‘The fucking gauze was in there the whole time!’ I laughed to myself whilst sat on a rock on the shore of the lake. I’d just spent a further 40 minutes trying to track down another stall to sell me a sheet for my pipe after I assumed I lost it whilst fucked along with the second pack of fags in the space of a few hours. To be fair to myself I had spent the day drinking, and the evening shoveling trips and pills inside of me. ‘fuck it’ I thought, just bang the lot. I perched myself onto a rock a few yards from the shore of the lake; aurora borealis was lighting the skies to my left with colours of violet, mixture of greens pale and dark, whilst the weight of full moon had projected a pyramid of milky fire down the middle of the lake that dominated the center of the festival. I fired up the pipe and inhaled a lung full, held the distinct bitterness of Changa in my lungs for as long as I could then had another hefty huff before right before my eyes the horizon split and I could vividly see into a separate dimension of Aztec goddesses, spinning in sequences with each other. Colours of gold, turquoise and jade. Their hypnotic ballet continued for what seemed like hours. The moon conducting the ancient goddesses dance like some all powerful puppeteer. The dance then shifted to purple, siloutted faces of beautiful women spinning like a kaleidoscope, kissing each other with every repetition they took. I held my gaze into this captivating dimension for as long as I could. So long in fact that I had forgotten to blink and I realised that streams of tears were running downing my face. As the window started to close I lay my head of the rock enjoying the feeling of bliss and euphoria. In the distance to my left I could hear the faint pound of kick drums coming from the main stage. To the right of me I could here the moans of pleasure from hippies shagging on the beach just yonder the rocks from where I lay. I rested a bit more, breathing sighs of bliss for a bit more until I heard the courting hippy cum yards away from me. I was too fucked to get a hard on so pleasuring myself to the erotic orchestra was out of the question. Instead I thought Id make my way back to the tent. Stick a jumper on, find a spot in the theatre and watch a film or something. On that walk I gazed at the detail of the face of the full moon and was hypnotised by the speed with which it descended behind the mountains. Just as it was about to disappear beyond the horizon I looked over my shoulder and saw the shadows of the earth behind me turn to light, and I could see the sun rise from the parallel hills beyond that, then as the moon disappeared and the night turned into day, an almighty howl erupted out from the festival. I thought it be rude not to join them. It was beautiful….
I started to realise as summer hit its peak that life for me had grounded to a very unwelcome holt. Prospects had become baron, work was paying little, my weekends had become nothing more then depraved drug nights with the same mates and my creative juices had all but dried up. Sex life has become so stagnant and elusive that it only appears once a week a year when my mate from Canada comes to visit and positivity for the future was hard to grasp. The boiling point however came when my non existent love life was put into perspective by a ‘date’ with a very lovely and absolutely gorgeous yet spoken for young lady at the cinema some weeks ago – that experience was the closest thing I had to taste love since… well since I could remember. I realised I had been pissed off for a while now. I needed a get away. I needed a festival. Glastonbury didn’t happen for me this year, and as far as I’m concerned Boomtown has nothing more to offer me and nearly every other festival is either of no interest or none of my mates are up for it. My more seasoned and more travelled festival comrades had told me BOOM was the best festival they’d been too. I couldn’t turn that opportunity down. As the year went on I progressively booked flights and tickets. A ticket at the 2nd phase cost a mere 120 Euros for the week and a flight set me back just under 150 quid return from Madrid. I missed the BOOM bus from the airport and managed to get a place on some Del boy chancers coach. It was only 60 euro to get their, but considering I landed in Madrid at midday and it wasn’t until nearly 6pm that we headed off, the whole thing was bordering on an ordeal.
I was mostly silent on the bus, I was also the only Englishman, every other nationality ranged from Polish, Hungarian, Belgian, Israeli, German, Dutch, French, Swedish and Finnish, and most of them were all in groups. Aside from a cute looking Polish girl, who I was going to sit next too until a swarve and friendly Frenchman beat me to it. So I sat alone, dozed, listened to music, read a little bit but most of all I listened in absolute awe to how the entire bus of probably over half a dozen nationalities spoke absolutely impeccable English to one another; about their different cultures, their jobs and studies, the politics of their countries. Whenever I was asked a question by one of them, they couldn’t really understand my fast-talking, cockney slang. This became a bit of a theme as the week went on.
