last year i participated in an art contest hosted by the german beverage (chiefly cola) company fritz who were long the young and woke (and local) opponent to the big cola & lemonade companies but this year went loser-mode and sponsored a political event for the CDU, german's centre-right "christian" party. so i'm not even mad now that i didn't even get shortlisted in that contest. but i did win tickets to a fritz-sponsored 2026 festival of my choice, and me and my friend (who was the obvious choice to ask to come along), decided on the MS Dockville festival in hamburg. it's relatively small (compared to, i imagine, something like Rock am Ring), seemed most compatible with our tastes in music, and its timing suited both our schedules the best.
now, i love music, and i love concerts. but uhhh all the concerts i've been to (with the exception of hozier) were at smallish inside venues, and isolated events of a few hours, after which i could go back home and crawl into a comfy bed. a festival is something different. outdoor, (in this case) camping, many more people, something going on around you the entire time for the whole or even several days, and i've never been to one (the free-entry campus-festival i spent one afternoon/evening at a few years ago doesn't count), so it's also obviously just an entirely new experience for me. and we all know how great i am at making new experiences.
point being, in the weeks leading up to dockville, i became increasingly anxious about it. mostly i didn't like not knowing what it would be like and how everything, from entry to camping to navigating the actual festival, was going to work. and all that on top of being quite sure that overall it wouldn't really be my thing.
ultimately, we did shave off day 1 of it in favour of staying home for another day of settling in. my friend had moved in just days before and i'd spent the previous weekend at my parents' and i at least felt very exhausted at the thought of travelling again already and being away for three days.
the night before we then decided to leave (15/08, saturday morning, 2nd day of the festival), i felt very ourgh about it all and couldn't sleep, so started to write down all my thoughts and feelings about it. which helped a bit i think. i kept this kind of emotional documentation of the experience going throughout the event, to have a more complete picture of how it was for me, to maybe refer back to in the future. i was thinking about maybe printing that here too, but it feels quite personal (and it's also 2000 words long), so i'll just summarise and maybe put in some quotes? we'll see.
so, friday/saturday night was bad, very doomery if i'm honest. felt scared about everything and like everything would be bad. tried to invoke the mindset that i'd be fine ultimately and that there are no rules and i could just sit at the sidelines and observe all day, or read, or do whatever:
i will try not to care too much and just enjoy the enjoyable parts. i’m going, and then i can say i have tried it and this is how it was for me. i can always leave. i can leave the grounds or at least the busy corners, and i can come back for the one act i want to see, and then i can leave again. nothing is as serious and restricted as the rabbit in my chest makes it out to be.
but that is the smallest part of that log-entry. most is rather pessimistic. awesome start.
the morning of was kind of bad with (what i assume was) an anxiety stomach-ache. talked it over with my friend, who suggested i stay home entirely. and something inside me liked that idea but the part of me that was already committed to the whole thing and felt bad about missing out on it won, and so we were off to hamburg.
the journey itself at least was rather untroublesome, except of course that the carrying of our luggage, tent and all, was rather exhausting. on the train, i wrote another little log-entry, which was a bit more of a straight-forward account of how i was feeling, and more reinforcement of the idea that it's all not that serious and i can do whatever i want, actually:
i can find ways to get through today on my own terms, i can participate in as much or as little of it all as i can or want to. there are no rules (i think that this is part of what unnerves me).
i was also thinking about why it's so hard (for me) to let go of this opportunity when i'd always and obviously at the time still felt i wouldn't really enjoy it, and thought this must be some kind of fallacy akin to the sunken-cost fallacy, except it's like. you are given this big expensive thing at no cost of your own, so you feel compelled to make use of it, or to respond with the "appropriate" enthusiasm, even if you don't really want it. the cost of going to dockville was so low for me in this case (and the objective (and usually also the subjective) value of it so high) that i had to do it. (as opposed to the cost being so high that you feel obligated to go through with it, otherwise it'd be a waste of resources.) idk. is that just FOMO?
