Music Festivals – I Will Be Going, I Won’t Be Doing
Posted by Douglas Anderson June 22, 2011 Comment (1)
I was casually asked last week “what festivals are you doing this year?” Doing? I’m definitely going to some festivals but don’t intend on ‘doing’ any. Where I was brought up the phrase to “get a doing” means being unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of a battering and that does not equate to a satisfactory festival vibe for me. Having said that, there have been plenty “doings” handed out at festivals over the years with Altamont and Woodstock 2 immediately springing to mind.
This new phraseology in relation to festivals has increasingly crept in to the public vernacular over the last few years but certainly wasn’t prevalent when I attended my first festival, Reading in 1994. Not only was it my first festival but also the first time I had been to London, albeit to pass through on the way to the site. I remember thinking on the trip back to Edinburgh after enjoying sets by Pulp, Radiohead and countless others that in a few weeks time I would be going to college as I had finished my schooling that summer. At no point did I intend to ‘do’ college.
There are things I can’t help but ‘do’ of course. I do the dishes when they are dirty, I do my tax returns as I’m self employed and if asked I would ‘Do the Dougie‘, which as I’ve become aware is a dance craze sweeping America. However, I would never ask my flatmate if he wanted anything as I was ‘doing the shops’. I would simply inquire if he needed anything as I was ‘going to the shops’. Anyway, as much as I fear there will be thousands upon thousands of people ‘doing’ festivals over the summer, I hope I’m not alone in remaining in the camp who are looking forward to ‘going’ to them. So in essence, in relation to festivals let’s at least try to maintain ‘going’ as our verb of choice. By way of ending on a high, here are The Beta Band playing Broke at Glastonbury in 2002. Stunning.