I finally arrived at the festival for around midnight. Sam came to meet me and carried my bags to our camping spot. Chris was already steaming pissed, I was knackered but was up for a quick look at the festival. I attempted to put my tent together in the dark, but I was tired, drunk and had never put that kind of tent up before, so I just slept on top of it, woke up early the next day and had a proper look around the festival site. The impressive décor of the stages, the beauty of the gardens of the healing fields, the sheer length of the site itself which seemed to just go on and on. The festival is held in a beautiful nature reserve in the middle of nowhere in an area called Idanha-A-Nova. A gorgeous woodland and mountains punctuated by a huge lake in its centre.
On the first day I was offered my first tab of acid – 10 euro that I felt weren’t too cheap but this seemed to be the going rate now we was across the border. I shoved the piece of paper between my gums and the charming foreigner who just sold me it uttered some facts about the strength and logo of the tab. ‘No idea about that mate, will tell you in an hour if it works or so’ I could care less about these series of letters and numbers that follow the strength of psychedelics. It’s either strong, well strong or a dud.
I roamed around with Dan for a few hours meeting some of his mates, until this trip started to kick in and I decided to go for a stroll. I walked from the campervan site from the top of the site and stumbled down what appeared to be a baron alien landscape all the way to the shore of the lake, where I discovered one of the biggest attractions of the entire festival, and that is of course the women!
I could easily write an entire blog and even a book on the range of glorious birds that frequent BOOM festival. Whilst tripping my ring and walking across the beach I was constantly stopping to admire the absolutely beauty of the Goddesses roaming the shores. There was several that would emerge from the sea, one of which seemed to be a Scandinavian bird with a blonde, shaved head, incredible curves, topless with a winning smile on her chops. I stared at her for a few minutes before saying out loud – What planet are you from? This was a recurrence for the entire week. So much so that I decided to buy a pair of shades so I could linger my gaze for a few minutes longer on these absolute beauties that roamed the festival site. Which made me think – how long can a man stare at a bird before it defeats the compliment of appreciation and just becomes a lecherous stare? I spent the majority of the weekend staring at the birds for ages. 9 out of 10 of them were absolutely beautiful, and when I smiled at them to show my appreciation for their beauty nearly all of them gave me a beautiful & welcoming smile back.
Also on this trip I had one of them magic moments that will stick with me for a while. Whilst bird watching I walked past these two exotic looking ladies; skull cut dreadlocked hair, huge tunnels in their ears, piercings everywhere, tattoos all over themselves, gorgeous olive skin – talking with the accent of a northern region I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It weren’t quite scouse, weren’t quite Manchester… may have been Leeds if I was to hazard a guess…. It was neither. The girls then broke back into speaking Hebrew and were just doing impressions of English women. At the time I thought it was one of the best things Id ever seen.
For a good few hours I explored the festival grounds tripping total balls. The colours were a fine day-glow, the décor was glowing and inviting, and like I said the women were over worldly. The whole site was glimmering with this sparkle, the kind you see when you look over the sea on a hot summers day and the sunlight bounces off the water. After nearly an hours walk it became quite apparent that all I could focus on was finding shade and drinking water. So I bundled myself under a tree for shade. I became self conscious that I was the most English looking man at the festival, dressed in my Chelsea shirt, England bucket hat and Doc Marten boots. I sat under the tree breathing heavily sipping water as quickly as I could. I stared at the chap next to me who was clearly also English – Hot init! Is all he could say to me. I acknowledge him with a ‘yea!’ Whilst strolling the beach in the 30 odd degree heat it dawned on me that I should probably pace myself. I had almost a week of this to go, would be wise to hold off for a while and maybe have a few relaxing ones in the shade.
I returned to my tent to see Chris had found his way back to camp and stuck his tent up. I also met some of our neighbours, a sweet and charming Polish couple. Couldn’t have been older then 21 if they were that. Clearly new to festivals and drugs, impeccable English like every other European there and very polite and well spoken. We decided to go for an afternoon swim. A ritual which became a daily routine.
