WALES is allowing up to 10,000 people to attend outdoor gigs from Monday. But could you survive the weather and drinking of a Welsh music festival?
12.30pm-2pm
You arrive at a wet, muddy field near Abergavenny worried you’re a day late because the site is already a quagmire and the crowd is roaring drunk. No. This is Wales. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci are performing. You sink a pint of Brains.
2pm-4.30pm
The mist hardens into drizzle as a Mexican wave, but violent, sweeps the arena leaving you bleeding and leaning on a Bara Brith cake stall, whose owner suggests you ‘f**k off home’. Super Furry Animals are playing a Welsh language set.
4.30pm-7pm
The drizzle hardens into rain as the support stage, which was hosting a DJ set by Cerys Matthews, sinks into the mire along with 3,000 cheering Welshmen waving flags. The mud closes over them without a ripple and nobody is concerned. The Stereophonics are on the main stage and seem angry about it.
7pm-9.30pm
The rain hardens into sleet. The mosh pit has become the toilets, and an impromptu rugby match is being played. A druid lurks on the fringes screaming colourful abuse. You sink a 10th pint of Brains. The Manic Street Preachers are performing their most radically left-wing material, to please the crowd.
9.30pm-11.30pm
The sleet hardens into freezing summer hail. Tom Jones takes the stage, aged 80, and prefaces ‘It’s Not Unusual’ with a rant about the English and how ‘we will kick shit out of them’ at the Euros. He adds ‘That fella’s English, he’s only had 15 pints of Brains’ as a spotlight singles you out. You run for your life and vow to only go to fey English festivals where Florence and the Machine are playing and the stalls sell dreamcatchers.
