summer festival: t in the park

One of the things I wanted to do while living over here was go to a music festival. T in the Park might not be the biggest or considered the best, but it was definitely the most convenient! Luckily it also ended up being pretty sweet.

I feel like some of our experience should be a guide on what NOT to do at T in the Park, but it's always the ridiculous things that make it in the end.

So here is the T in the Park Adventure according to Sonja, Sophie, Danny and Tom, with a guest appearance by the Bolton Crew.

Firstly, if you don't want to carry a whole lot of extra booze then you should probably do Be Chilled, where you can pick it up at the campsite. Having said that, once you've carried it all in once (in our case all the way across the venue and back again...) and set up camp it's nice to just have it all there and not have to line up to collect it each day.

Just some of the huge amount of stuff we bought to take

Warzone lounge

Secondly, I want to say don't take a GIANT tent for 4 people, but at the same time it was a source of so many jokes and actually did come in handy when it rained, so it cant really be regretted. 

The problem with having such a monstrosity for a tent comes when you leave Edinburgh a little later than you probably should have and end up walking around trying to find a gap huge enough to fit the thing. When that fails though, just set it up basically on top of other people's tents!

Tom and Danny with the giant tent between them

Me with a whoooole lotta stuff

All those little black dots are seagulls circling!

Friday turned out to be a scorcher of a day, so after trudging around the whole of the T in the Park site looking for a campsite (a positive way to put this would be, exploring the layout) we set up and started having some drinks in the sun.

Sophie and I at the entrance

The giantness only half set up...

There was quite a line up I wanted to see and I already knew there were some clashes so it was a balancing act to see who I really wanted to, while enjoying it and not feeling rushed around!

We started off with Chvrches who I like generally but just found ok. Imagine Dragons on the other hand was a lot of fun, especially Radioactive and their mini version of 500 miles! Can't go past that at a Scottish music festival...

And so it begins

Sophie and my finger

Perfect skies! With more seagulls circling...

Next up was one of my definite highlights, Ed Sheeran. I could have used a million times more than the set time he had but what he played was awesome. It was a good mix of old and new stuff and makes me really want to try and make it back for his concert I have tickets for in Newcastle in October! 

After that there wasn't too much to see until I unfortunately realised I could have gone and caught the last 15 minutes of the Manic Street Preachers, just too late!

Sophie and I in the arena

My boyfriend on stage

Sophie on Danny's shoulders

My first time on shoulders at a festival!

You'd think we were in the US

Photobombed

Favourite

Biffy Clyro were the headliners for the Friday night and while I know more of their songs than I thought I did I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan. For people who know and like them this was a highlight, but for me after watching about half the set I was done with it, so headed back to the campsite.

Saturday dawned with little sleep the night before. In part due to some knobs who decided to play their crap music on repeat all night and partly because it's hard to get comfortable with less than a centimeter of foam separating you from the ground. Ouch. Must bring a lilo in future.

We found some food that made us feel slightly more alive, and visited friends at another campsite before the rain set in and we could make use of the living room in our tent! Even after inviting our neighbours, the Boltons, around with their blow up couch and setting our other 7 other chairs up inside there was enough space that we could have started charging people for shelter.

I popped down to see one of the bands I had so been looking forward to, Rudimental, and they didn't disappoint. I could definitely have used a longer set from them as well which seems to be the theme for the weekend!

Next up was satisfying another goal for the weekend, going on the Giant Wheel! I dragged Tom down and we went up as Pharrell was playing, which was awesome.

Awesome set by Rudimental

Pharrell from the Big Wheel - a bit blurry!

Nearer the top with our campsite in the background

Tom disliked the Big Wheel...

For some reason I decided it was a good idea to ditch my poncho at the tent before heading out for the headliner for Saturday, Calvin Harris. I like all of his songs, but wasn't expecting it to be the epic experience it was. This is what I imagined when I thought of going to a music festival over here.

I ended up being by myself having lost everyone, but it didn't matter. Biggest unexpected moment of the weekend, Will Smith came out to introduce Calvin! At this point my phone had just died so no photos of this epic experience. Calvin Harris played all his best songs and it poured with rain but it didn't matter because I had the best time. A guy behind me let me go on his shoulders for Florence's Sweet Nothing and as I pushed my hands against the rain pouring down through the lights streaking across the sky and screamed out the lyrics I thought I pretty much could have died happy then.

Setting up for Calvin just before my phone died

Afterwards getting stuck in the bottle neck back to the campsite so soaked I might as well have been swimming in my clothes wasn't so fun but it was still 100% worth it. I got back to the campsite and raved on and on for the remainder of the festival about how amazing it was, which got old pretty fast I think...

The big wheel at sunset on the Friday

Sunday I definitely had trouble getting started, but after two diet cokes and a red bull I managed to feel slightly more normal. I'm not sure I even spoke most of the morning! Except for when a bird shat right in the middle of our circle of chairs we had set up in between our tent and the Boltons, missing all of us except for Danny's hat. That was worth commenting on.

Friday flashback photo... Tennents at T!

Our drinking spot on the Friday before it got a bit squished and we added the Boltons

Naaaaaw

I hadn't really thought there was much I wanted to see Sunday but it ended up being a pretty good lineup.

Sam Smith put on an awesome show, and turns out I know much more of his music than I thought too!

We went to Bastille after and I was a bit disappointed they weren't as good as when I saw them back in February in a smaller setting. Tinie Tempah on the other hand put on a really fun show before we saw the Arctic Monkeys to finish off.

Monday morning saw us dying on the bus to Edinburgh by 7.20am and I was back in work that afternoon because I'm a crazy person.

All in all a great weekend though with lots of ridiculous jokes and funny occurrences....

Hollow ball of meat filled with egg anyone?

x