That night me and Sam decided we’d test drive these Gary’s he’d got hold of and was shifting as a form of currency. Super Nintendo’s they were called. Multi coloured littl’ens with different Super Mario style symbols on them. Spicy bangers they were too, smooth come up, nice and rushy and no crash with a delightful bit of visual when they’d start to wear off. We roamed the festival all night talking about life, love and the frustrations that come with it… However after every 3 sentences each conversation would end with -…. What the fuck were we talking about again?
Again the next morning Chris never made it back to camp and got his head down in a neighbouring café. Sam hadn’t been to bed and was in the midst of one of his many Rock star benders he was to embark on that week. Chris was desperate to find shade, and was in hysterics at the predicament he’d found himself in thinking it was a good idea to drop ‘cid in 35 degree heat. We spent the entire Wednesday sat in shade necking lagers. Another day in paradise. Over a dozen beers in we all noticed none of us had actually been for a piss yet. Couldn’t have been a good thing. But we had a jolly none the less. Come about 6pm I decided to continue my routine of having a pervy walk across the shore of the lake to stare at the endless abundance of gorgeous women. One trio that stood out on this particular stroll was some birds I believed to be from the Netherlands. Cheerfully stripping off every item of clothing before running and frolicking into the water, splashing each other as they went.
That night I was so drunk I thought I’d get an early night. The queue’s for the food lines were pissing me off – which ended up being the one down side of the whole festival. It seemed as if they had over sold the festival, or atleast not taken into account just how many people 40,000 was. I heard previous years knocked about 30,000 or so. This time round you couldn’t get a beer, a bite to eat or take a piss without having to queue for at least 10 minutes. On the Saturday I waited for over 4 hours to withdraws some dosh from the bank. Say what you like about the capitalist mentality of UK festivals. But at least we withdraw our money quick and our food and drink served imminently.
I didn’t sleep on Thursday for some reason. At one point we was at the sacred fire, chatting with some cool new friends from Nottingham listening to a set of music consisting of afro-beat, psychedelic rock, world, funk and other genres I couldn’t even put a name too. We bought some delicious hash truffles off a bird with a chicken on her head, then I reminded Chris of a talk I wanted to take in at the theatre area.
Wide Open Women it was called and consisted of three cunt lovers answering questions and just chatting about sexuality – one came from a background who’s mother was afraid of sex and who specialised in the magic and sacred ritual of sex. Another was a gorgeous Portugesse bird dressed in a transparent white dress with fuck all underneath. The third was an Irish bird who seemed to be obsessed with her cunt, and even ran craft workshops on making fabric cunts.
The talk was actually pretty interesting and to be honest I actually agreed with a lot of what the ladies were saying, despite it being all long drawn out hippy rhetoric. Which is where I differ from these particular views on sex. Where as the ladies in question were constantly going on about the power and enlightenment and the goddess like embodiment that they received whilst having sex, and how shagging was the most powerful ability we as humans had seeing as it is what we can do to create new life. All fair points, but I just love doing it because its lots of fun. I’ve never been one to saving myself to fucking someone because I fell this all powerful, almighty connection with them. If we get on in such a way the likelihood is I’d love to fuck you and from nearly ever previous experience it always ends up being a right laugh. As long you both have it in agreement what the arrangement is of course.
When it came to the question and answers section I nodded along enthusiastically to a Psy-tran who identified as well as practiced sex with both men and women and asked the panels opinion on the glorious sex act that is pegging. ‘it’s a powerful form of shape shifting’ said one lady, ‘a way of the male to feel the power of the goddess as he is penetrated and for the female to feel the strength of the male’ said another…. I just love it because it’s filthy as fuck I said to absolutely no one.
Then there was a very touching monologue from a devotchka from New Deli who said that it was her first time out of India and that at this festival she felt the safest she had felt in her 36 years of life, considering that in her country she is constantly having to punch geezers who leer and letch at her in the street and it really worries her husband when she goes out at night. She then went on to tell the audience how she couldn’t see much reason for clothes and for the first time she finally felt safe enough to strip off naked in public – to which the whole crowd cheered and even your humble narrator nearly shed tears at the moving speech from this brave bit of brass.