i think i maybe felt FOMO at the thought of my friend going alone, and i often feel it when i can't participate in whatever whatever because of a shutdown or because i have to withdraw to prevent one or just cause i just know the thing wouldn't be enjoyable for me. that FOMO i think is a mix of regret that i can't have fun with people i like and want to hang out with, a kind of bitterness or envy that i can't enjoy the same things other people enjoy (or in the same way/to the same extend), and a kind of self-directed anger (?) that my brain/nervous system does the things it does that result in shutdowns or the like. idk if that's FOMO. it's less of a fear-feeling, i think, and more of a regret. regret at missing out. idk. anyway.
so we arrived at the festival fine but it was quite warm and sunny, so that plus carrying our luggage left me very sweaty before even getting to the campsite. and then the route to the latter was somewhat poorly indicated, so we went the wrong way in a small way that under different sensory circumstances wouldn't even have been any kind of deal at all, but was to me at the time quite frustrating and disorienting. when we finally got to the camp and had set up the tent, i had to go sit in the shade for a bit. not in an idyllic way. more in a near-shutdown way. with my friend's help, i managed to get out of it quite quickly, at least. he brought me my (newly acquired!) sunglasses (they are awesome i love them! different friend says they have something kurt cobain to them, which i agree with and really like. normal-looking guy wearing an accessory that has a bit of a diva feel. that's where i see myself) and headphones, which helped with the most immediate sensory uhhh aggressors. i could then go back to the tent to change into a different shirt, which helped further. we ate something, hung out in the shade a little, then i had a half hour to myself, in which time i wrote another log-entry, another rather straight-forward account of these sensory experiences and happenings. and this:
if i shut myself in and ignore my surroundings i think i’ll be okay. if i make myself into an observer. it’s okay to be an observer.
it is okay to be an observer. over the past years i've felt a lot of regret at not being able to bring myself to really be part of the action at group-gatherings, parties and such, and envy of those who can, and wished i could do that more. but it's okay. i can just sit and watch. i think i have to learn to distinguish between the kind of action i know i won't enjoy, and the kind i'm just wanting to avoid on instinct because it's new. or i have to learn to estimate my capacity for trying new things or doing things i'll only somewhat enjoy for the greater joy of doing them with my friends. idk. there is something i have to learn still. but the first step is/was accepting that my disposition as an observer is okay.
then we went to the actual festival. this was quite easy and entry was not as scary as i'd kind of feared. the only thing i felt momentarily thrown off by was that at the security check, they called for "men to go right through" to the male guards, who were standing at the back of the security check area, while female guards were at the front to check female festival goers. as a trans person this sort of set something rolling in my brain, like what do these people percieve me to be? i think at this point i'm pretty consistently read as male, but i guess the fear (?) of being gendered differently persists. and i'm always scared of confrontation anyway, especially with security staff, so that added to this momentary unsureness of how to proceed. additionally, there was no clear open path to walk down when i got there, which made me more unsure, and so i stepped out of the line (barely a line. more of a crowd, slowly funnelling in) for a moment to assess the setup from a secure standpoint. the security check itself was quick and there were no problems, at least.
there was a "book-café" at the festival, which i wanted to find first, so we did. unfortunately, contraty to my hopes, it was positioned smack in the middle of the area, across from a big stage where someone was already performing to very heavy bass, as opposed to something tucked away in a slightly quieter corner, so that, oh i don't know, you might actually be able to concentrate on what you're reading. i sat in there anyway, headphones on playing my own music, and i did some drawing and read my book for a while until i had to give up the space for a workshop happening there. my friend went to see some live music, like a normal festival goer. around 6 pm i wrote another log-entry, lamenting the heaviness of the bass but welcoming and appreciating the weather changing to be more cloudy, breezy and cooling down. then i went back to the camp to eat dinner.
