My friend just posted photos of this year's Coachella music festival on Facebook which reminded me of this story I wrote two years before. This is an amazing festival, you must, must, must go if visiting America in April. Warning: blatant pining over lead singer Brandon Flowers in this story may offend some people and/or make you gag, enjoy.
The day I feel in love with a Mormon began on a deflated air mattress. There I lay squished between a bed and a dresser, upon a double mattress wedged into a space big enough only for a single. It was a matress/hammock...a mammock. Genius would be the word I would have used to describe it, others may have chosen stupid.
Alert, I opened my eyes just in time to see someone’s foot narrowly miss my head. If they had been trying to gracefully clamber over me to get to the bathroom, they had failed. The others muttered but stayed sleeping as I looked at the ceiling, slowly registering where I was. Deciding I should probably do something with my life, I twisted and reached to get my phone. As I did so, my hip dug in to the concrete causing me to screw my face in pain. I made a mental note to put more air in my mammock. The room smelt like salt and vinegar Pringles probably because a half eaten container lay less that a foot from my head. I heard the toilet flush as I read the time on my phone to be 10.45am. A look in the direction of the white wooden shutters confirmed this. As my eyes struggled with the dusty light that streamed in, I was not to argue, the day had indeed, well and truly, started without us.
It was April 2009. The Global Financial Crisis was in full swing, so much so my friends back home had begun referring to it as the GFC, similar to KFC but with no chicken. Countries, that themselves held nuclear weapons, fretted about the fact that North Korea was playing with theirs. The everyday people were twittering, facebooking and rejoicing that a plump little English lady by the name of Susan Boyle, who lived on Youtube, could infact sing. Swine Flu was about to hit headlines, but not yet.
I was at the Coachella Music Festival located somewhere in the desert near Palm Springs. A place called Indio which for a desert had some rather amazing green grass. This plush specimen lead me to believe the message of water conservation had not yet reached this far inland. Upon this fine grass, America’s youth frolicked to music, in 100 degree heat, amongst air that smelt smokey sweet with another type of grass entirely. The Obama faithfuls rocked out to their favorite bands, in their most fashionable threads under the California sun, life was good.
I danced, ate and drunk. However my mind was never far from the thought that The Killers were playing that evening, a fact that caused a thrill of excitement to surge through my body followed with a high pitched squeal. If you were to me quiz me about The Killers I would fail miserably, I only cottoned on to their brilliance recently. I feel in love with three of the songs from their new album, something my poor neighbor will not dispute.
Due to our late start, the sun soon passed passed behind the palm trees and the bare mountains. Night was here and Charlotte and I welcomed it with a beer. This turned out to be a rather dreadful idea as shortly we were amongst a crowd of thousands in front of the main stage, a place where bathrooms don’t generally live. We looked at each with a look of pain that said “what have we done?”
The eager crowd stared forward, holding their ground and giving death stares to anyone that tried to nudge past. I stood there in my short denim dress with pleated neckline, tight waist and poofy skirt. I was 15 rows back from the front, tip toeing and excited. I heard the screaming and clapping before I saw them.
The notes of the song Human filled the air and I screamed. The screaming was accompanied with bouncing, clapping and a huge smile as I moved in time with the crowd. The music took over.
The air went out of my lungs the first time I saw Brandon Flowers on the big screen, he was incredibly hot. My mind raced, how had I not known this until now? How had my friends neglected to inform me of this key fact? I was giddy. It was as if he had taken my heart, put it in a box and FedExed it across country on overnight priority. Your guess was as good as mine to where my heart now lay, I clasped my hands over my chest as if to hide the hole.
That was as far as I got with the story, probably because I passed out looking at photos of Brandon Flowers on the internet or something. Anyway this is what I had scribbled down as the finishing line.
My day had started with a mammock and finished with a Mormon, I was young and anything was possible.
To get yourself to Coachella visit: www.coachella.com
