Dor Goes West: Number One?

Glastonbury has a new contender for best festival. I don't know if it was the people, the weather, the lineup or something else but my six days down in California ranks among the best festival experiences I've had.

There are almost too many good stories to tell, but I'll start with the tale of Wally, our festival dad. Nick and I arrived in Palm Springs a few hours before the rest of the crew, and after leaving our bags at the hotel headed out to find a beer. We stumbled across a bar called Cactus Jack's, clearly a local's hang out. After being ID'd and pretty much laughed at for being silly foreigners lost in the wrong part of town, we got chatting to Wally, the bar's owner. He warmed to our English charms pretty quickly, and before we knew it we were having a lock-in with Wally and his mate Jeff. Wally paid for our drinks - about seven pints and a Jager each - and gave us his number to call if we were ever in town again.

The tale doesn't end there though. We next saw Wally on the Sunday, in the festival itself. Me, Nick, Jess and Rob had been waiting for the rest to return with beer and rum, and when they did we proceeded to make up for lost time and drink all of it. As we were at it, Jess noticed a very drunken young man sitting by our car. We offered him water, but when he refused decided the best way to help would be to wrap him in toilet paper and put a sombrero (and Russell's face) on him. Half way through this, Wally rolled up on a golf cart with the general manager of the entire sight. Luckily they all found it about as hilarious as we and the gathered crowd did. Our festival dad managed to turn up at the funniest part of the festival - great timing all round.

Of course, we had to pay him another visit once the festival was over. This time we took the whole crew to Cactus Jack's, and despite our efforts to shove money in his hand he paid for a couple of round for the seven of us. He then took us to The Hood - not, in fact, the roughest end of Palm Springs but a late night pizza place and bar - for a bite to eat. Clearly the place doesn't get many English in, and we were the talk of Palm Springs for the evening. Billy ended up dancing on the bar with an MMA fighter, we all experienced the delights of a Dead Nazi shot (don't ask) and I got completely lost walking back to the hotel on my own.

Wally wasn't done yet though. He offered me, Nick and Jess a lift to the airport, took us on a guided tour of Palm Springs and treated us to the best burger I've had in ages. What a legend.

Russell, incidentally, didn't actually go to Coachella. To make up for that, we took a cardboard cutout of his face, which Nick and I quietly introduced on the Sunday. Looking back through the photos, it looks like Russell probably had the best time out of all of us.

Since I've been back, a lot of people have asked me who my favourite band at Coachella was. The honest answer is, I don't know. We saw so many good bands that it's impossible to pick a favourite. Them Crooked Vultures filled the heavy rock slot perfectly, and it was incredible to see John Paul Jones (former Led Zeppelin bassist) live on stage. Jay-Z was as good as he was at Glasto, and seeing him and Beyoncé sing Forever Young at the end was awesome. Frank Turner was a really good surprise, and Thom Yorke was a hell of a lot better than I thought he would be. Gorillaz were really good to see live, and a great choice to finish the festival. It was great to see Faith No More even if they didn't play Easy, Muse were great and the Specials were fun. MGMT were rubbish, Deadmau5 was a brawl and Gary Numan had volcanic issues, but that didn't matter - the lineup was amazing.

There are so many other stories to tell: football in the campsite on the first day, the balloon man, sprinting through the campsite at two in the morning, sleeping through an entire band's set, the water missions, the rum, the lazer glasses, Palm Springs airport (a.k.a. 'Heaven'). I don't want this to turn into an essay though, so those can wait.

I'm back in Whistler now, and today signed the lease on the Dream House 2.0. The next few days will involve job hunting, making the most of the mountain before it closes and the Goodbye Bayshores house party on Monday. I'll be back with an update on the new house, complete with photos, and the story of how we lost our damage deposit because Ian drove his car into the hot tub (possibly).

Today's wisdom: sitting>swimming

Oh, and here are some photos to prove I did go to Coachella.