Glastonbury Tales
Glastonbury has come and gone, but as an inauguration into the daddy- or is it the mother?-of all festivals, it has to qualify as an outstanding success, in that I am now a complete convert, having previously eyed its muddy charms from afar with something approaching a mix of disdain and fear.
The Spirit of 71 entourage I was involved in played a large part/were instrumental in/ place-own-music-realted-metaphor-here in the experience being so amenable. Even the attempts by some of the security staff to prevent the band’s access to the site couldn’t dampen the mood. Promoting a certain kind of person to the rank of gate-keeper will always end in tears, as the temptation to deploy their only weapon- “You cant’ come in”- will always be too irresistible for them, and neither logical reasoning nor humane request will deter them in their duty to deny access. More enlightened forces ultimately prevailed, much to the disgust of the brightly-vested Anubis on the gate, and the band was let through.
It seems redundant to talk about mud at Glastonbury, but it is the first time I’ve had to hose my keyboard stand and gig-bag down after a gig, not to mention scraping the stuff of my music- WTF, Glastonbury? The site itself, with the rain coming down relentlessly and the population marching determinedly through it, was like the Somme might have been if everyone had been too pissed and high to fight, and decided to wander aimlessly at each other instead. Having said that, some of the gigs we played went down better on the rain-soaked Friday than they did on the sunny Saturday afternoon, as if some ley-line-related perversity required everyone to disguise their enjoyment in the face of clear skies and warm breezes. Or maybe we were just shit on Saturday.
Against all expectations, rocking out with Melanie on Friday was one of the highlights of the two days; good crowd, band all going for it, past midnight etc.- whatever it was, highly enjoyable, despite having to hang round for ages beforehand backstage whilst she went through some pretty interminable solo stuff, even her manager rolling his eyes at it all. Another undoubted highlight was initially trying to collect my gear on Saturday from the backstage lock-up- which ultimately required a 4×4 to pick it up in the swamp-like conditions- only to be told that 20 Wombles had just arrived on site, and getting them safely delivered to their stage was the top priority. I’d happily let the Wombles’ ability to function as a live band supersede anything I might want to attempt at any given time of any given day, and was only sorry to have missed them play. We did wonder afterwards if they had to restrain their natural inclinations to tidy up the entire site before they could play, and imagined a scenario where having removed every last bit of litter from the surface of Worthy Farm, and poised to rip into “Wombling in the Rain (Makes You Feel So Good)”, someone in the audience might thoughtlessly discard a crisp packet, obliging the band to down instruments and trudge off stage to deal with the offending item.
Arthur Brown did a cracking live show, and said afterwards backstage that he deliberately employed a young band- who were absolutely shit-hot -because they had no pre-conceptions about how things should be done, were consequently very open to everything, and had tremendous energy levels. Amen to that, and long live Mr Brown, who at 69- sixty-fucking-nine!- can still hit a top D on “Fire” and still knows more about how to put on a live show than most of us will ever hope to know.
Plus ça change
Afetr George Osborne defended his current economic policies on the radio this morning, it was pointed out that he kept using the word “credibility” when explaining his course of action. What this transaltes as is: “I am trying to establish credibility with the markets that we we are taking the economic problems we face seriously”. What this in turn means is- “I am trying to appease and reassure the very people who got us into this mess, and not frighten them with the prospect that they might never again be able to cock up the entire economy.”
The irritable smirkster also talked of his “mandate” to solve the country’s problems. This is a strange choice of words for a government which finds itself in power only thanks to a bit of flagrant bed-hopping with a political party that is the ideological opposite of themselves. Whatever Clegg might profess about the similarities of the two parties, or however much Call-Me-Dave might extol their willingness to work together, the core supporters of the two parties are, of course, fundamentally different. The Liberal Democrats actually propsed at a party conference some years back to de-criminalise certain drugs. You would be more likely to see Ken Clarke in a Mankini on the sea-front at Brighton than see a Tory politician propose this at Conference. There was no mandate, only an undignified scramble to get into power, following the sorry realisisation that the Conservatives had somhow during the election managed to miss the biggest open goal since Diana Ross skied one over the bar during the opening ceremony of the 1994 World Cup.