One of the cuntlovers then commented on this and made the point that yes, beautiful young women were free to dance topless and even naked on the dance floor without leering looks or creepy bastards leaching at them. Even when I wanted to go for a skinny dip I could do it with the ease that no one was going to take offence to my pasty out of proportion body, and this added to the unique vibe of BOOM.
After not getting a wink of sleep on Thursday night we decided to take it easy a bit. Lay on the beach for a bit, get some food in us, maybe stay clear of the drugs. Enjoy another day in paradise. Plus we was saving ourselves for the Saturday night. When the full moon was out and all the hippies go crazy. I booked myself in for a massage early in the morning. Unfortunately they didn’t have the therapeutic one I wanted and I couldn’t be booked in till 11pm that evening. I never made it that far awake. Whilst down at the healing tipi though I did hear the sound of skin being slapped and loud grunting, I looked up at the hut to spy a couple shagging in one of the little cubicles. I watched for a little bit, chuckle to myself then went for my routine pervy stroll of the beach. One of my main highlights of this stroll was 3 absolute stunning, Scandinavian hippy types getting twat out one by one then skipping into the sea giggiling. There was also another occasion when we was sat next to a party of ludicrously gorgeous naked German friends, when came along 3 more even more tasty of their completely naked friends, who lay down in a row just yards infront of where I was enjoying my beer and joint.
Come Saturday we continued our routine of a bit of grub down at the food court, few beers, dip in the lake – try to avoid swimming into shagging couples, stock up on the seemingly endless supply of drugs then prepare for the evening. We all managed to meet at the Sacred Fire stage for Highlight Tribe. A fusion of live trance, vocals, bass, didgeridoo and a whole load of other instruments I couldn’t quite make out. The stage for rammed, and I noticed that not only were we surrounded by a sea of beautiful topless men and women with smiles on their face, all of them had amazing rhythm and in turn made all of them sexy. I was starting to come up on the two drops of acid I’d had earlier in the day and stocked up on pills for later in the evening. I wondered off to get some juice for my duty free rum I was yet to crack into, let Chris get a bit of sleep then headed out on my own for an stroll on my own.
My first stop was a stumble around the Visionary Art Museum, which was a fantastic exhibit of a range psychedelic art. There was a couple of Alex Grey’s, most notably his portrait of the Shulgins, and quite a few Android Jones pieces – who also designed most of the décor for the festival itself. From there I stumbled over to ‘White Rabbit Road’ A beautiful garden and sculpture area, filled with a variation of kinetic pieces ranging from human lungs, scary skeleton and other pieces of the anatomy that moved, swerved, breathed and astounded. Whilst on my stroll I stopped to smile at a group of naked, European friends all covered in mud, clearly tripping gazing intently and chuckling at all the different sculptures – Should we go and build a spliff amigo’s? I heard one of them say. – Yes! But first lets find some clothes eh?… Really made me laugh.
My whole tour of the art of the festival was very pleasantly sound tracked by what sounded like a live lounge Jazz band coming from the chill out stage. The melodies were so damn smooth belting out of those Funktion 1’s that I was enticed over to the stage itself. Unfortunately I arrived just as the band were finishing, and all I could see in the chill out through the smog of DMT, Changa and spliff smoke was a sea of bodies in the foetal position. So I moved on back to the sacred fire, where the fantastic Wild Marmalade were playing another live dub band with a use of instruments I cant even be bothered to list.
By this point I was pissed, pilling, stoned, tripping – candy flipping. I started to reflect on al the lovely people I had met during the week and all the people I missed back home. I wished my favourite festival companion Michele was here to enjoy it with me and I wished my darling Dierdre was here to be able to talk something profound whilst we were tripping. I met a few loons at BOOM, but that’s expected from a psy festival. One geezer from Montreal claimed that when he came to BOOM in 08 he came as a paraplegic and left the festival running. He also claimed to have tens of thousands of drugs seized by customs, and that once he pressed 3 million pills of the finest mix ever made. But what did disturb me on this wasted night of reflection was when I thought back to the previous morning. When I sat and humoured the Devil….
