Virgin Music Festival 2008

We road tripped from Chicago in hopes to relive our somewhat lost youth and rock out to our favorite British Acts of yesteryear.
Sunday’s headliners were solid, with Stereophonics, Paul Weller and Oasis.
I haven’t listened to Oasis much since the 90s, but seeing them live reminded me why their music played such a central role in my coming of age. By the time they had opened up with Rock ‘n Roll star and moved to Cigarettes and Alcohol I was already making an ass of myself dancing and singing choruses at the top of my lungs.
So why only 2 stars for the music festival? Organization. I’ve been to a few of these mega-​festivals elsewhere, and this one just sucks.
I could write a thesis on this, but here’s a summary.
— It look 2−½ hours to get on the island. They need to form a better staging area so security and ticket collection don’t slow ferries from being boarded swiftly.
— Once on the island it took ½ hour to move from one stage to another. The park’s walkways are just too narrow for the number of festival goers
— Beer. You can only drink in designated areas away from the stages. You can’t take beer out to the stage area. There weren’t bathrooms in the beer gardens.
— Security. First, Noël Gallagher got attached on stage. Second, leaving the island after the show was like a prison riot. Concert goers knocking over fences and barriers, pushing and shoving other patrons, cutting through flower gardens and plant life all trying to short cut the mass exodus to get on the ferry back off the island. I really can’t believe that someone didn’t get seriously hurt. so much pushing and shoving and collapsing of fences and barriers with security being nowhere to be found. Props to the English for all their football and national songs sung in unison in the queue out, though. The Canadians countered with a very loud and heart-​felt ‘Oh Canada’.
I understand it takes a certain amount of space to have these types of festivals and I wasn’t expecting to hop on a speed boat to get on and off the island, but there seemed to be so little planning and organization to this event compared to say Lolla in the Chi. It was totally unacceptable.
Oasis still rocked, but please get your act together for next year.