There was much talk by the coalition after the election that the country had actually got the “government they voted for”, that somehow people thought when casting their vote that what they were actually doing was skilfully creating a period of political uncertainty which would result in a hung parliament, which in turn would create the dream unification we’d all talked about so much before the election- the utopian, rainbow alliance of Conservatives and Liberals, hangers and floggers joyfully embracing drug-decriminalisers and Guardian readers. This conveniently forgets that people voted Lib-Dem in the election because they seemed to represent change from the the two-party system and were seemingly well-placed to do better than they ever previously had; they also didn’t turn out in large numbers to vote Conservative because they’d seen what happened last time anybody did. The irony is, the notion that the electorate somehow “voted-in ” the subsequent coalition is exactly the kind of result we would have had under the AV system which Call-Me-David had so whole-heartedly attacked. The AV system would enable exactly the kind of extended choice which the coalition was implying the electorate had made in delivering a hung parliament in 2010 and which it was so keen to acknowledge.
Holier than Thou
Images of frenzied people chanting “USA!USA!” in the States following the death of The World’s Most Bearded Man bear an uncanny resemblance to the scenes of hysterical flag burning so often witnessed in the Middle East, and all too often held up as evidence of the region’s uncivilised populus.
A few days later, in an article in The Guardian, an American girl claimed the shots of jubilant crowds whooping and hollering at Ground Zero were “offensive to me as a Muslim”. Why do people find it so hard to just be offended? Why do we find it so difficult to be simply offended as human beings?
I went to collect my youngest from school a while ago, and was collared by an anxious parent who informed me that her son and mine had been betting during the after-school club. I was already aware of this, as my son had told me enthusiastically that the other child, having recently discovered the joys of gambling, was prepared to take a bet on the outcome of pretty much any scenario my son- or indeed anyone at the club, kids and staff alike- could come up with. The anxious parent scrutinised me carefully whilst relating the news, then said-“It’s particularly bad for me because ……I’m a Quaker”.
How awful I felt. Whilst I, as a non-Quaker, was simply grateful if my own child managed to return home each day without having injected crack into his eyeballs, she was going through the extra agony of experiencing the situation with much higher moral standards. In the spirit of her much vaunted values, I guess I should have told her the truth, but I simply didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was her own beloved Quaker-ish offspring that had instigated proceedings. I should, though, at the very least, have told her to put a tenner on him being in serious financial diificulties by the time he left secondary school.
The Royal Wedding: To see or not to see?
On one level, of course, this is an absolute no-brainer: last bastions of hereditary privilege blowing yet more public money on themselves? No thanks. On the other hand- who could resist a sneaky peak at the service itself, if only to remind ourselves how ridiculous and anachronistic the whole system/family/occasion is? Do we sympathise with the Middleton parents for now being married into an elitist, self-serving clan with a world-class record in snubbing outsiders, or allow ourselves a little snigger at the fact they’ve made their fortune selling party-poppers online? Will Kate’s dad walk up the aisle dressed as a Clown in deference to his chosen profession? One thing that makes me think twice about allowing myself a harmless moment or two of voyeuristic schadenfreude is the worry that seeing “Call Me Dave” dressed in his morning suit might result in mindless and gratuitous violence and the inadvertent destruction of my TV. It does need replacing with a digital one, though; maybe this is the way to do it: indulge in a frenzied orgy of class-hatred and destroy my own property, before searching the internet, bloodied but unbowed, for a suitable upgrade.
Is it class/wealthy envy to be so riled by Dave? The cabinet has 22 members who are multi-millionaires, who must legislate, amongst other things, on the financial future of the poorest people in the country. Does this not feel akin to convening 22 rapists and asking them to determine the best policy for sex education? Despite what seem to be the obvious failings of Dave, I can’t say I hold out much hope for the alternative, particularly having witnessed Ed M address the crowd at the rally in Hyde Park. Wooden doesn’t begin to do his public-speaking style justice; if he ever wanders in to Madame Tussauds he’ll be lucky to ever be let out again.
My brother-in-law runs a craft brewery in Bristol-www.arbor-ales.com- and showed me a pump-clip he’d designed for the occasion: “I Couldn’t Give a Toss (But Thanks For The Day Off!) Ale”. However, on the advice of landlords in the area, probably won’t be displaying it for the big day; despite the fact it will go down well with a large section of the drinking community, there is an equally large- and usually much more vociferous- section of the “leisure industry” who would be offended. Why do the people with what would seem to be the most reason for despising the social injustice and inequality of the Royal Family invariably turn out to be their biggerst supporters? Answers on a beer mat, please.
I probably will see a bit, in what I hope will be a determinedly post-ironic fashion, but what I fear will be in a spirit of unashamed curiosity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws Irreplaceable by Greenwing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws
Irreplaceable by Greenwing
