Thursday 9 September 2010

The long hazy days of summer!

It certainly has been one long wet summer in terms of the lack of live music for myself and the band and certainly in respect of interesting dilemmas to enthuse ones readership with (the promised wedding went as sweetly as you like so no stories there I’m afraid)

In days past it would have been far different as I would have been involved in performing at some of the many summer festivals that were around at that time, sadly many long gone. I’ve played in fields, on race courses, in football grounds, on the back of trailers, in parks, tents, bandstands, double decker buses and even on top of portable radio stations. I’ve done it all.

My initial enthusiasm for the great outdoors began when I managed to blag myself onto the bill of a small festival on the south coast called ‘Kingston Festival’. It was based originally in the National Trust’s ‘Kingston Lacey House and had a great atmosphere about the place.

I managed to get 3pm on the main stage, however it was the Sunday grave yard slot and it was lashing it down. All in all though it wetted (no pun intended) my appetite for more and I vowed to get myself onto the coveted 9pm slot on the Friday night just as the sun was setting.

This I managed with my band Mudheads Monkey. About three thousand happy revellers rocking their socks off to our tunes. Sadly it was to be our very last gig as a band as the ties that were holding us and ‘it’ together were fast beginning to unravel by then.

We had performed at the Brixton Academy only the month before. We were getting known, this was the break we had worked towards. But there was pain and tension and that was never what we were all about and on the day we had returned from Kingston I sadly phoned each band member and pulled the plug. A sad moment indeed.

However; on the whole my memories of festivals has always been happy ones.

As a band MHM had the cheek of the Irish and we would blag, cajole and con our way onto any stage or situation.

If this meant taking up residence out side of the promoters caravan and ‘busking’ until 2am in the morning then we did it. We were cheeky yes, but on the whole the promoters and organisers appreciated our sense of unquestionable enthusiasm and 9 times out of 10 we got our break.

At every festival we then promoted our socks off. This meant handing out flyers on mass. Busking to the queue’s waiting to see other more major acts, buzzing the on site radio stations and refusing to leave until they let us play a song, we even ran onto the stage during other people’s acts (they were always friends of ours and generally joined in the lunacy and gave us a name check and plug).

The camping that always went with these events was a major pain mind you as we rarely got much sleep and we all looked and smelt like refugees from The Somme for the entire weekend.

At one festival we decided to pack up the tent before we went on stage as we were planning to leave directly after the event. A particular enthusiastic fan generously tried to help us and ended up stabbing me the face with a tent pole cutting my cheek just below the eye.

By the time we took to the stage I looked like I had been in a bar brawl…and of course after a weekend with no discernable wash facilities smelt like I had been sleeping in a cow shed. Not a great look and feel for a budding rock god I can tell you. Camping was fast becoming my least favourite thing of all time.

Our guitarist Matt didn’t fair much better in the pain department as in the same year he had managed to bang himself up on his motorbike quite badly. Although he was on crutches throughout most of the summer he had completely overlooked this fact during a particularly exciting main stage set. He completely forgot himself and in a blind moment of guitar heroship leapt from the stage into the crowd.

His silent scream was audible only to dogs and those of us in the band who were fully aware of the damage he had already inflicted upon himself as tendons and muscles ripped and tore. God bless him, he still finished the set, but with perhaps just a little less running around.

Thankfully CJ was solely a car driver and apart from rolling his mini on several occasions at speed appeared to have avoided the summer pain of that year.

By the end of our festival days we had allotted to wave our fee in return for a comfortable bed and soft pillows (apart from CJ who for a reason known only unto himself absolutely loved camping and along with the entourage of family and friends that would travel with him to these events would set up a city all of his own…….he’s the only bloke I know that could camp at these things, have a decent wash AND still keep the beer cold….a talent Aaron & I have grown to love appreciate since those days).

The kit generally didn’t fair much better as we were often unloading onto a stage or into a marquee through rain and mud and I was invariably picking straw out of my bass for weeks afterwards.

We always made great friends at all the festivals we played at, most now have slipped into the distant past but I hope they sometimes reminisce fondly about a bunch of nutters they stumbled across all dressed in military jackets and tie die shirts (it was the 90’s) while they themselves looked like they would have failed the audition for a Wurzel Gummidge audition. Fond Memories indeed.

Those days have long gone and the nearest we get to performing at a festival is the British Mountain Bike festival and as we are the only band on the menu it isn’t quite the same.

Would I play at them again? Probably, but the same rules apply. Soft comfy beds or share a tent with CJ, his portable bathroom and beer fridge.

1 comment:

Stilly said...

I really really hope that is not a bottle full of pee........