after dinner was the one music act happening that day that i knew and wanted to see. this was BIBIZA, who does german-language uhhh funky hiphop-pop-rock? idk, i'd maybe liken his style and musical vibe to Falco. don't shoot me, i don't know music i just listen to it. anyway. so my friend and i reunited and went to see bibiza, and my friend had lots of fun but my heart wasn't really in it, so for the first few songs, i felt awkward and off standing among the crowd, unmoving and unsinging. chose to find myself a spot at the very edge of the audience then, and from that point forward had a much better time. i assumed the position of an observer.
after four-or-so songs standing somewhat in the crowd, i found a spot on the very edge instead, my back against the barricade, some space free around me, and i let myself let go of wanting to be part of the action. nodding along was enough now.
after this we went to see Nand, who does something very chill and melodic with his instrumentals and fun poetic vocals. there, i kept to the sidelines from the very start, sitting on a big tree that had grown horizontally, it was a bit like sitting between its roots. my spot was level with the front barricade, so i could see the faces of the frontmost audience members and it was really nice just listening to nand's set and watching people's enjoyment of it. i think my mistake had been approaching this whole event as a concert (where i always wanna bring lots of energy, my full attention for the artists and music, and the ability to dance and sing along), when here, with the sheer number of different artists (many) and the degree to which i knew all their music (low), all that just wasn't possible. so when i let go of that at the bibiza show and more fully at nand, it was just listening to music while not necessarily needing to pay full attention to it. that really made things more enjoyable for me.
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| nand, from my little spot right at the threshold between audience and backstage |
the next (and my final) gig, after eating a delicious crêpe and sitting with my friend for a moment, was Tom Odell who i was surprised is british and moreso by how much instrumental intensity he added to his live performances, when his album sound is really quite subdued i feel. it was really good, though i felt that his music would be more at home at a gorgeous old, mid-sized theatre than a gigantic open-air stage. his sound, and voice especially, reminded me a bit of Jeff Buckley. for this one, i again left my friend to be at the centre of the crowd and found a place beyond it against a fence with a food truck on the other side. this, before tom odell started, is where i wrote my next log-entry, describing the previous two concerts and improvement of my mood.
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| tom odell hidden behind his audience and some trees that very nicely framed the stage from where i sat. |
absurdly, in those last few hours where i was really finally doing well, i was checked in on by four different people about whether i was doing okay. which was nice, it's always nice when people are thoughtful, but i was literally just sitting there. i felt that it reveals something about what is deemed normative behaviour at an event like this. sitting near the ground and wearing headphones or enjoing the music from a little outside the crowd apparently isn't. which makes sense, i suppose, but it's still a little strange to me that those things read as concerning.
we reunited again after tom odell, and i met a friend of my friend's who was coincidentally also there and who is very nice and cool, judging from the five minutes we were together. they then went to see some DJs i think and i went back to the camp because well. there was nothing appealing about that to me. on the way back, i listened to Waterparks' latest album Jinx (which is sooo good despite the accompanying art being sooo ugly. but really, it's so up my alley, i love it) for the fourth time that day and inside the tent wrote the following single-line log-entry:
it’s the end of the night and i have infinite energy. next time i’d like to start here.
not that there will be a next time. but you know what i mean.
i ate another bite or two, did some more reading and finally tried to sleep (difficult).
sunday morning we woke up earlier than planned because we were being steamed alive in that tent, and decided to just pack up and leave. and so we did. on the train ride home, i wrote a final log-entry, making a list of things that were good (pretty much everything i've already told you) and things that were bad:
things that were bad: i don't need to reiterate, and you can imagine what state this kind of event leaves you in. i need a shower and to wash all my clothes.
i felt very icky. but such is camping and festivals, i suppose. and now i leave you with the final paragraph of my log, because it's what i'd say anyway:
i don't think i will ever do this again. not anytime soon, at any rate. there is just too much happening in too many ways that rub up coarsely against what i think might be my nature. or at least a way that i am that i cannot shake just yet. and the good parts are too little in comparison, and pleasant at best. i don't think i would do this for my favourite bands, not if i have to pay for it myself.
but i am glad i made the experience. now i can say, well, i tried that, and it’s not for me.
and now it’s not so unfamiliar.
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| at least there was a cool projection thing |
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