Thanks to teenage VentnorBlog reader, Leila for sending us this review of her time at the Nokia IW Festival. Many of you might recognise her name from the I Spy competition, where she battled it out (mostly) against her sister Maddy. Accompanying photos (taken during setting up and packing up) courtesy of AuntieP, island photographer who has some amazing photos on Flickr (thanks AuntieP).
Well, another fantastic festival. Can next years be topped by this one, who knows?!
I couldn’t believe the size of the campsites compared to last time. There must have been about three times more than before.
I went to set up camp on the Thursday night, and my gosh, the sight, wow! It was like it was Saturday already. The campsites were pretty much filled up. My friends and I were discussing how unlucky people will be when they finally arrived to set up, since we were in a field quite far back – and it was only Thursday.
All night, well, every night there were parties all night, no exaggeration. Everyone had a catch word, which had a Mexican wave sort of feel to it, because when someone shouted it, EVERYBODY joined in. It was great.
Once the arena opened, on all days, you saw something new. There were so, so many stalls and oh my gosh, I would never have thought I’d see an M&S Tent for food. There were all sorts of food from different countries. To be honest, it was nice to see a change from burgers and chips!
Food at the festival was absolutely lovely, but I can’t review without having a moan about the porta loos.
They were DISGUSTING. On the Thursday night, at about three thirty in the morning me and my friend really needed to go to the loo and we were both shocked at the smell. It was totally disgusting! I was then moaning to him, saying it was easier for a man *for obvious reasons*. Anyway, we ended up having many long discussions about the porta loos.
Well. I can go on forever about the music.
As a big music fan, I was in my element, it was so, so fantastic. On the Friday night, I saw Placebo, The Prodigy and The Rakes. I did see more, but I thought these were awesome. The Prodigy really had the crowd going for the start. It was one big rave. Wow!
My personal favourite were the Kooks, The Foo Fighters and Coldplay, just because they put on an AWESOME Show.
Dave Grohl = Amazing. He did a solo piece “Everlong” which to me, was like seeing Nirvana, I know for sure I wasn’t the only one crying. It was beautiful.
On the last night, Sunday, it was Coldplay headlining and my gosh, what an amazing performance. I will never ever forget it. I personally had one of the best times of my life.
I saw and experienced some REALLY weird things at the festival, but I have to laugh at it now, it was all so funny.
Another thing I must mention, is the Platform One Stage, since a lot of my friends bands were playing, I got butterflies when I saw them at their best :). Such a fantastic feeling. I’ve got to say how great Island band Skyline Heroes were, they did us proud :)!!!
I was really happy to be one of the lucky campers to get a shower during the course of the weekend, otherwise I wouldn’t have stepped out of my tent!
Another bonus was the amount of walking everyone had to do, what a great way to lose weight!! The weather was so fantastic, and even though we had a slight bit of rain on Sunday morning, it didn’t get in the way of our fun.
All in all, I thought the Festival was absolutely amazing, one of the highlights of my year (apart from the lack of sleep and the constant need for water!!) I spent the whole weekend with people I love and care about, and I met some fantastic people.
I hope everyone had a bloomin’ excellent time!!
