I was never much of a festival goer missing all the Trips to Tipp in the 1990s.  Never made it to Reading until early 2000s and Glastonbury in 1999 was my first big festival.

I have no gig ticket for this one but my first festival experience was in Cornwall in England visiting friends in that part of the country.  The Bude Rock and Surf festival as it was called was quite a strange set up.  Basically it was a festival in a field with two stages right beside each other.

So when a band finished on one stage everyone just moved over to the next stage!  Trying to remember who all played but it was nobody big.  I think I saw Travis, Catatonia and Space.  Tried to Goggle the line up but no joy.

Had a trip to Galway on the Twelfth weekend for the Big Day Out at Castlegar Sports Ground.

Headlined up Pulp with support from Beastie Boys, Garbage, Ian Brown and Corner Shop.  This was a one day event.  Overall a mixed bag.  The crowd couldn’t get into Pulp who were playing mostly new stuff from This is Hardcore.  The crowd just wanted the hits from Different Class.

Equally disappointing were Garbage who I was most looking forward to seeing.  A very short set and I think it may have been something to do with them appearing at T in the Park in Scotland over that same weekend.  Ian Brown was awful.  Singing badly and dancing badly with good measure.  Just wasn’t the Stone Roses.

However the same can’t be said about the Beastie Boys.  They were amazing and made up for the other disappointments on the day.

Last festival of the year was at Slane Castle on 29/8/98.  Headliners were The Verve.

Support came from Finlay Quaye, Junkster, James, Robbie Williams (who  would return in 1999 to headline) and special guests Manic Street Preachers.

Nowhere near as good as REM in 1995, The Verve were quite poor on the day going through the motions.  The band broke up after that.  I enjoyed the Manics but they were in better form the following evening in Belfast.

• Festivals
• Gigs