Terrible name, fabulous festival.
What a day. Three shows! First, at midday, we played in a posh shop besides a roaring main A road, it was a bit windy but very nice. Then we played at a wedding which is nearly always nice but usually we have to restrain ourselves, as we did on this occasion.
Then in the evening we trekked across Somerset to a field somewhere near Glastonbury to play the last slot at a new little festival. Arriving was slightly worrying because there was no sign of life, then as we rumbled down the dirt track a little tent appeared in the middle of the field and a thoroughly refreshed young man came out to greet us. He looked like he thought he was on the beach in Rio, or perhaps an extra from a glossy Hollywood pirate film set in the Carribbean islands, instead of in a remote Somerset field in the middle of the night. Anyway, he handed us two pointless wristbands (no-one would be hoping to break in) and tried to direct us to the site entrance and the main stage but he kind of gave up halfway through.
Undeterred, we sauntered on into the dark until we arrived at a hedge near a gate. We parked, gathered our instruments and trusty Ribble rug, and went through the gate. There was the distant sound of some kind of music, but as we'd only seen about three other vehicles in the field behind us we were expecting to find a shambolic apocalyptic scene unpopulated by anyone except the few stoners who had arranged the event. Some lights were up ahead, we turned a corner and lo and behold, such beauty lay before us. Lanterns and bunting and stretch tents and little beer huts and a makeshift cocktail bar and big beautiful tree lit up in purple and a massive stage that had some cool dudes with double bass, banjo and harp playing some Tom Waits style funky groovy stuff and scores of beautiful people grooving on down in front of the stage.
This was unexpected.
We pulled up our Ribble chairs, sat and watched and listened and waited for our stage time. Amy found us and introduced herself, quickly followed by Luke who seemed to be the dude from the front gate's mirror twin. He seemed similarly relaxed anyway, but neither he nor Amy seemed to know how to take us.
So it ticked round to 10pm, we met Rupert by the stage, who also seemed a bit unsure of us, but we set up, sound-checked, and hoped some of the beautiful people would hang around long enough to hear a bit of our set rather than wondering back to the fire pit or the hammocks.
We cranked up a gear towards the end of the first tunes and the first whoops were whooped. As we gently warmed up people started taking more notice and as it started reaching fever pitch we knew we'd cracked it. We'd won over a festival crowd who had never heard of us, a headline slot, no less. We were perfect for the occasion, something we'd thought so often about ourselves, just give us the opportunity, put us on at the right time and we won't disappoint, and finally, finally, it happened, we were right time, right place and it was brilliant!
This was a lovely do, a small, intimate affair in a village hall on the outskirts of Salisbury, run by enthusiastic local musicians and supported by the entire community.
Echobirds made gorgeous surfy-indie vibes to kick us off, followed by the sumptuous Antoine & Owena with their highly accomplished folky songs, then it was us clowns clattering through our own mix of (hopefully) sweet melodies and driving dance songs, along with the usual nonsense chat in between. The benefit of being further up the bill is by the time we take to the stage most people have imbibed the appropriate volume of C₂H₆O to "get us".