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So seeing as we’ve now pretty much broken the back of our little 2009 festival schedule, it’s time to put some words down by way of documentation.
The fun began in earnest last weekend at Belper and a cosy little warm-up set which was really well received. Soundmen were on the ball, plenty of punters milling about, a dude with a dv recorder and laptop projecting huge images of our gurning faces onto the stage backdrop, which was nice... Then Stuart Steele came rockin up out of nowhere just while we were sound checking and subsequently took some great pics which i’ll post up later.
Anyway, Belper is a great little festival with all the amenities you could ask for and some lovely, lovely people both in attendance and organising. We sold a shit-load of cd’s and were able to have a lovely slap-up curry in Ashbourne on the way home so jobs a good’un.
Oh and almost forgot, went into the bar after the set [big shout to the couple who bought dave and me a drink] and there were two guys playing a little acoustic set, guitar and fiddle kinda bluesy stuff – whoever they are, absolutely effin brilliant. Haven’t heard mouth harp played that well in ages.
So yeh, thanks to Belper for having us and we’ll see y’all at the queens head in October...
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So then... in the sweltering heat of Friday lunchtime we piled into the crackwagon™ to head for Chepstow racecourse, home of the Two Rivers festival. Got down there about 3ish and following a brief tour of the jockeys quarters [fnarr] headed straight up for sound checking, which was a relatively painless affair [cheers guys].
That done, we ate some fresh wood-fired pizza [cheers guys] before strolling down to the champagne bar to witness the defeat of Andy Murray. Steve cried for 30 seconds before getting over it, Dave and me decided that our plan not to touch any alcohol until after our set was, quite frankly, stupid, so we got stuck in. Tennis over, we ambled down to the jockey house to get ready. Andrew decided to dive into a hedge. We laughed...
After a quick bit of titivation, we made use of our meal ticket and stuffed our faces with free food before heading back to the main stage, where two chaps with bazoukis were warming-up the crowd on the terraces, following them, the marvellous and annoyingly young ‘one string loose’, proceeded to whip-up a frenzy with their quite unique brand of trad/celt funksterization.
Then it was our turn.
Then we were done.
That’s when we discovered the tent backstage housing copious amounts of free beer. We stocked up and headed back to the bleachers to watch the 3 daft monkeys finish the main stage.
At this point i may as well, very quickly, share my theory regarding said outfit. I think the 3 daft monkeys are actually batman villains, straight outta gotham. And they cover the gamut of incarnations/styles of batman we’ve witnessed over the years: ‘the bassist’ is from the 60’s Adam West era, ‘the fiddler’ is kinda like the Michael Keaton years and ‘the frontman’ is from the current Christian Bale format. Their back story is that they were acrobatic circus musicians, who lost their jobs after the Grayson family, young Dick [Robin] in tow, joined up and usurped their position. Angry, embittered and vengeful, the 3 daft monkeys turn to the dark side and go on the road, ensnaring the collective subconscious of crusty festival goers the world over with their socially aware gypsy rhythms.
Sirens can be heard fast approaching, and cuddly fascist Commissioner Gordon addresses the monkeys via the tannoy: “the show's over monkeys, you’re under arrest!” The bassist dives for his guitar case and whips out a tommy gun, laughing maniacally and shouting something like “ya won’t take me alive copper!” he opens fire on the hapless GCPD who run for cover.
Just then, a dark, caped figure swoops down amid little explosions and smoke, and incapacitates the trigger happy bassist with a lightning-fast roundhouse kick. The two remaining monkeys go “ooh ooh ah ah ah” or some such panicky monkey noise, drop their instruments and deftly scamper up the stage scaffold and off into the night, leaving behind a dazed crowd, a frustrated tour manager, an arrested bassist and little monkey calling cards. Batman pursues, but they’re gone.
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I later put this theory to ‘the frontman’... He asked me what drugs i was on...
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So anyway, after the monkeys had left the stage peacefully, we headed back to the champagne bar, where there was a jolly little ceillidh session going down. I got a bit bored and decided to wrestle dave. It was an easy victory, i don’t think dave was in the mood for violence and he lay there motionless as i pinned him down, waiting for me to get off and go away. I went inside to heckle the two guys doing the open mike. Didn’t do much in the way of heckling as, Nimming Ned proved to be the best set of music i’d heard all festival, so when they’d finished i went over and drunkenly began to get on their nerves. They didn’t want to wrestle me either.
Then out of nowhere, Paul Simmonds and Cush, of 'the men they couldn’t hang' fame took to the stage and we ended the night with a good ol’ singalong to greenback dollar and green fields of france. Smashing.
On the way back down to the jockey house, i decided to give dave a chance to redeem himself following his humiliating defeat at the bar earlier. It was a chance he grabbed with an eagerness i couldn’t help feeling bordered on sexual. Pinning me down, he frantically tried to mate with me as i writhed in protest beneath him. As he realised that sex would not be occurring, he became angry and tried to strangle me. All my strength gone, i lay still and gurgled “submit, submit!” as best i could while he continued to deprive me of oxygen. Finally, my pleas were acknowledged by the temporarily gay mancunian and he released his iron grip.
Then we went to bed... not together though – he’s well and truly blown his chance with me after that little episode.
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So there ya go. massive thank you to Lisa and Steve at Chepstow for having us and indeed tolerating us. Apologies to anyone who i upset with my disgraceful antics. Hopefully there’ll be more shenanigans soon – next up is tolpuddle martyrs festival, [where we aren't staying over so i'll probably behave myself] but before that we have another jaunt out to Manchester for our first gig at the saki bar, then we’re back home in ‘castle at the bedd bar on the 10th, joined by bryn and the fantastic giro junkie.
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Cool...
sore