Guess Who's Back, Back Again, Benet's Back, Tell A Friend..

Evenin' All!

Got back from Serbia at 12.30am on Tuesday, and while I've already made a couple of low-profile posts already I thought I'd post one big bang of a thread to announce my return!

But where did you go, Benet? I hear you ask!

Well, I went to ExitFest. A music festival in Serbia, for 4 days, and spent a day either side of that in Bratislava. Absolutely amazing experience all-round, but I can't quite articulate it any better than I did in an email on Monday at 5.30am after I came back from the festival to the camp site for the last time. (They had a tent set up with about 20 computers on the internet, but I never spent more than 5 minutes on them so I couldn't post on here while I was there, I hope you all understand!) and after askign the people I sent it to to send it back to me so I could re-send it to some other friends, I got it.. and here it is, in all it's unadulterated glory!!

Evenin' All...

In a free internet-tent at ExitFest, just got back from my final gig of the festival and don't want to sleep only to be woken up in oppressive heat in 2 hours, so I thought I'd spend some time emailing y'all. The mass email is all I can do I'm afraid, seeing as I'm slightly worse for wear, but some of you might find that better :-P Anyway, a little of the "me me me" stuff I know you all love. I've been out here since Wednesday, and while today (Monday), the festival has finished, I don't get back home til Tuesday evening.. Blame Ryanair and sleeper-trains for that one.

The festival has been awesome.

I know some of you won't appreciate some of the bands/artists on offer, but there were some absolute stunners on stage; even Morrissey was good! The Cardigans were decent, Franz Ferdinand rocked the fucking house, Morrissey as I said was good, Scissor Sisters were fantastic (you'd have loved them, Will, they played all their old stuff plus a selection of tracks from their as-of-yet-unreleased new album!) but for me, I have to tip my hat to the one and only..

Billy Idol.

Yes, you read that right. Billy Fuckin' Idol. He was amazing. Absolutely. Amazing. I know, I couldn't believe it either, but he managed to really pull something out of the bag and rock that main stage like nothing else. Oh, and I might be slightly biased because he covered a song only I and probably 3 other people in the entire audience (judging by our immediate reactions, of which there were only a few) recognised. He introduced this song by saying: "I was walking round Novi Sad today, and I saw all the beautiful ladies.. All the beautiful ladies in their summer clothes.. And it got me thinking.."

And God help me if he doesn't launch into a straight (ie: non-punk) cover of "In The Summer Time" by Mungo Jerry!! Of course, I went insane at this while the rest of the audience, predominantly Serbian and not expecting anything but Idol's entire back-catalogue, was totally ambivilent. It was only when they went a bit punk with it (by extending the song at the end and adding some more guitar) that they all got with it. While this is totally conceited, I like to think I was one of the few who knew the entire song.. A moment shared forever.

Yes that is totally gay. But screw it, I'm high, drunk, and a lot of things in between!

Getting back to tonight, after watching the World Cup Final on a boat that trebled as a bar, a restaurant, and a Toyota dealership (no, I'm not kidding), dubbed the Toy-bota as a nod to Top Gear, me and John went up to the fortress (where the festival is held, seperate from the camping which is on the other side of the Danube) and stumbled upon the Fusion Stage where some Nordic motherfucker named Nena Beleon (or something, it was a man but I can't remember the first name) was playing. The interesting thing is, he played a cover of "Memphis, Tennessee" in Swedish! The only 2 words in English were Memphis and Tennessee.. Very strange.

We then went off to see Scissor Sisters, and then I scrambled to the dance stage. Now, I'd been putting off going to the dance stage all the time we were here, especially because 2 days ago I jumped into what I thought was a solid pit that in fact turned out to be sludge, covering me in mud up to the top of my calves and thus putting my trainers out of commission for a day. Now I've gotta tell ya, the dance stage is INSANE. There must have been well over 4,000 people crammed in this area like sardines, but by God I forced my way through to near the stage and grabbed as many glowsticks as I could while they were being thrown from the stage into the crowd. I then traded 4 of them to get a blue one (I like blue).

After chatting with a guy from Miami and a guy from Sydney, I rolled on over to the Reggae Stage.

Yup. I want to be black. You all know this, so it shouldn't be a surprise.

But sadly, no black girls at this here festival. Seriously, I've seen like 3 all week, and I'm pretty sure I mistook 1 girl for 2 seperate people, so it's only 2 black girls. Yes I did try it on with both of them, and yes I did fail spectacularly. But it was funny.. Well, not for me, but for John, Rob and Tadhg who were watching at the time. Anyway, got talking to a few girls on the reggae stage and all I have to say is.. Well, Sylvia, 19, from Palermo, with a hint of Taiwanese. :-D

No I didn't fuck her, don't be crude. And anyway, if I did, would I be here typing this email? Well, maybe, all depends on how long I would have lasted I guess, but let's not get down that road shall we? We only kissed, and while she wasn't the only girl I hooked up with, she was certainly the hottest (something about muttering Italian does something to me, and no, I don't care if it was "who the fuck is this guy and why won't he leave me alone?", as long as I don't know, I don't care).

Well, it's now nearly 6am, I'm gonna go off and wander around the town for a couple of hours before it gets really hot and the necessary tent-and-bag-packing will begin. Talk to you all soon, see you all probably a little after that, and yes, I will sort out that trip to Ronnie Scott's sooner or later.

Benet

I'm so articulate when intoxicated.

:shock:

Nice, ahhh, ramblings there, Benet.

I DO know that Munjo Jerry song, by the way! That's a good song! It must have be psychedelic seeing Billy Idol perform it, however...

Billy Idol is pretty much the coolest person, right next to Chuck Norris!! LOL

Sounds like you had a yourself a nice little festival. Glad to have you back around here to post again.

Next time you go to a music festival in Serbia with Billy Idol, let all of us at pp.org know and we will party it up for 4 days together.

Thanks for the update, sounds like you had a great time. Toy-bota. :lol:

You can always tell when Benet is hi & this time is no exception.

He's by-passing the editor again! :lol:

Welcome back