There’s something wonderfully British about festivals. Whether it’s a simple village fete, a cider pressing party, a scarecrow festival, a bonfire parade, or even something grand like Notting Hill or Glastonbury; the variety of gatherings is only matched by the range of nutters, crazy folk and general wierdos that you can find at them.
Plenty of other countries have festivals, but I doubt many countries can manage the range of oddities prevalent in the UK. There’s always somebody dancing to no music, wearing clothes that look like they’re still growing or possessing a collection of badges that has taken decades to amass.
How these people afford it is a mystery. Take Glastonbury for example. Tickets are now £180 for the weekend, that’s before you take in costs for food, drink and most of all, transport. I’ve been to the village of Glastonbury and I remember distinctly trains that only ran when the driver woke up, and the nearest highway of any sort being 311 miles away. Yet it has hundreds of nutters, all of them seemingly working away in various offices, schools, fields, zoos near you.
I went to a couple of festivals in Korea. They were fun, and they even had people in costumes, but those people were laughing and joking with friends. There were no true mentalists. The costume was exactly that. A real crazy man wears a suit made from dandelions not for a laugh, but because that’s just the clothes he wears. That home done piercing filled with a bent fork is that way because that’s what he had handy at the time. Nutters don’t try, they just are.
So when a friend of mine asked me to a music festival over the weekend just gone, my ears pricked. When he said it was in Bingley and only cost £30 I bought a ticket straight away. Cheap and in Bingley, a more fertile breeding ground for nutters there surely never has been.
The festival started on the Friday night and passed mainly without incident. The beers were of festival standard, overpriced and underflavoured, but there was an added bonus. One could earn 10p for every cup given back. In theory this was an excellent idea; it promoted recycling and reducing litter. In practise it led to hoards of children scurrying around feet collecting dropped cups. They swarmed like rats throughout the crowd; some were even urinating to mark their cup collecting territories. I escaped the crowds to order a pint, only to see it swiped from my grasp by a chalice hungry minion.
The Saturday was basked in sun, weather which added to the middle class feel of the whole festival. Most people were sat down with picnics they’d brought. It made crowd surfing tough, and a few people weren’t happy to have me jump on them as they tucked into their kettle chips. However it all kicked into gear with the last two bands. The penultimate act was John Lydon’s band Public Image Limited to be followed by James. On the face of it they were similar, two bands coming back after breaks and both promoting new material. Sadly that’s where the comparisons end.
PIL walked out, and after putting on their instruments they set up their music books to read from as they played. That didn’t bode well. They used them constantly during the performance, meaning no connection with the audience. John Lydon, in his true punk ways, spent the money he earned for doing a country life butter commercial, reforming PIL. He obviously overlooked time learning songs when planning his budget.
A member of the crowd, obviously angered by such an appalling lack of effort, threw his plastic pint at John. It hit him on the shoulder and spilled beer over him. His response was ‘wankers, beers is for drinking, not throwing.’ And so it began.
John was pelted throughout his reading of lyrics, and each time he responded by abusing the audience. According to one NME review, his famous on stage tirades are straight off the cuff and come from within. When John started with ‘We don’t want your government Blair,’ I began to have my doubts. Towards the end he lent his face to the crowd and asked repeatedly ‘can you smell the onions? Can you smell them fucking onions?’ He stopped when a burger was thrown at him. It just added to an image of an old desperate man looking to be part of a world where he is longer relevant. I felt sorry for him.
James, on the other hand, needed no sympathy. I can’t claim to be a loyal fan. I’ve never seen them live and my listening to them is limited to the radio and bars, but from the first bar of their first song Sit Down the whole audience, including me, were hooked. Tim Booth sang and danced with the passion of a man who has been playing gigs for a year and still in love with his music, not a music veteran who’s been touring for 18 years. For recognising how lucky they are and how important the connection with your audience is, I’ll raise my glass to James. At least I would if some kid hadn’t stolen it to sell.
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