Greetings From Finsbury Park (8/6/13)

No. I'm not there. I wish I was. Is there any realistic prospect of getting to Finsbury Park (somewhere in London by all accounts) before The Stone Roses hit the stage?

The sun is blazing, it's a perfect evening for a gig, I watched them in the rain this time last year, I'd like to watch them in the sun now. And when I say now, I mean now. This very second. I feel left out. I feel I'm missing out. I want to see them again and I want to do it without some idiot pissing down the back of my leg.

Have I told you about this yet?

Well, I hit Heaton Park relatively early in conditions that would best be described as monsoon-esque, found myself a nice little spot, couldn't get into the semi circle in front of the stage, too late for that, managed to get basically two people away from the barrier that cut across the field; a little walkway for the celebs to walk to and from their raised platform seats, a path for John Bishop to go and get a bevy basically.

So I was nice and settled. The Wailers were playing (Bob Marley's Wailers doing Bob Marley songs, I'd hazard a guess that maybe one of them had played with Bob, the rest looked way too young. Anyway, they were splendid) the rain was falling but I had this crappy plastic poncho to keep me dry so I was relatively mellow about the whole thing.

Then I felt it. The back of my leg. A strange warmth. A dampness.

"It's not is it?" I thought, closely followed by "it is you know"

I turned to encounter a somewhat inebriated total stranger swaying gently as he, well there's no other way of putting it, pissed down the back of my leg.

"Ah ey mate" I said in broadest Bootle in the middle of a park in Manchester "give us a fucking break will yer?"

His reply? A mumbled,  "Sorry mate, there's nowhere else to go"

"You could try the fucking bogs."

I turned back to The Wailers, there was no way I was getting a kicking off a dickhead because I objected to him urinating on my leg. Sometimes all you can do is put up with these things.

But his girlfriend wasn't putting up with it.

"You haven't have you? You have, haven't you? Tell me you haven't. You have. You bloody have. We're going. We're going. WE'RE GOING. NOW? I WANT TO GO HOME. NOW?"

And with that she dragged him away. £100 on tickets (at least) in order to get bladdered and have a marital in the field. Yes, I'd been pissed on but I felt some degree of moral victory on this.

(There was, of course, another thought that occurred to me at the time; maybe his other half wasn't offended at what he'd done, maybe he'd actually gone the whole way and shat himself into the bargain. Part of me really hopes so)

Anyway, The Roses were majestic, the version of Fools Gold was possibly the best thing that I have ever seen live. (It's in the 'Made Of Stone' film, you can judge for yourself but for full effect you need to be in a field with 75,000 other people singing in the dark, in the rain)

The only draw back? I was on the park & ride service back to the car park. I was travelling alone so only took up one seat. This girl sat next to me, student type, and all I could think was 'I smell of piss and she doesn't know it's not my own."

So, if you're in Finsbury Park tonight or you're heading to Glasgow Green next week (hello Col), enjoy. But watch out for the guy behind you.