Having a house party the night before MILK was not the best plan I ever had, however it certainly got us in the party spirit! We crawled into bed at 5am, planning for our 10am start…leaving the house at 11.30am….I hadn’t planned on camping as I thought two sleepless nights in a row would kill me, but I threw the essentials in a bag just in case and my friend already had the tent in this car. Once we got on the road, we made good time only stopping to make the all-important pit stops for food, ATM and toilet roll.

My friend, being from just down the road from the festival site, said we should go the back way as it would be faster, yet he managed to get us lost. Asking the locals for directions did however add greatly to the hilarity of the over-all trip.

All the ahem…others…have gone that way

You just need to go straight… (cue smiles all round)…straight down the road there…you’ll come to a load of fella’s in pink jackets, that’s the spot

For anyone who has ever wondered, Ballinlough Castle is not, as one may think, in Ballinlough! We found it eventually, and the security men were indeed in pink hi-vis vests (which I thought was a pretty great touch). All that remained was to collect the tickets, park the car and set off on our MILK adventure. After a brief bag search, during which the lovely security guys offered to mind the bottled beer until people got something plastic to put it in, we were through and set off looking for a spot to pitch the tent. I pretty much decided as soon I arrived that I was going to have to camp, the buzz was that great right from our arrival.

The campsite was a small enough area, which was brilliant as it was easy to find everyone (as well as your tent when it was pitch dark) yet everyone still had enough room to be fairly spaced out. There were also ample portaloos near enough to the tents, which made the 4am toilet expeditions that bit more bearable!

Once we were all set up, had found our group for the festival and had dispatched my tent-mate back out to collect a few bits from the shop, it was time to head into the main area itself. The maps we were handed out were really cute, and showed us, in the gayest way possible, where we had to go. We followed the rainbow-flag topped walkway through the trees into the concert area to be greeted with a veritable wonderland of giant tea-parties, trees covered with knitting straight out of that advert, and rainbow as far as the eye could see!

We settled ourselves on a patch of grass with a fantastic view of the stage, and sat back to enjoy the Heathers. They were fantastic as always, especially their encore rendition of Remember When. When they finished up, we set off to fully explore the site. We caught a few minutes of the Pony Girls who were performing in the Harvey Milk tent, and carried on our travels to the Pink Palace (the dance tent) where we danced our socks off to some tunes with DJ Karen on the decks before wandering back to the campsite to change.

When we came back into the concert area, we listened to some of Panti’s wonderful MC-ing before pulling up a patch of grass to watch Samantha Fox. During her set, I was informed that I was dangerously close to having my lesbian card revoked as I hadn’t a notion who she was…It transpired that I knew her songs, just not her name it would seem. She gave a really good, energetic performance and was definitely a crowd pleaser.

After that, we headed off to the Music Box stage to listen to The Pulpit, my friend’s band. They were up against Bananarama but certainly held their own and the crowd loved them! I then went over to watch the end of Bananarama’s set before returning to Harvey’s Tent to watch Bunny’s Hutch (every Tuesday in Pantibar), which featured everything from burlesque dancing to drag kings and everything in between. This particular act was definitely a big hit with the lesbians!

Alexandra Burke had taken to the Main Stage when we wandered back over to that area, and we got our dance on with the rest of the crowd to Bad Boys and Broken Heels, as well as swaying with lighters to Hallelujah. She went down an absolute storm with the crowd, and no one wandered too far after as Sophie Ellis Bextor was up next.

We stuck around to hear her sing Take Me Home, but we weren’t impressed enough to make us want to miss Roisin Murphy in the dance tent, so we quickly moved to the opposite end of the site and into the dance tent. She was originally meant to just be doing a DJ set, but ended up doing quite a long live set, much to the delight of the crowd. She certainly lived up to expectations for everyone who heard her.

Seb Fontaine was headlining the Pink Palace, and despite him being amazing, we headed back to the campsite to get ready for the Mother headphone disco that was going to take all the revellers into the small hours.

MILK really did have something for everyone on the day. The music was brilliant, the site was gorgeous and everyone was having a fantastic time. The atmosphere at the festival was so amazing that I can’t even find words to describe the buzz. Previous to MILK, Oxegen was my only festival experience, and this was a world away from that. The crowd was lovely, and everyone seemed so laid back and happy, there was no trouble whatsoever. I have heard loads of stories of cameras etc getting lost and being returned to the owner the next morning (unheard of at a lot of gigs). Indeed one of the vendors at the site said that:

It was such a great atmosphere and lovely crowd we could have walked away, left the till open and they’d have put the money in for us!

Speaking of the vendors, everything you could have wanted was available…there was even a Belgian chocolate fountain! There was also a stall selling just neon stuff so you could light up the dance tent with your body paint!

Another big plus point for the festival was the fact that the portaloos were actually usable and plentiful, and the hand santiser seemed to not run out, which is always a good thing….

MILK has definitely been one of the high points of my 2010, and I’m already really looking forward to MILK 2011!

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