Southside Festival - Germany

Yesterday Emilie and I drove to Neuhausen ob Eck, Germany, for the Southside Music Festival. While I've been to Germany a number of times in transit (namely via the Munich and Frankfurt airports), this was my first proper visit to the country.

It rained most of Friday in Lausanne, so we had our fingers crossed that the weather would be better at the festival. As with most (perhaps all) festivals, it's held outdoors and thus not the ideal place to be when its raining. Unless you're one of the infamous "mudpeople" from Woodstock '94, of course.

Unfortunately, it was raining there as well. And on Friday night we not only got drenched (it proceeded to pour in the middle of the Foo Fighters' performance), but we also had to brave a mile-long walk in the mud to get to the main stage. Clearly, my Vans weren't the best choice but in reality it could have been a lot worse as I saw a number of people literally lose their shoes.

At least we could take comfort in the fact that we had a nice warm hotel with a shower to return to. It seemed that the majority of the other festivalgoers were camping there and it looked absolutely miserable.

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In preparation for our return to the festival tonight, we bought ourselves some cheap rain boots and they served their purpose well. The festival area (particularly camping areas) consisted of a vast wasteland of mud and the conditions felt a bit post-apocolyptic.

I have to hand it to the festivalgoers, though, as many were quite inventive in their attempts to convert regular clothes into water-tight protective gear MacGyver-style with little more than some duct tape and plastic bags.

The highlight of the concert was The Arcade Fire, who put on an incredible performance and rewarded those who braved the rain. And as luck would have it, the skies cleared during their set and made the mud-related misery well worth it.

We had a bit of a scare while trying to exit the parking area, which was effectively a field prior to the rain but devolved into a mud pit after. The picture below will provide a general feel, but by the time we left later in the evening it was much worse. And Emilie's Mini Cooper is far from an off-road vehicle. For a while we weren't sure that we would even make it out.