RAMzine 27 | Avatar, Festival Flashbacks, Sister Shotgun

Ramblin Man Fair
July 2019
By Erik Damian
Last year I got to witness Kent’s own
Collateral hit the next level as they performed
on the Rising Stage at Ramblin
Man Fair. As the band took the stage to
the excitement of the crowd, something
amazing happened – what was
only about a hundred or so people
started growing exponentially. By the
time the band were ripping into their
third song, there were people as far
as the eye could see all flowing down
to the spot where the stage was set. It
was hard to not be swept up in the moment,
and it was clearly an emotional
moment for the band as thousands
of the rock faithful took to them and
became new fans on that day. Moments
like that are rare and should be
cherished. I’m glad I was there on the
day and that I was in the privileged
position of being able to document it
with my lens.
Download festival
June 2012
By Neale McGeever
in 2017 but I will always remember the
festivals I spent with him. I hope he is
enjoying a pint with Lemmy and Kurt
Cobain in the afterlife.
Sonisphere Festival
July 2011
By Sean Rafferty
I attended Sonisphere in 2011, it was
my very first festival and I was sixteen.
We were walking back from the first
night having just seen The Big Four.
We just came across another group
who invited my lot to sit with them.
They were all older but friendly and
they let us in on their festival expertise,
giving us tips and tricks that
helped us make the best of our first
festival outing. We discovered we had
a pack of bacon but no BBQ whereas
they had a BBQ but no food – we
combined forces to make the most
epic bacon sandwiches that have
ever been had at a festival. There was
one of their group who was cooking,
he was so drunk we couldn’t understand
anything he said except for “I
am the chef.” It was just a great night
of strangers bonding over nothing
but a shared love of metal. We didn’t
see them again after we left that night
for the rest of the weekend…. UNTIL
we bumped into the ‘chef’ who had
sobered up and confirmed to us that
he in fact a real chef…
At Download 2012 my friend Liam
(aka Roj) had never camped at a festival
and didn’t bring any wellies. This
meant he had to wear his trainers and
that really hurt his feet after a while
so he used a spare white tentpole, as a
kind of Gandalf style ‘staff’ to help him.
When we queued for the arena, everyone
there was searched, other than
Liam. I asked why not and he realised
he was holding a white stick and wearing
shades. We went the next year but
booked a B&B. He sadly passed away
20
Various Photo Festival Memories by Martha Fitzpatrick