All Points East, All On My Own

“Alright mate, step to the side.”
That’s what the steward said to the bloke with the patterned shirt, little figurines all over it. The dog clocked him straight away, nose jammed up to his waist. The bloke laughed nervously, tried to keep walking, but security weren’t having it. I’d been watching the sniffer dog bouncing around the entrance, tail wagging like it was playing fetch. But one sniff and someone’s whole festival is over.

“The dog has identified you, we’re looking for drugs,” one of them said flat, matter-of-fact. Everyone had just spent half an hour snaking through the queue, waiting to get their tickets scanned, bags unzipped, waved through metal detectors. After all that malarkey, just when you think you’re in, there’s a couple of dogs doing their own two-step at the last hurdle.

“If you tell me what you’ve got, we’ll confiscate it and let you in. If you don’t admit it and we find it, you’re out.”
He denied it so they led him off. I just watched, fascinated, wondering what he had on him, what story he’d carry home about being sniffed out at the gates.

This was All Points East, Victoria Park, the weekend of my brother’s 40th. We’d met at Bethnal Green, half the crew were down from Liverpool, the other half my home-town lot from Folkestone. Ten of us in total and I promised I’d wait for them at the entrance, so I stayed posted up and saw the fetch the drugs unfold again and again. I half enjoyed it, watching punters get rattled, until finally the whole mob appeared and we pushed through together.

Inside, something like 40,000 people a day were flooding the site, the park flattened out with multiple stages, tents, bars, food stalls, queues for everything. Moving ten-deep as a group is a headache, one for the loo, one for the bar, then another one back to the loo again.

So I made my excuses. At 17:55 Nia Archives was due on in the Big Blue Tent, and I wasn’t about to miss it. Leaving the group behind felt right like rehearsal for what’s coming. In a few weeks I’ll be heading out to China, flying east for real, learning to handle things solo so this was practice.

The Tent stood open on all sides, a giant engine of sound already revving. The stewards werent letting me in, “Keep it moving, move down!” but I darted through the gaps, the kind of manoeuvres you can only pull when you’re on your own.

Inside it was fucking boiling. The heat of a thousand bodies trapped under the roof. But the sound hangs thick, unlike the open air stages, where the second-hand ciggie smoke dissapates, here it was scratching my throat with every breath.

My body danced through the packed crowd in what little spaces I could find. I wanted centre stage. There was no way I was getting to the front with this many people, but centre back would do me. Nia was just a figurine behind the decks, but the LED screens threw her massive, flash imagery, live shots, her short mini kilt, black top, the unmistakable plats swinging as she moved. She was enjoying herself, feeding the energy back into the tent.

I needed that groove only jungle gives chopped breaks, rolling bass, a current that grabs you and pulls you in. Then my song “Off Wiv Ya Headz” dropped. My shirt was already unbuttoned, sweat soaking through, my electric blue bra made its own unexpected appearance. Didn’t matter, it was too rammed to care. I was alone, so I danced my sexy self deeper into the crowd.

First girl to give me grief looked like me at fifteen lip pierced, bad attitude, standing still with a cob on. Who comes to a festival to sulk?

I kept moving, deeper still arms making shapes over head. Then I saw the bloke from the sniffer dog queue earlier. Same build, same shirt. I was buzzing he made it in, so I leaned in and asked, “Was that you the dog clocked at the entrance?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Nah, must’ve been the other handsome one.”

I laughed, about to agree, when his girlfriend shoved between us. “That’s my boyfriend.” Straight jealousy, sharp and stupid.

I let it go. You are a grown up Maxine I thought as I put my gun fingers away and shimmied my way down the front away from cob-on central, population everyone under 25. Besides Nia was still tearing through her set, and for the next 55 minutes, I was magnetised to her live vocals over 160 BPM. Jungle is sexier, looser, not as robotic as it’s younger faster cousin, drum and bass.

The Amen break was the sound of my teenage life. Growing up in the 90s with my big sister, rave culture felt like everything. That relentless hardcore loop chopped and firing while I was supposed to be asleep upstairs. I wanted to be older, not just the babysitter for my nephew while she partied. I’d stay up late taping Fabio & Grooverider’s show off Radio 1, in an attempt to proove I was part of it.

By the time the set ended, I was drenched and my throat raw. I stumbled out, lungs grateful for the open air and made straight for the bar. A can of water, a gin and tonic. Standing there I thought: fucking boiling in there, peak kindness was a wet wipe from a stranger in the toilet queue and second-hand smoke is a right cunt.