Well well, It’s been a grand weekend to say the least. I got out of the pen on Thursday took it easy, visited the folks for a bit of ma’s home cooking and then Saturday I headed off with a car full of women ( none of em mine) to the Cornbury Music Festival. Caroline Parker aka Caro Sparks, Di and Kim were my roadtrip companions.
I use the term roadtrip because we actually played a motorway game using numberplates, once games come into play it’s a roadtrip in my book. It doesn’t sound that rock and roll but all of us must have been on summer heat cos every number plate seemed to spell out some filth or other.
We collected passes when we got there and headed to the camping area to pitch out tents. I’ve got this new gadgety pop up tent. It was a tent in 2 seconds. It didn’t even get to the second P in Pop! Then secure guy ropes with pegs. Time taken to put up my tent…..1 minute, time taken watching others put up their tents……25 mins
Priceless!
Walking around it had all the elements of the average festival, only with an obvious difference in class of punter. I’ve never seen so many festival goers walking around with and sitting down on their own collapsible chairs.
They had “Comfy Loo’s” that you could buy a weekend £12.00 pass to use, they had Dyson exhibiting his new instant hand dryer by promoting a handwashing area providing soaps and running hot water whilst obviously encouraging you to dry your hands using his fabulous new invention. I’m not impressed. I’ve seen towels that do the same thing.
The comedy tent was great. Compared to other festival gigs I’ve done it was a smaller marquee/tent but it was more of a room for comedy/gig than the others. There were tables and chairs out, good sound, lighting and a stage area. The shame was that it was a last minute decision to do comedy this year and so apart from the festival programme, our prescience was not well known. We were however full at by the end of each evening.
Both nights it went a bit nuts at the end. On Saturday night John Hegeley was the headline act. He was gigging in London so didn’t make it onto stage until 11.50pm.
We were told the tent had to be over by midnight. Now we were the only entertainment left on so the tent was heaving. The primates…sorry security guards came to us bang on 12 and said that we had to shut down. They said this inbetween grooming one and other and picking bugs out of each others coats.
We told them the score and just asked them to hold off to let him wrap it up. Anyway after fobbing them off a couple of times they just entered the tent and one did a knuckle dragging march onto the stage and just interrupted Johns set. It looked like it was gonna kick off but then I had to remember it’s the Cornbury music festival.
This is the festival Radio 4 listeners and radio 2 listeners hook up at to hear the likes of Crowded House, Paul Simon and 10CC. This is a festival with a Pimms Bus and a Champagne bar.
On Sunday night Adam Bloom was headlining and we made sure the night ran tihtly so Adam would get on at 11.15 and be done on the stoke of midnight.
I use the term roadtrip because we actually played a motorway game using numberplates, once games come into play it’s a roadtrip in my book. It doesn’t sound that rock and roll but all of us must have been on summer heat cos every number plate seemed to spell out some filth or other.
We collected passes when we got there and headed to the camping area to pitch out tents. I’ve got this new gadgety pop up tent. It was a tent in 2 seconds. It didn’t even get to the second P in Pop! Then secure guy ropes with pegs. Time taken to put up my tent…..1 minute, time taken watching others put up their tents……25 mins
Priceless!
Walking around it had all the elements of the average festival, only with an obvious difference in class of punter. I’ve never seen so many festival goers walking around with and sitting down on their own collapsible chairs.
They had “Comfy Loo’s” that you could buy a weekend £12.00 pass to use, they had Dyson exhibiting his new instant hand dryer by promoting a handwashing area providing soaps and running hot water whilst obviously encouraging you to dry your hands using his fabulous new invention. I’m not impressed. I’ve seen towels that do the same thing.
The comedy tent was great. Compared to other festival gigs I’ve done it was a smaller marquee/tent but it was more of a room for comedy/gig than the others. There were tables and chairs out, good sound, lighting and a stage area. The shame was that it was a last minute decision to do comedy this year and so apart from the festival programme, our prescience was not well known. We were however full at by the end of each evening.
Both nights it went a bit nuts at the end. On Saturday night John Hegeley was the headline act. He was gigging in London so didn’t make it onto stage until 11.50pm.
We were told the tent had to be over by midnight. Now we were the only entertainment left on so the tent was heaving. The primates…sorry security guards came to us bang on 12 and said that we had to shut down. They said this inbetween grooming one and other and picking bugs out of each others coats.
We told them the score and just asked them to hold off to let him wrap it up. Anyway after fobbing them off a couple of times they just entered the tent and one did a knuckle dragging march onto the stage and just interrupted Johns set. It looked like it was gonna kick off but then I had to remember it’s the Cornbury music festival.
This is the festival Radio 4 listeners and radio 2 listeners hook up at to hear the likes of Crowded House, Paul Simon and 10CC. This is a festival with a Pimms Bus and a Champagne bar.
On Sunday night Adam Bloom was headlining and we made sure the night ran tihtly so Adam would get on at 11.15 and be done on the stoke of midnight.
Crowded house were over having well and truly taken the weather with them and the tent was packed. Adam was having an absolute corker of a gig when at 11.45 the hi visibility gibbons….sorry - security men appeared and walked straight on in the middle of his set without even asking us beforehand. I guess they thought they would launch a pre-emptive strike thus robbing us of the chance of going over midnight.
Still, Bloom being the consummate pro rolled with it and made it funny and I believe there may be a youtube clip coming soon in which case I will put a link to it on this blog.
A big thanks to all the other acts involved…you know who you were.
Today somebody died on the train tracks and so I missed my plane to Jersey. With no other flights today that meant I missed my gig and lost out on travel costs….If they had only decided to mull it over for another day or two I would have made that plane. Some people are so selfish!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment