When we're on stage, I vow to be sensible. But then I end up crowd-surfing or climbing up scaffolding

It is amazing what people do to get into a festival. When we were younger, my bandmates Nick, Whitey and I would find new and devious scams to get backstage. One year, I pretended to be the singer from Gay Dad. It wasn't my idea: a Melody Maker journalist approached me and said, "How did the set go?" So I told him about Gay Dad's bold plans for our next album, as we strolled past security.

We grew up in Leeds and the festival was 15 minutes from our homes. Once we pretended we had given our passes to a Going Live! competition winner and blagged new wristbands. On another occasion, Whitey failed to get in and ended up mooching around in town. In WH Smith, he noticed that the price tags on the shelves were the same colour as the VIP wristbands. He nicked one, got a bit of sticky tape and the next we saw of him was backstage with a piece of plastic around his wrist. Those days are gone now, although sometimes our security guard will say a cheeky little bastard has jumped the fence and I will give them a pass because we were cheeky little bastards once. Supergrass, Shed Seven and a bloke from Kula Shaker all took pity on us and helped us into festivals when we were teenagers.

Never mind your literary and classical music festivals: for me, a festival is a horrible waxy plastic cup containing half a pint of warm Heineken and random blades of grass. I'll save the book jaunt for when I want a chair. I'm not quite at the folding umbrella seat stage yet. Festivals may be expensive but they are still about kids; I love the fact that you don't get old people at the front. Having said that, we're in our 30s and our parents are getting on a bit and festivals make them 10 years younger. They arrive with tassles on their leather jackets, and my bandmate Simon's mum has a particularly fetching orange cowboy hat. A few years back, my mum did the conga with Karen O and Peaches at Leeds festival. We had a party with Franz Ferdinand and she still refers to them as if they are her best mates.

We would not be where we are today without festivals. Glastonbury 05 was a real turning point for us. It was only later, when I saw it on telly, that I realised we had a brown backdrop. That was a mistake, but it seemed lucky. Maybe we should have more brown backdrops. This summer, we are playing at two or three festivals every weekend. It's summer camp for bands. Some haven't been announced yet but it doesn't end with V, Leeds, Reading and Glastonbury. You can hop on a train and go across the Channel - Belgium has got some brilliant festivals.

We tend to see more of the backstage these days because I don't want to spend my life watching people struggle to work out how to use the camera on their mobile phones. Why haven't people figured it out yet? So we drink with other bands and moan about how busy we are. But we're all having the time of our lives. Festivals recapture the experience of being the underdog again. You are put back in your place. Not every festival-goer loves your music and yet you want them to walk away thinking you're the best thing they've seen all weekend.

Every time we go on stage, I vow to be sensible. I tell myself it is too knackering to go crowd-surfing or climb up scaffolding. But as soon as the music starts, I can't help it. I'm programmed to do it. And it makes it more fun. It is the weekend, I'm playing in my favourite rock band in front of all these people and I want to push it as far as I can go.

I try not to watch myself on TV though. I always look dead angry and I shout stupid things and swear at the crowd. The other day I screamed, "Get on your feet you miserable bastards" to people sat at the back. They didn't think I could see them. Sorry, people sat at the back: I'm not really angry, I'm just excited.

I don't worry about festivals becoming too corporate - even the ones with actors from Emmerdale and a big mobile phone sponsor have their own character - but I am fed up with health and safety and people being told they can't get on each other's shoulders or wave flags. Clean it up too much and it is less a festival and more a load of people paying a lot of money to be told what to do. What I used to love about festivals was as soon as you got through the door - and had all your booze confiscated - anything went. It was the most free you could feel: stumbling around out of your head and then at sunset, when you were walking back up the hill, you turned back to the stage and Blur were playing To the End and you remember that moment for the rest of your life.

Festivals are their own little world. Think of them like the Grand National. If you like a band's name but know nothing about them, put a bet on and go and see them. If people are giving them good odds, they might be brilliant. There are always interesting little things going on, even at the big mobile phone festivals. Abandon yourself. Don't worry about anything. If you eat too little and drink too much, you can always sort it out on Monday morning.

This week Ricky made a cornish pasty: "A surprisingly easy affair that I would recommend to anyone. I decorated one with a lightning bolt and one with a skull. I thought I was being quite Shoreditch 2002." He discovered blackboard paint: "I've been painting everything black." He has also been out star-gazing: "As the summer comes, so the stars come out of hibernation."

The Big Chill Guide to Summer Living contains all this year's best events and activities. Published by Guardian Books, it is available for £12.99 (rrp £14.99)