Having decided earlier in the year that we were too old for Glastonbury (!), a nice little festival comes along that we 49 year olds feel a bit more comfortable with. Its at Mount Ephraim near Canterbury, August Bank Holiday weekend, Robert Plant is headlining Saturday and Love are headlining Sunday - Hooray! We book weekend tickets.
Now I'm more of your five star hotel sort of a gel than your tent sort of a gel, so I get on the internet and find a nice Express by Holiday Inn (wot no Thistle) on the Canterbury bypass, the nearest hotel with more than three rooms - two rooms are booked, one for Lizzy and Chris and one for me and Joan, Lizzy's cousin who again I haven't seen for twenty plus years.
August dawns and the big news is that Jim has done well in his A levels and is off to his first choice, York University, to study Chemistry. Much celebrating in the yourmindandwe household.
A week or so later, early Saturday morning I'm driving off to Canterbury. Down the M1, swift circumnavigation of the M25, head off across Kent (which looks very nice) and into the Express by Holiday Inn to await the rest of the party who are travelling down from Newcastle/Scotland. I join the queue at Reception to check in - the chaps in front of me are Scandinavian, in fact one of them looks suspiciously like Bjorn, the Swedish trombone player I took a shine to in Manchester. The other one, a careworn Dane who I will later learn is Bent, the tour manager, is arguing with the reception clerk about why the room is not ready for Mr Lee..... Effing Hell, I've only gone and booked us into the same hotel as the band... I quickly text Lizzy to tell her the news, she's somewhere near Luton and will be with me as soon as humanly possible.
Lizzy and Chris arrive, followed shortly after by Joan who's driven all the way from Perth (Scotland not Australia). We quickly get reacquainted, after all we are sharing a room, and she tells me everything thats happened to her in the intervening twenty odd years - living in Sweden, running a pub, marriage, three kids, divorce, not having a s**g for the last 10 years (10 years!!), some cow at work who's made her life a misery etc etc - makes my 20 odd years of marriage, most of that time doing the same job and living in the same house seem a bit humdrum - hey ho! Bit less than 10 years for me however, she asks me how long and I have to admit its more like 10 hours.
We head off for the festival site, its about 3 miles away. We are directed onto the overflow parking/camping site , the cricket pitch, which is very pleasant. We have a day tent - very civilised - which is duly pitched - somewhere to keep the beer etc, and to shelter if it rains. Recollections of Saturday are a bit vague but it is real hippy heaven here - I feel like I've been transported back about 35 years. We listen to Roy Harper from the cricket pitch, and then go down to the stage and watch the Incredible String Band who Lizzy and I saw at Newcastle City Hall in about 1969 - they have dated a great deal! The main event however is Robert Plant and his new band, and they are excellent -really rocking. They finish off with Whole Lotta Love and we repair to the hotel happy bunnies.
We sit in the downstairs bar/lounge area of the hotel to watch the football - Joan is feeling tired so she's off to bed. In a short while a big people-carrier with blacked out windows arrives - its Robert Plant and his lady - I say Hello and he says Hello back (couldn't I have thought of something more original!!). Shortly after that the same van is back again - and its the band, sans Arthur. We start talking to Mike and Rusty - Mike is hungry, there's no food available at the hotel, so kebabs are mentioned. Now Lizzy and Chris have a little two seater sports car, I have a great big car, we discuss things amongst ourselves, am I sober enough to drive into Canterbury for kebabs?? - I decide I am and Lizzy, Chris, Mike and me are heading off to Canterbury in search of an ever open Kebab house (it is about 1am by now). We park up somewhere near the Cathedral, ask some passing locals where we should go, and we're there. Now Mike has peroxide dreadlocks and a Californian accent - he stands out a bit in downtown Kent. We have some slightly odd conversations with the rest of the clientele of the Kebab House, then its off for a little walk around Canterbury to see some sights (i.e. the Cathedral again and the Canterbury Tales amusement arcade) then its back to the hotel. Mike falls asleep in the front seat of the car while we're driving back, we wake him up when we arrive and everybody's off to bed, ready for another busy day tomorrow.
Sunday dawns - we're due to meet with Scottish Keith. He's rung to ask if we can get some beer in - another drive to Canterbury, a supermarket is traced and copious quantities of beer, cranberry juice and food are purchased - we already have gin, tonic and lemons and I've got a flask full of ice from the hotel ice machine just to be on the safe side. Then its off to the site again - our tent is still there so we get settled in. SK comes up to the cricket pitch to meet us, he's with Dukie, Hannah and Miranda - we get quite a party together which SK has detailed at some length (see link) so I won't go into all the details again - needless to say we were all having a great time. Now Hannah has been emailing back and forth with Mike Randle but has never met him before today - she's a very nice young lady in her early twenties - she gets stuck into our gin and SK's vodka and by the time she gets to meet Mike later in the day she is seriously plastered. Now as this story unfolds you, dear reader, will come to learn that Hannah is now Mike's "significant other" - when Lizzy and I were in LA recently and met up with Mike, he was quoting back things to me that I said to Hannah on that afternoon, so I must have made an impression!
A quick recuperative sleep and then we're down to the front of the stage to see the Buzzcocks followed by Love. Now, I unlike some of my party was always a big Buzzcocks fan - they give a great performance and we all pogo about like mad. Then Love come on, with orchestra and light show, fantastic performance again. Afterwards we all congregate at the sangria tent, Mike joins us and as described in Scottish Keith's diary, we have a bit of a sing song. Back to the hotel to sleep this time, no midnight kebab trips tonight.
Next morning, Joan and I get up and go down for breakfast. Mike is sitting near the bar looking a bit worse for wear - he did a bit more drinking after we left him. We take our seats when who should we see walking towards the breakfast area but Arthur Lee, looking very cool in his trademark shades, accompanied by Bent the tour manager. I look and smile and Joan and I whisper and giggle with each other like a couple of school girls - then he comes over to our table... I utter the immortal line " Arthur, you're looking cooler than any man deserves to at this time of the morning" - cringeworthy or what. Never mind, he seems quite flattered, asks us if we were at the show last night and did we enjoy it, we say we were and we did and he goes back to his seat looking quite pleased with himself. Joan and I are beside ourselves with excitement, Lizzy and Chris come down to join us and we titter our way through breakfast.
Time to leave - we check out and Arthur is sitting in reception reading a paper, wearing normal prescription specs now, not shades - he looks almost like a normal human being rather than a rock god. We say our goodbyes, shake him by the hand and he thanks us for coming. I head back to Nottingham feeling like I've died and gone to heaven.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment