comprehensive recap of my time at the great escape

last week I was in Brighton doing volunteering at THE GREAT ESCAPE

it is a festival featuring a lot of bands from all over the world and also a conference for the music industry. my job was to register people ('delegates') for the conference. i had to look them up in a database then take their photo on a crappy webcam then print out their photo and give it to them in a lanyard and also give them a wristband. lots of people didn't like their photos

wednesday we had to line up and put a lot of flyers in tote bags for the delegates then i had my first shift. i talked to the following strangers: a girl called fliss with pink hair who played saxophone and seemed really nice. a girl from canada who initially seemed friendly but then i realised was too cool for school/had a disinterested air about her and i was clearly too nerdy. a girl with short red hair and red mary jane shoes and cute dresses called lulu who reminded me of a girl called 'kendall' from my uni course. some dudes with dreads put on bob marley when we were putting lanyards together and it was annoying

i met up with vicki after she finished work and it was cold and rainy. we went to sticky mike's frog bar to see celia and i had a pizza and it was delicious and celia has amazing hair

thursday i had an early shift. vicki came to meet me at the end of it and we went to joel's cafe for lunch and had butternut squash and coconut soup. it was pretty tasty. i went to go see yukon blonde after that, they were okay. i also tried to go see college but the venue was packed so i just went back to chill at vicki's. that night i saw abi wade, young magic, redinho, lapalux and zulu winter. i think young magic, redinho and lapalux were my faves even though zulu winter were a bunch of babes and quite an enjoyable indie band. i saw joey working at sticky mike's when i was there and it made me happy to see people i know/love

i can't remember who the strangers were that i talked to on this day, i think i was just trying to furiously go to bands

friday i had a sleep in and watched more tv and it was awesome. i had an afternoon shift. i began to get frustrated with other people who were volunteering because they didn't take as much initiative as i did so i felt really bossy and like a big nerd for asking them to do things. but in hindsight and after conferring with a fellow volunteer, there were a few jerks there. me and a girl i volunteered with, emily, went to gourmet burger kitchen for dinner and i had an eggplant burger with goats cheese and it was so freaking delicious. i went to see a bit of pond with emily, but i left because i'd already seen them. from there i went to gang colours who i decided was among one of the most beautiful people i'd seen in a while. broad shoulders, long hair. i thought about tweeting something like 'that thing where boys push their hair from one side of their head to the other'. from there i walked what seemed like a very long way through the gay part of town up to a giant church with stained glass windows where a band called a winged victory for the sullen were playing. this band is composed of 2 violinists, a cello, a pianist and a guy doing ambient computer noises. they were really good and i got to sit in the aisle of this impressive church listening to beautiful music and i thought, this is what they should use churches for, exclusively. that night i also saw we have band, blanck mass and st lucia and some awesome djs at blind tiger. we have band had a really babein black dude playing keyboard and a lead singer who was a good dancer. i thought my flatmate ashleigh would have loved the keyboard dude in particular and i laughed every time i thought that. at blanck mass some guy was like really into them and he leaned over to me and was like 'this is amazing right???' and inside i was like 'meh' and then i thought i should tweet 'this is music to be born to'

strangers i talked to on this day: finnish/swedish seeming girl who needed a lighter in the queue for st lucia. she and her friend needed to pee and the finnish-ish girl was telling her friend that it's actually easy for girls to pee in a bottle and one time she did it when she was on a a really packed train going to a music festival and i thought to myself 'how did she manage to do that on a real packed train'. dancing at blind tiger i had taken a seat for a little while then they played gettin jiggy with it and i was like 'whaaaaat' and this girl said 'i see that face, get up here' and she pulled me back to the d-floor. at some point during this day i decided to give up smoking for a while. carin's friends sisco, mel and their friend josie (mel + josie = aussies) had arrived for the weekend so after a lil while of dancin we got a cab back to carin's and went to bed

