Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

deckchairs on the titanic...

You know how it is when somebody asks you to do a show, and you know it's going to be bad, but somehow you can't imagine how bad. Rather foolishly I agreed to light a music festival in the Chilterns this weekend, located in the village where one of my principle employers is based, the upside was that many of the other freelancers I work with were going to be doing it, the downside was that it was for 'chariddy' and I wasn't going to be paid anything. Now, if you offered me a choice between sitting in a pub carpark in the Chilterns for twelve hours listening to home counties heavy-metal bands with pseudo-american accents and poking lighted cigarettes in my eyes I would be hard pressed to make a choice. Still, once a promise is made, however foolishly, it's not easy to get out of it.

Things didn't start too well, when I got the call asking me to hire a van as they hadn't organised any transport. We prepped so much stuff that we repacked the van four times, and then had to pack the overflow into another car. When we eventually arrived onsite, it didn't look too promising, the stage had been built by a local scaffolding firm, and the weather protection provided by rather domestic looking green tarpaulins. As it was already raining when we arrived on friday evening, we concentrated on putting the lighting in, and weatherproofing it, leaving the PA system for the morning. The stage surface was made up from scaffolding planks, wobbly and with up to a 2" gap in some places, not a place for high heels.

Yesterday morning the rain had stopped, although there were some impressive pools weighing down the tarpaulin over the stage. It was, however, rather breezy, and the weather protection a tad on the inadequate side. As we started setting up, it became pretty obvious that the tarpaulins weren't really very robust, as the eyelets quickly tore free, leaving the edges flapping in the wind, the roofing crew came back and made reinforcements at regular intervals, and somehow we got it all in. My original control position had been in the car park, under one of those garden gazebo tent things, once erected I watched it blow away over the fields and opted for somewhere that offered more protection. This was the catering tent, I was a bit dubious about sharing a tent with a barbecue, but a thirty foot army tent has a reassuring solidity that I felt (as it turned out erroneously) would be more sensible.



















Even with ever darkening skies and scudding clouds there isn't much for a lampy to do on an outdoor festival, just put up a decorative lighting state and do the crossword and wait for the sun to go down. My restful afternoon was interrupted midway through the second band when my tent decided to partially collapse and attempt to blow away. Fortunately there were several beefy rugby types around, and they were persuaded to stand on the tent edges while a solution was sought. Eventually all the half barrels of flowers from around the pub were carted over to help weigh it down. While this worthy activity was being carried out, a shout from the front of the pub was followed swiftly by the green flapping object that had been the admissions tent, did I mention that it was rather windy?

Just as the cake stall and the tombola were being carried into the beer tent (this was a rather home counties music festival), even though it was a professionally erected 60' edifice, it too opted to go with the flow and collapse, its sole occupants being a nun and a collection of patients and their carers from the local mental hospital. For a time, the band, gamely playing on against all odds, were witnessed only by groups of struggling men and women, each one either hauling on a guy rope or hammering in a tent peg. Eventually the beer tent was brought under control, and extra ropes and pegs were brought in. The rural nature of the gig was brought home to us by the sudden appearance of a trailer load of straw bales, mostly to be used as sound baffles, but eventually as audience seating, the loose nature of the straw meant that the audience was machine gunned by stalks, and whipped with straw dust.

During all this mayhem no-one was paying much attention to the stage, or the stage covering, one of the crew, the curiously appropriately named Mad Stu, had done some of the rigging, and had rigged a worklight over the stage. As he is; a) lazy and b) afraid of ladders, he hadn't tightened it up very tightly, naturally the wind, flapping tarpaulins and vibrations were more than enough to vibrate it loose, and it fell from the roof, dangling unnoticed about six inches above the head of one of the band members (the band in Ill.2, picture after offending lamp was removed). I had the mild embarrassment of going onstage with a ladder and taking it down during their set, the audience of two nuns, a dog and the bands various mates watched in slight bewilderment.


















At no point during proceedings had the wind in any way abated and eventually the stage covering was removed, as it did nothing other than flap dangerously. We had two more bands, who were a living example of the value of contraception and then it began to rain. The headline band, formed by the former drummer from The Jam, which sounded like nothing other than The Jam, decided that they wouldn't play on the outdoor stage, but they were prepared to play indoors in the function room. At this point, the organiser, who had breakfasted on Stella Artois and kept his energy up with industrial strength spliffs, told us to shut the stage down. We were instructed to move the PA into the function room, as it had taken five hours just to set up the sound, this wasn't an option that filled us with enthusiasm.

After four hours of derigging and a further two hour drive round the M25, I finally crawled into my bed around five a.m. I can't say that I felt that any of it was worthwhile, still they did make a little money.

posted by Lampy @ 9/03/2006 05:41:00 pm