Great Cynics - Moorhen

It being the turn of the year and everything, I’ve been in a pretty contemplative mood. Of course, when you start to reminisce you fall into that rabbit hole and it’s hard to do anything else.

For whatever reason, yesterday, I started to think about Southsea Fest - an awesome one day music festival held just outside Portsmouth every year - in particular, the awful/awesome bus trips I’d taken to make my way there and back a few years ago.

Despite us being in Manchester, Ian and I had been invited by our friend El, who had been putting on the punk stage for a few years. We immediately dismissed the idea. After all, we had no money and were hours away. It wasn’t going to happen. Then we started drinking…

We managed to scrape the cash together over the next few days, and bought tickets for a 1:30am bus to Portsmouth. The idea was that we’d sleep on the bus, and wake up refreshed when we got there. We got on the bus drunk after a night out, and I spent almost all of the thirteen hour bus ride awake.

We arrived in Portsmouth and staggered off the bus. The beer buzz was gone,the hangover was setting in, and I was running on fumes. Somehow I struggled through, and I’m glad I did. I got to see some awesome bands and had an great time wandering about Southsea. It was one of the best times I’ve had in recent memory and helped to show me how awesome the UK’s punk scene was (and how Crazy Arm + 200 people can almost destroy a pub).

The next morning we got on a bus headed back to Manchester. Unlike the first trip, I didn’t want it be over so quickly. I’d fallen in love with Southsea and couldn’t wait to get back. This past September, Ian and I headed down there again and I’ll be buying my ticket for 2012 within the next few weeks.

Despite being released after the fact, this song will always bring me back to that second bus ride home and how awesome that whole experience was. Ironically Great Cynics (then known as ‘Cynics’ and just being Giles) played on that day, but I missed the set because I was sleeping.

The moral of this story? Alcohol, when treated right, can be awesome.

- Barlow x