Festival memories

We went to the Acoustic Festival of Britain yesterday. Bruce was playing there the day before (Friday) with a band called Travis and Julie from the States. Jon went as his roadie and they managed to get 3 free tickets from the owner and organiser (thank you very very much Mike) and hold onto the Artists Car Park badge so i wouldn’t have to walk miles. Well it was probably more to do with Bruce not wanting to walk miles but it was a blessing for me too.

We arrived at about 12.30 and i was so pleased to find a wonderfully small festival with a really nice friendly atmosphere. The calibre of artists for such a small venue was amazing! We saw Wishbone Ash, Fish, Nick Kershaw, John Parr, The Quireboys – one of whom Jon says was chatting me up while i was watching Rory McLeod – i’m sure he was just being friendly   … Hi, i was playing with the last band whats your name? Who knows! I dont think im chatupable any more. The toilets were fabulous too :-).

Jon stopped Rory McLeod as he passed us. What a lovely lovely man. He must be one of the most chilled, relaxed and nicest men ive met. You can tell, by just talking to him, that hes really spiritual and grounded and very positive. Id have to describe him as a very ‘shiny’ bright person and he left us all with a very good feeling. Some powerful positive energy coming from him – and what was so nice was he made Jon very happy. Jon says Rory has more rhythm in his body than any one hes ever seen. His performance later left both of us feeling thoroughly entertained and exuberantly joyful.

As soon as we got there i had flash backs to the beginning of Glastonbury (then known as Pilton Pop Festival by the villagers) although come to think of it Glastonbury probably always had more than 3,000 people walking through their gates after the first one – which, at the age of 11, i was lucky enough to have been at with my parents, my 9 year old sister and 2 year old brother.

We sat on a blanket right in the middle of the field in front of the stage and i can remember 4 things clearly – the compere was a guy called Mad Mick and he made an announcement that there were a lot of Hells Angels outside who didn’t have tickets or the money to come in but that in the spirit of the festival he was going to make a collection to pay for them all. Everyone put money in. I think the tickets were only a £1 (probably a lot of money back then) and they all came in and were so friendly, played games with us kids and everyone loved them.

I also remember Mad Mick announcing that Jimmy Hendrix had died and then i heard the most amazing sound ever – someone from one of the bands did a tribute to Hendrix. His guitar squealed and squeaked and roared and undulated – who knew a guitar could make those noises. They played some Hendrix tracks over the PA and i was doubly amazed.

The third thing i remember is huge inflatable toys – great sausage shapes and balls. Theres a clip of us sitting astride and bouncing on one of the sausage shapes that they show on the news every now and then when they report on Glastonbury.

And finally i remember falling in love with the lead singer of Tyrannosaurus Rex – a beautiful, tiny, perfectly formed, curly haired Marc Bolan. I know i was only 11 but the following year i fell in love with a guy who called himself David Jones and turned out to be David Bowie. He wore a long black cloak and all us children followed him around as if he was the pied piper.

I’m not sure if it was the first festival in 1970 or the second in 1971 when the Pink Fairies stole my mums car. They left it somewhere in Wales with a note saying sorry and some money for petrol. I had such a great childhood from a musical perspective!!!! One of my Claims to fame is that i once slept in the same bed as David Bowie – although luckily, because i was only 12,  it was a week after he had been in it. Another is that i once sat round a camp fire singing with Donovan and Joan Baez!! And i sat under the stage chatting and laughing with Rik Mayall while a band i really wanted to see (cant remember who now) was on just because I knew i was never going to have that chance again. Iwont drone on coz a actually have 100 other back stage stories that i could bore you with 😉

Anyway, after all that excitement I’m feeling really tired today, even though we got home at about 9ish, so I’m taking it easy but i don’t feel ill and there are no aches and pains, no headache (although no idea how i got away with it considering the amount of Old Rosie i put away) and I’m feeling a bit happier about my recovery today and was glad i tested it and  pushed myself a bit. Jon just ignored me last night when my brain started to unravel so we didn’t fall out. Its odd how badly alcohol affects the wiring of my brain – i do realise that i start to have bad reactions but only in, that old friend, hindsight because of course at the time its happening everything makes perfect sense to me!