How Not To Do A Music Festival

1. Don’t assume there’s room for you. In fact, know what? Don’t assume anything. Maybe your friends are getting an R.V; don’t assume there’s room for you. Someone trying to sell you drugs? Don’t assume it’s not crack. Perhaps the first time you tried shrooms it went swimmingly; don’t assume it’ll have the same effect when it’s 10am in Tennessee and you haven’t gotten your bearings.

2. Don’t take hallucinogens until you’re fully settled. The fact that they come in chocolate form and that you’re hungry is not a good enough reason to swallow an 8th of shrooms at 10 in the morning. You will feel lost, scared, and alone. And those people over there? Yeah, it’s not just your paranoia; they’re worried about you.

3. If you’re told to bring a tent, don’t be a smart-ass and just bring a goddamn tent. This isn’t your chance to cash in on your laziness and find some sort of loophole. No such loophole exists. Bring a tent or else you’ll literally be the only one in all of Bonnaroo without one. You’ll be ostracized, scorned, and forced to do the big no-no that is my next point.

4. Never sleep in a car. It seems like a good idea, right? Especially after you’ve barged in on every tent in sight to see if there’s any extra room for you. Well let me stop you right there because it’s not a good idea; never has been, and never will be. Even if you do crack the windows (which I didn’t) you’ll still wake up on the brink of a heat-induced seizure, gasping for air.

5. Don’t recognize it? Don’t eat it. A good, telltale sign that you’re in possession of crack: you hear yourself saying, “this doesn’t look like molly to me…” or “Hey! Why did that white rock just disintegrate as soon as I touched it?” If you try it out and it tastes weird, toss it! Don’t continue consuming it until you’ve eaten an entire bag of crack.

6. Try not to lose your friends. It will certainly be hard, as your phone probably lost batteries within the first hour of your arrival. But just TRY not to lose them. It’s just never fun to find your friend sitting in a corner being coerced by a bunch of Juggalos to join a cult.

7. Don’t be too impulsive. If it’s 3am and you’re approaching your second full night, don’t act on impulse. If you decide you’ve had enough and, though it might be 3am, it’s time to leave, know that it’s the crack talking; not you.

8. Just because you feel awake, doesn’t mean you are awake. Crack can be very deceptive. Just because you feel like you could compete in a triathlon, doesn’t mean that you actually could in practice.

9. Don’t drive there. In case points #7 and #8 weren’t clear, nothing good can come of driving to a festival. Road trips always seem like fun in theory, but festivals are so exhausting as is that driving there and back is actually potentially very dangerous.

10. Don’t be reckless with drugs. If you’re going to a festival, you’re most likely taking drugs with you. and it’s true — most people who work at festivals don’t care — but still, don’t take advantage of this and flaunt your drugs in their face. They WILL take them and you WILL be sober.

11. Don’t get dehydrated. Your toilet for these three days is being shared with 500 other homeless-looking acid heads. Diarrhea is not your friend — for now, at least.

12. Don’t not bring rain boots. You’ll thank me later.

13. Don’t underestimate the power of a mosh pit. I’d rather be in a terrorist attack then have to step foot in another mosh pit. At Lollapalooza one year during The Strokes, I actually almost suffocated inside someone’s hairy armpit. I also lost a shoe, which leads me to my next point…

14. Don’t wear ballet flats.

15. If friend looks green and says she’s okay, don’t listen to her. Because as I like to say, a green face is a green face is a green face — no two ways about it. That’s one thing I learned at Bonnaroo. Your girl’s got a green, pukey look on her face? This isn’t a fire drill; your girl’s about to either faint or retch.