(Ok, it was in a car. Is that better or worse?)

It was technically not London, but the V festival (that bastard child of the big festivals) and so long ago that 3 shit albums have been released by my 'favourite' band there.

I did this trip in the summer of 2002. We spent a week in London and the weekend at the V Festival in Chemlsford. It was a fantastic weekend. Since we didn't want to travel with camping gear, we rented a car and 3 (uh, sometimes 4) of us slept in the car for 3 nights straight. Thank god it was a station wagon; we would have loved a minivan, but they're kinda hard to find in the UK.

While I'm completely comfortable driving a manual - no one in our family has ever owned an automatic - I was baffled by the conundrum of whether the gear order on the shifter was reversed considering I was sitting on the opposite side of the car. (It's not). The driving up was only eventful while I was still in London. I get the driving on the 'wrong' side, but left turns? Fuck me all up. There's traffic video of me somewhere driving over a median in an effort to correct the left turn into oncoming traffic. Thank god I was alone in the car.

We made it out of London towards Chemlsford in the wee hours of Saturday morning. And by wee, I mean, like 2am. Don't ask why. There was a guy involved (of course). After some of the worst fog I've ever driven in, we parked in a town near the concert site and slept, awakening to a thundering herd of kids who were coming in on the train we were parked under.

The bands we saw were good- Chemical Bros, Stereophonics, Turin Brakes, The Doves were some of the standouts. As a long time Stereophonics fan it was amazing to finally meet a large - and I do mean very large - group of people who loved the music and could sing along. That never happened in NYC (mostly because NYers are pretentious concert goers). What an amazing feeling to be belting out 'A Thousand Trees' with literally thousands of people joining in.

Would I do it again? Sure. And soon! I'm over 30 now, and while sleeping on soggy ground for days sounds like a fantastic idea when you're 25, it's not quite so appealing 5 years later. So i would LOVE to do Glastonbury before I get too old an ornery to really appreciate it. Now if only I could find that extra $1,500 lying around to pay for it....