Everyone who knows me knows that I am crazy about The Libertines. I've seen Peter, Carl 3 times, Babyshambles and BST was the first chance I've had to see The Libertines live together on stage. I was so excited, it was meant to be a great day.
When we arrived, we went to see Darlia who were pretty good. Then we watched The Enemy for a bit, a bit boring. After that, we had planned to see the likes of Wolf Alice and Swim Deep. But, the stages they were on were FAR too small. I have never been to a festival where there are literally queues of people trying to get into a stage. Quite frankly, there were just too many people at the event.
So we decided to sit by the main stage and wait for The Libertines. They were, after all, the reason we were there. In the mean time, we saw Maximo Park (average at best), Spritualised (boring as hell) and The Pogues (really good.) We were near the front of the crowd, where I usually head to at gigs. I've never had a problem before but, just my luck that on the day of seeing my favourite band live for the first time, everything goes wrong.
There was a lot of pushing and shoving going on which is always inevitable. But, this was on a whole other scale. The band stopped playing half way through their first song to tell the crowd to calm down and move back. The crowd ignored this. They stopped again as I was being pulled out the crowd. I had been pushed over and had about 15 people land on top of me. I'd been punched in the stomach earlier as well. I then proceeded to have a panic attack. I was sent away, along with other injured people, without any care or help. It was a shambles. I even saw a girl who had clearly taken too many drugs... her eyes were wide open but she couldn't move. It was scary.
Once my panic attack subsided, I stood near the back and watched a couple more songs. We soon had to leave though because it seemed that everywhere we went there were fights breaking out. So why so much chaos? Well, there were far too many people there which was obvious from the queues outside smaller stages. Unfortunately, The Libertines seem to have attracted a following of people who go to gigs to cause trouble. There seemed to be people there just to take drugs and get drunk rather than for the music. If only there was a way to make sure ticket buyers actually cared about the music!
Basically, the music was as great as I expected and I'm glad I saw them, albeit briefly. Maybe I shouldn't have been at the front of the crowd but I have never ever had a problem before. I have never ever seen anything like this chaos. I now have tickets for their show at the Ally Pally in September, hopefully that will be a bit nicer with less people.
And everyone: remember that you do not have to be violent, drunk, high or act like a dickhead at gigs in order to get a good view/have a good time. Watch out for fellow crowd members! We've all paid to be there and have a good time, it's only fair we all get to.
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