure information for our coach had been put up so we went to wait by our gate. check in eventually opened, we got ourselves checked in and went to settle down in a seat for the next 45 minutes or so. apart from my stomach interrupting us and deciding i needed to go empty the contents of it, it was fairly uneventful.
our coach seemed to be full of absolute imbeciles but aside from that it was pretty smooth going. we drove down to dover, caught the channel tunnel over to france and drove through to lille. we arrived at around 4:25pm, bought our train ticket to arras, grabbed mcdonalds for dinner and waited for our train. we saw so many people who were clearly heading to main square, it was quite fun making a bit of a game out of it. once we got to arras we caught a taxi to our hotel which turned out to be super cute!
we stayed in our hotel for the evening because we had to be up early to get to the festival, we had a feeling this one wouldn't be quite as laid back as st gallen. for once, we actually got a relatively normal amount of sleep!
//
8:30am we were up and ready to leave, and decided we were going to get a taxi because we had no clue where to go. we phoned for one from reception, and was told it would be 9:15 when one came. with no other choice, we sat and waited. eventually the taxi pulled up, we got in it and off we went. obviously due to the festival they had to shut off the road from the main entrance, so the taxi driver dropped us off at the end of the road and told us it was straight down. which it was, but then we got confused about where we could actually queue up. there was a member of staff on a scooter who seemed friendly enough, and he directed us to the right place to queue and told us there were already three or four people waiting, so we joined them. by around 10:30am more people started to arrive, so we spread ourselves out across the four 'lanes' with us being at the front of one of them, of course.
left: the calm before the storm | right: people!
thankfully it stayed dry most of the morning, just a few patters of rain now and again which were actually quite a welcome relief from the sun. i managed to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing time, not that it made much of a difference but it was still nice to be able to lay down in the sun!
eventually the crowd got bigger and bigger and the staff started to organise us into something of a queue. we had a man who was trying to be funny by joking that we were in the wrong queue etc which was not amusing (for us), one of my biggest pet peeves is security trying to be funny by saying things like that. you do not joke around with people who have been waiting all day! pre-gig stress is bad enough as it is without that on top. he was nice enough besides that, though.
then comes the stressful part. they're shouting at us in french saying not to run, if we run then 'bon voyage!' so as soon as they open the gates to start scanning tickets and searching bags, i'm trying not to run but my legs have a mind of their own so i end up doing some weird half run/half walk type thing. then we get stopped at another set of gates, and from here we can see a crowd building up at the other side. the campers. it honestly felt like we were about to head into battle or something. it was mentally and physically draining me, and i could see exactly where we all had to go and i was just itching to get there. after the longest ten minutes of my life, we eventually got let through. the staff and security were once again telling people not to run, but did they listen? nope. well, the first few of us did. we seemed to have a kind of silent pact that we would just speed walk as fast as we could, but then it got to a certain point and i could just hear everyone behind me starting to run, so i ran. my legs couldn't hold out though, i'm not sure why. usually i'm a pretty good sprinter, and barrier runs are usually my speciality. that being said, they're not usually on dusty rubble-stricken cobble stones... and i'm not usually up against athletic french boys. i got about halfway and my legs were about to give out but i could hear marnie telling me to run in the background and i could see the barrier filling up more and more except that one spot we were aiming for anyway - out of nowhere i seemed to gain this burst of adrenaline and i just collapsed against the barrier, some random girl tried to tell me no i can't take the space but i told her that she can dream on, that my friend is coming and she got injured. she backed off after that, i think an angry english accent might have scared her a little bit. either way, i claimed our regular spot right in front of the wolfden and dragged marnie on with me.
so yes, just a bit different from st gallen... thankfully we only had one act to stand through this time, a band called triggerfinger. now, i'd heard of them but i couldn't tell you what they looked or even sounded like. all i can say is that the lead singer looked like tom fletcher (mcfly/mcbusted) in about 20-30 years time, moustache and dance moves included, and the bass player looked like matt willis (again, mcbusted) ate all the pies. their drummer also appeared to be on something, which was highly entertaining to watch.
left: future fletcher | right: fat matt
eventually their set was over, and that meant only one thing. imagine dragons time! we've started finding ways of amusing ourselves whilst watching their crew set the stage up, a sight that's becoming very familiar to us. seeing if we can spot any differences, predicting where their gear is going to go... and of course this is the moment when we realise for sure if we picked the right spot or not.
close enough! ;)
the music started, they came on stage and the whole crowd perked up. i absolutely love those first few seconds of a show, the lights go down (or not if you're outside, but the spotlights at least come on) and the intro starts up and the energy just increases tenfold and suddenly there's adrenaline coursing through your veins - it never gets old, especially not with these guys. it was a shorter set than switzerland (about an hour) but they played brilliantly, as always. we headbanged, we scared the people around us, we jumped, we laughed and we cried. it stayed dry for their entire set, and as soon as they were off stage the heavens opened so we scarpered from the crowd and went to find shelter under some trees and grab a drink.
next up on the bill was franz ferdinand, a band i've wanted to see live for a long time but never got around to it. bloody hell, they were brilliant! we stuck around the sides and back for them, got some chips and had a dance along to them in the rain. following them we went to grab a beer and had a wander around the festival for a little bit before the black keys came on stage. again we stuck at the sides and they were another great band. i'm not all too familiar with them but i know a couple of songs and they could put on a good show! after that we decided to head back to the hotel because we were so tired (weak, i know) but we wanted to get as much rest as possible since we were heading back to london and had just over 24 hours before we were off to portugal - with a gig at hyde park thrown in there too!
franz ferdinand
the black keys
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thankfully our coach back to london wasn't until the afternoon, at 1:25pm, so off we go to get our train back to lille and grab some lunch when we get there. of course, this has all gone too smoothly up until now so our coach is obviously delayed on the way back. about 40 minutes later than scheduled, we're on board and ready to head back to london. we would've made up time on the channel tunnel, but getting back into the uk requires you to go through security. twice. before even getting on the damn channel tunnel! and, of course, someone from our coach has to get held back by security, and we leave without him. still, despite the delay we make it into london at a decent time, stress over packing for portugal and drown our sorrows in chinese food.
another wonderful trip for the boys, with a brief pause in the dragons bubble to spend the night at hyde park with our lads on tour for mcbusted, only to be resumed again the next morning.
love,
the wolfpack
xo
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