FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

FIDLAR Explain How You’ve Been Doing Festivals Wrong This Whole Time

You're doing too much sleeping and not enough meth. (Nobody ever said this was going to be good advice.)
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Thanks to the face-down-in-a-cesspit legend that became "poo girl," the parable of the naked mud monster, and the countless missed connections that pop-up each year on Craigslist after Pitchfork Festival, it’s clear some of you still need to be hand-held through the festival experience.

Sometimes going to a festival isn’t as simple as arriving, setting up your tent, and venturing out into the wilderness to experience some target-audience branded rock’n’roll. Being human, often you need a guide to prepare you for every eventuality. To know where’s best to pitch a tent, whether talcum powder is a good idea (it definitely is!), and if it’s sanitary to ferry in pharmaceuticals via a rectum. Unfortunately, this is not that guide.

Advertisement

FIDLAR’s debut single “Cheap Beer” is infamous for its boast of (a) taking “a line of speed, eight ball of blow, and a half pound of weed” and (b) drinking “cheap beer, so what, fuck you.” So in light of that, we thought it best that they provide a guide to this year’s Reading and Leeds festival (but really all festivals). Obviously you shouldn’t follow their rules to a tee because first and foremost, rules suck, and two, we spoke to our lawyer and it’s in our best interest to let you know these guidelines could end in hospitalization or a very shitty time. But do as you please. FIDLAR: Fuck! It! Dawg! Life's! A! Risk!

Don’t Sleep

Whatever you do, don’t sleep. Because right when you fall asleep that’s when they get you, y’know? If your body feels like it’s going to give up, you just keep going. How do you do it? It’s a lot of conditioning. Maybe the month before the festival, you try a week where you stay up for two days straight. You slowly build it up. You can’t overdose from having no sleep; you’re just going to fall asleep when it’s too much.

Bring a Hearing Aid

Look, the last thing you wanna do is go to a sick-ass festival and not hear shit. You’ve got to make sure you can hear everything, at the same time. You don’t want to be at the fucking Limp Bizkit concert and like, have to go watch Palma Violets if they’re playing at the same time. You want to hear both. The louder the better! Don’t worry about your ears—they’re going to heal themselves. Even if you can hear perfectly normal, there is something to be said about being in your tent, turning your hearing aid on, and listening to Noel play “Don’t Look Back in Anger” without his band. It’ll help you stay up!

Advertisement

Instead of Eating, Try Fasting—or Meth

It’s no secret that festival food sucks. On top of that, it’s probably expensive as shit. So why not try fasting (or meth, same thing)? Fasting is a good way to keep yourself up. Whatever you want to call it—your little juice cleanse or whatever—give it a shot. Imagine the psychotic break you will receive by the third day: It’ll be an out of body experience, I promise you that. If it’s a hot day, also try wearing as many clothes as possible. Everybody wants to be at a level of drunk, but that’s the wrong way to go. You want to keep yourself at a level of dehydration.

Don’t Forget Your Book of Spells

Once you’ve gone through with the fasting, the no sleep, and the hearing aids you’ll have reached the other side. In a camping ground that’s riddled with voodoo shit, you’re going to want to get to a place where you feel comfortable. You guys created Harry Potter. Think that shit’s fiction? That shit’s real life. It’s history. So I’m bringing my own personal spell book. It’s a cross-genre between a Harry Potter historian kinda thing, the Lord of the Rings spells, and Bewitched. Use it to keep things at a level; to keep the voices out. I’ve heard there’s gonna be a lot of hanky-panky going on at the festival too, so just, y’know – throw a spell on.

Try Not to Smile the Whole Time

What do you want to be: a trendsetter or a sheep? Everyone is having fun, but since when did you follow everybody? Why not go against the grain, arrive at a festival, and piss the fuck off. Yell at kids. Tell bands to turn down their amps. You’ll get an amazing reaction from your peers! This might also be a perfect time to tell your significant other that they talk too much or to inform your parents you aren’t going back to college. The possibilities are endless! Fuck the wellies, too. First of all, you’re contributing to the destruction of the world. Second of all, capitalism needs to fail bla bla bla. Third of all, learn from the natives. You think the Indians had fucking wellies? No. They went in fucking raw-dog. It’s good for your skin, too. And good skin is FIDLAR’s number one priority.

Advertisement

Go Really Hard on the First Day

Photo by Will Coutts

You want to burn yourself out on the first day. It’s like the 200-yard dash—you want to go as fast as possible, and then coast for the rest of the time. Put yourself on cruise control. Stick your arm out the window. Chill.

Make Sure You See FIDLAR Play

Maybe bring some lawn chairs, picnic baskets. It’s going to be a good old fashion family fun time. Instead of moshing we might start something new, tell everybody to sit down, chill out, listen to the music. We’ll have our ukuleles.

FIDLAR’s new album Too is out September 4 on Wichita Recordings. They play Reading and Leeds Festival on August Bank Holiday weekend.

You can find Ryan Bassil on Twitter.