To Edinburgh’s Calton Hill last night to enjoy the Beltane Fire Festival. It was fucking great.
I remember thinking that the music at last year’s Glastonbury Festival was only a secondary reinforcer for our having such an awesome time (after all, I was dancing and singing along to the satan’s-cock-sucking likes of Coldplay and Athlete and Basement Jaxx) and that the coolest thing about it was that so many thousands of people from a kajillion walks of life were all getting along and pulsing as one squillion-headed entity. The same was undoubtedly true of the Beltane event last night. For this reason, I can see myself wanting to get an annual festival fix.
Not just for that reason you understand. There are a whole bunch of wonderful sensations associated with this sort of thing: the feeling of moist grass on bare feet; the turgid, excitable feeling of too much expensive coffee, booze and fatty food; the unique strangeness of holding hands with people you’ve never met before; the smell of smoke from a hundred burning torches; and the don’t-touch-the-fucking-seat-don’t-touch-the-fucking-seat internal mantra of using the chemical shitters.
I think I’d like to get a bit more involved if I’m around for this next year. The fact that my buddies and I weren’t painted blue, didn’t have a flaming torch between us and kept our penises and vaginas inside our pants left us as something of an out-group.
After being thrown out of the fest (this time by a light drizzle rather than confusing men with megaphones), we headed out in the car to watch the sun rise in true pagan fashion before repairing to our place to watch apparently inaccurate The Wicker Man.
I’m quite tired.
(‘Blue Man’ and ‘May Queen’ pics poached from Knoxman).
