Song of the day: 49 Percent

Today's song of the day is Royksopp's "49 Percent".

According to Wikipedia... "49 Percent" is the second single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. The song initially was written as "Don't Give Up" and sung in live shows, then was developed into "49 Percent" and "Don't Give Up" was covered by the band The Whitest Boy Alive (of Erlend Øye). The word Röyksopp is a stylized version of the Norwegian word for the puffball mushroom, "røyksopp" or literally, "smoke mushroom".

I saw Royksopp at the Get Loaded in the Park festival in Clapham Junction in London last year, and was utterly disappointed. The tent was too small, the sound was rubbish, and the crowd was full of idiots. I still like Royksopp and I still like this song though.

49 percent, one percent short of half, and less than half ain't really much of nothing...

Music festivals are what you make them

Get Loaded was the worst music festival I have ever been to.

The sound was awful, the only way to know who was playing when was to buy the schedule for £5, the timetable didn't allow enough time for the acts (Peaches was on for 30 minutes), the line at the toilets resembled a scene from Mad Max, and the drink queues didn't abate at all throughout the day. The only thing you could do was to get drunk, sit in the dirt outside a tent, hope to hear a snippet of music, and wait for it all to be over.

In saying that, Amber and Angela and I still had a fun time.

While Angela danced Amber and I sat back and laughed at all the festival characters - the 45 year old men high on drugs, the mutton dressed as lamb in a dirty white sundress and broken arm who fell over beside us, the tramp who pushed in line at the bar claiming sorry sorry sorry sorry and who can expect a whole lotta bad karma coming her way soon, the Scotsman who declined my offer of a bite of my cheese and tomato roll but then tried to steal a kiss anyway, the carnies who spun our carriage on the Waltzer ride (perhaps because they heard us refer to them as carnies), and the girl who picked up the ugg boot that Amber found in the portaloo and threw it into the crowd upon my joking request. There was also some celebrity-lookalike spotting - Thom Yorke, Robert Pattinson, Fatty Vautin, and Benicio del Toro.

Our day ended at Revolution, with enough vodka shots and cocktails to make my mother cringe. Sorry mum.