on saturday i had the whole day free to see bands. i felt anxious when i was trying to plan the day because i knew it would involve a lot of walking from venue to venue. some of them were close but others you had to walk quite far between which was fairly gruelling. i got up and saw mmoths first of all and it was amazing and he was a beautiful pure looking irish boy with amazing pale skin. he looked really tired but played a fricken awesome set and i sort of made eyes with some boy in the crowd who later turned out to be oliver tank. i walked down to the seafront to digital to go to the australian stage and they were having a free bbq which was ace. i saw lulu james and red ink while i was waiting for chet faker to come on. chet faker was sublime. i could have listened to him forever. during his set i thought that he kind of looked like a garden gnome. i thought about tweeting 'chet faker a beautiful garden gnome'. i also liked that he had a triple r sticker on his computer. after him i think i saw one song of hyde & beast and got a free sample of some sort of ginger beer

the afternoon i spent a lot of money buying a hairbrush, new mascara, lipstick and deoderant from boots, then i went to h&m and got some leggings and sandals and ostentatious sunglasses.

that evening i saw oliver tank who was really beautiful and amazing, although sometimes his voice wavered. he had beautiful shoulders and beautiful hair. emily the other day said something like 'it's all about hair and looking poor' re: attractive men. i ate a salad from sainsbury's standing up while i watched him sing beautiful things. from there i went to the big beautiful church to see loney dear. loney dear tried to get everybody to sing during his set but everyone seemed shy which was funny because that kind of thing happens all the time in church. in front of me in the aisle two really attractive people kept looking around them. i'm not sure why they were doing that but it frustrated me. i talked to 2 strangers in the line for the loos after loney dear played. we were laughing about how there was a big line for the boys toilets but there was barely anyone waiting at the ladies. one of the strangers said she was swedish and that loney dear was too and he was her favourite and she talked to loney dear and he said he got this bicycle that folds and had been riding it across brighton. then we talked about how good the venue was and the lady said i should stay for perfume genius. so i stayed for a few songs and then realised that even thought it was beautiful, it was going to make me feel too sad so i got up and i left. i saw admiral fallow who were brilliant and they sang one song acapella and i felt like crying because it was so nice.

i walked all the way from sticky mike's to green door store to try to get to doldrums on time, they were running late so i went to royal albert across the road to see if exit music had started but they were also running late. i felt annoyed because i had hurried to get there and not gone into micachu and the shapes. doldrums turned out to be a weird drum and bass ish gig and i didn't really vibe it so i went to see exit music where it was amazing but more on the same emotional level as perfume genius. the lead singer looked like winona ryder a bit and she was beautiful and her voice wavered in this amazing way. she had this slim wedding ring on and so did the bassist and i thought 'hopefully they are married'.

then i walked all the way back to the seafront to see jinja safari in the hopes that it would uplift me but on the way i saw heaps of trashy hen night gals and other saturday night folk and i felt a bit weird. i got to coalition and lined up with these sisters freya and emily maybe. they were so nice and said they had met heaps of australians that weekend. jinja safari took ages to do soundcheck and i was fading and there was a super drunk dude in the crowd in front of me. he was bumbling and bumped into me a few times and one of the sisters got sassy with him and i was proud of her

i wanted to stay there for slow club but by the time jinja safari came on i wasn't really vibing them even though their lead singer had beautiful blue eyes and a nice butt and great teeth. so i left to go to sticky mike's to meet up with carin and vicki and joel and everyone. i stayed there a while but was visibly shattered and my feet were really ridiculously sore and somehow we trudged back to vicki's flat. we got falafels on the way and it was amazing

yesterday i had brunch with giles. we both ate exactly the same meal which was 'dumb huevos' (2 poached eggs w/chorizo, potato, capsicum and red onion + various spices) and a fizzy fruit drink, the name of which i can't remember. we got peanut butter milkshakes from shakeaway then sat on the beach and someone gave us their deck chair token. we went to the TGE volunteer after party and got free beers and we saw lulu and sat next to a squealing child for a while and people won festival tickets, then we ran into sisco and mel and jo and chatted about everything in life. we all got the train back to london together and i felt weird and sad to be leaving brighton and i sort of wish i could live there for the summer

sorry this post was so long
thank you for reading it
if it's any consolation my butt now hurts