Morning had well and truly broken and Paya, Chris and myself were sat in the food court keeping shade from the heat of the morning sun. When a tall figure with a suspicious smile came and sat with us. Paya recognised as a man he had bought speed from the night previous. He had a smug sense of pride about him and had a greedy smile smeared across his swollen mush, handed me it’s business card. This demon was a décor collector and traded for psy parties – I’ve just sold an entire bottle of medical grade nos at the main stage. Each bottle contains nearly a thousand balloons and I’ve been selling them for 4 euro a balloon so as you can imagine I’m a happy man. It bragged. The demon then went on to tell us of his home life. He was a banker for JP Morgan and had an arsenal of drugs for sale. 2cb, LSD, Speed, MDMA, Pills, Weed, Hash, DMT, Changa and my own personal favourite and foe who I thought I left in Britain… Jonny (Mephadrone) it was too early in the morning to resist Jonny’s allure so I slipped the demon 20 euro and it continued to bleat.
‘I’ve been in the psy scene since the early 90’s. Psy-trance is my religion!’ it declared. Then without even asking our opinion of why it started to spit more drivel of mainly unproven scientific facts about how the world was a hologram and how he had this enlightenment during a changa trip. – I have a degree in astrophysics… so I know what im talking about. The demon spat, again with that unsettling grin on his face. His eyes still covered by those shades. Then without us getting a word in edge ways he continued to preach his evil cult. Name dropping other acolytes of the psy scene who we had no idea of. – What are you doing at BOOM if you’ve never heard of (insert name here)?
It spoke nothing but itself for the hour we sat there. The whole time I sat with my eyebrows raised not really acknowledging that I was sat with the scum of the earth, a human embodiment of everything that is wrong with society and one of the demons that is actually in the position of power to keep everything unfair and fucked. It carried on talking only about itself and its own achievements. it’s ego so over empowering I had to get away. I lost that gram of Jonny after snorting just 2 lines of it…. On reflection I consider that divine intervention from my own God. I am certain that the animal disguised as a man who sat with us that morning was satan himself. A greedy, money driven, smug banker who ripped off hippies and organised psy trance parties with the only intention to make money…. It all made sense.
I grew angry with myself in my drunken, pilled up, rowdy and pissed thoughts. I should of tracked down this demons camp. Crow-bared opened its campervan, ran a Stanley knife against its throat, strangled its wife so her cunt couldn’t spawn any more of its offspring and made and orphan of his daughter and traumatised her for life. So instead of leading a path of greed, gluton and self importance she would have ended up being just another lady of the night, gumming off scum like me for a score of gear. Society needs no more of either of them things. But mankind could cope with at least one more of one of them…. Luckily after being plagued by these thoughts for a few minutes I was distracted by a cute polish girl, dancing adorably. I tried to chat to her for a little bit. But her response was – Your English… it is too much brbrbrbrbrbrbrrb for me.
I ended the night with a valium that I bought off a posh German guy smoking a pipe, I woke up in a café at midday being serenaded by a man singing in Portuguese on an acoustic guitar… It was actually really lovely.
Sunday was spent reflecting and chatting about the amazing week we’d just spent in paradise. The hippy rituals we experienced mainly. My personal favourites included a large pagan, chanting, drum circle which me and Chris got slightly involved with. Another was a huge 2000 person areal photo that made out a huge goddesses surrounded by a circle of men. The process was actually really arduous but the ceremony ended with the entire crowd gathering in the centre in a huge group hug, hand waving cheer and chant of ‘we are one – we are love’ – I look forward to seeing the end product.
I didn’t manage to pull at the festival because as you’ve probably guessed by now, nearly all the women were unapproachably beautiful. Although they were all lovely and chatty, the language barrier ended up being an issue. It’s very hard to turn on the wit and charm when you’re having to talk slowly and clearly. Personally I started to realise just how fast and how much bollocks my vocabulary is punctuated with. Also when gauping at this buffet of fanny you start to think ‘where are all the men with these women?… o there they are…’ and they are all bronzed, chiselled and god like men of equal conventional beauty.
Although all was not lost I did end up hanging out with a very pretty and very sound bird on the Sunday evening. We roamed the festival site spending the last of our euro’s on booze, managed to find a drum n bass set on the sacred fire stage and generally chatted about life and music until I became too pissed to entertain anymore. We ended up back at my tent, nothing saucy went down or anything but it was nice to have a cuddle with a lovely lady atleast.
