Saturday June 23rd was the day of the concert and living locally to Knebworth Park I knew that the roads were going to be rammed with traffic so decided to make my way to my daughters flat fairly early to miss any traffic congestion. My sister joined me and we took a walk from the flat to Knebworth Park it only took 20 minutes so not too bad at all, however once in the park it was 'a hike' - uphill. No sweat, we're fit ;)
Once we'd had our wristbands zapped and our bags checked, for cans or glass bottles, we were in. The first place we saw was a stall called The Chinese Wok, that was to be our meeting place throughout the day & also ended up being a source of amusement. If we said Chinese Wok once we must have said it a hundred times throughout the day to the point where it was virtually impossible to say it without laughing. The next stall spotted was the bar. Goes without saying really doesn't it.
After a while other family members arrived and wanted to find us. Over a very poor reception on the mobile my 2 sisters managed to agree to meeting at "The Chinese Wok" (I wish I'd taken a photo of that stall). We found it hard to find each other there were so many people about. We even thought there must be 2 Chinese Woks. We then realised that, in fact, we had been standing right next to each other just looking the other way.
A friend arrived and called me on my mobile just as the 1st band, Reverend and the Makers started their set. It was almost impossible to hear her. I gave the phone to my sister who tried telling her where to meet, The Chinese Wok of course, but the reception was so bad that the call was made, and the instructions repeated, at least 10 times. The friend never did make it to us.
The 2nd band up were The Wombats, people were still arriving at this stage and to be fair I didn't really pay much attention to the first 2 acts. Although they sounded ok.
The 3rd band was the one my nieces and nephew were really waiting to see. Dizzee Rascal & its at this point that we lost one of them til the end of the concert. She was off. Well Dizzee had up bopping around having a laugh, which did prove a little difficult as 2 of my sisters and myself were left holding bottles of drink for the others, you try jumping up and down without spilling their precious amber nectar.
So far we had been fairly lucky with the weather, rain had been forecast but not until 9pm, a couple of very quick light showers made us don our raincoats for a short spell but otherwise it was dry.
At 9pm, the rain came and so did The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. This was the band I had been waiting for and they didn't disappoint. They played some songs that I hadn't heard before but then the classics came out. Californication, By The Way, Under The Bridge & my favourite Higher Ground
The rain was coming down but we were bopping.
As the concert came to a close my sister was arranging to meet her children at ... you guessed it, The Chinese Wok.
The walk back was a slightly quicker route but my sister and I managed to find ourselves right behind the most drunken person of the night who could barely walk let a lone in a straight line. He thought it was fun to throw the bollards around, there's always one!!
Our lift was waiting when we arrived at our designated pick up point. Not a bad day at all :)))