Come Monday we packed our things and got ready for what could possibly be a long hitchhike back to Madrid. However I got a call off Sam as he was was getting his coach to Lisbon, telling me he had found someone selling a coach wristband. I didn’t have the money, but Sam sorted me out. I couldn’t be more grateful. The BOOM bus was a gloriously air conditioned and comfortable journey. As we departed I necked a valium. – That was quite a holiday eh? I said to the random English bird next to me. I slept the whole 5 hours to Madrid airport, nailed another 2 blueys and woke up to a text from Del that Robin Williams was dead. I stumbled in a haze to the gate for my plane. Necked another blue, slept the whole flight home. Got off at Heathrow and slept the entire 80 minute tube ride back to Turnpike Lane. In total I figured out I had slept through a 16-hour commute.
I think I’ve rambled enough now for you to get the idea that I had a good time whilst at BOOM. A lot of people seem to be put off by the fact that its labelled as a Psy-trance festival, and at it’s core it is. However during my time there I must of heard about 2 actual psy-trance sets, and they did sound like a total mess, or as one funny French guy put it – like someone strangling a mechanical cat! Aside from that I did manage to catch a few belting techno sets, but unfortunately during the day you really cant dance in the 30 odd degree heat like some of the dance floor warriors can. Another perk is ofcourse the sound levels themselves. Louder then any festival you’d get in Britain and clear as a bell. Chunky as fuck and the best I’d ever heard at a festival.
There is plenty of music on offer aside from trance, like I mentioned there was breaks, world, funk, dub, psy-rock and other genres I couldn’t even justify putting a name too.
Food and drink is reasonably priced. A meal will set you back 6 euro. Portions could be better but everything was very tasty and very healthy. I’ve actually changed some of the regular ingredients to my current meals because of it. Toilets were spotless and didn’t stink and the festival itself was easily the cleanest I have ever been too. It was spotless and the entire vibe of the place made you feel guilty even for dropping a snout but on the floor.
The atmosphere also makes the festival unique; there are other European festivals you can go to that just seem to be filled with English people. Which is not what I go on holiday for. I like to embrace the culture and people that Europe has to offer, not just the equivalent of Boomtown in the sun.
BOOM festival in short is a paradise, filled with beautiful, good natured, intelligent and fun people. A unique music policy, liberal atmosphere, good drugs, beautiful décor and interesting programme of debates, films and lectures to boot. I never did get round to getting my hippy massage or getting up early enough to do yoga. But this didn’t bother me at all.
I would also like to thank my festival companions Chris and Sam on this little adventure of mine. It was a pleasure to serve with 2 fellow seasoned festival veterans. This week proved that they were not just Hard Crew general’s with whom our relationship would rarely spread further then the dance floor or the festival field. But I now consider them 2 very loyal and caring friends, who sorted me out when I was need without batting an eyelid. I am indebted to them for this and they shall be repaid. Then ofcourse Dan who I didn’t get to see as much of as I liked whilst there but did always cheer me up whenever I did. Whether it was cheering us up by telling us anecdotes of how he lost his wallet-belt with all his drugs, money and other essentials, only to find that later that night someone had handed it in with all his possessions still in tact. Or how one afternoon after being up all night he had a dillema at one stage where another Englishman who noticed his nationality, approached him and started telling him racist jokes. Dan was worried that his silent reaction may have made him racist by proxy. We assured him that considering he’d been up all night and was on an acid comedown in the searing heat he was entitled to just do nothing. It dawned on me that Dan is one of my oldest friends now, and a fine example of the kind and good natured company I keep.
To the 3 friends of mine who accompanied my BOOM experience… It was an honour and pleasure serving with your gentleman. I’m certain it wont be the last.
In summary of what has been a long entry, BOOM was up there with one of the best festival experiences I have ever had. It didn’t match the epic scale of Glastonbury 09 or the life changing experience of Bangface Weekender 08 but it was special. Since getting back I am certainly more enlightened and happier. Despite not having a pot to piss in and a near raging festival horn with no bird to help me out with, I am in a good mood just thinking about it all.