Dear Scratchers,
And so here is the merry tale of The Scratch and The Endorse IT festival weekend.
The idea was to set off early, rehearse at The Baron’s (well in The Queens Head pub in the village, thanks Dean btw) and then drive to the festival, set up camp by about 6pm, go and watch the Buzzcocks and have a couple of beers. Just to get in the mood for the High noon showdown on Sunday.
Saturday 9th August 2008.
At 10am John, Andy and super Tina (PR, manager, video-er and blagger extraordinaire) from St.Albans, and Grim from London took the road west. The sun was out and there was a crackle of excitement in the air. We had been anxiously watching the forecast for weeks, but as it seems to change by the hour these days, we kind of just hoped. The forecast though for Saturday was wet. Not the best, particularly for Andy who had been suffering from a heavy cold and was still ‘very twisty bugled up’ and the Baron weighing in with a bronchial infection… Grim to everyone’s shock was nearly healthy!… John, just to round off the sp was farting… a lot…
The Journey to Box (Baronville) only took a couple and a half hours, but by the time we’d arrived the sun had turned to dreaded rain (not that it had ever done anything else when we’d ever been to this most green and pleasant part of the West Country!)
We were soon set-up in the familiar backroom of the Pub and proceeded to blast away the car bound rustiness… it was great to be playing again!…
The first run through wasn’t too bad, a bit of coughing and croakiness from the vocal side and The Baron ‘tinging’ his Chinese cymbal at EVERY opportunity (no that’s not a euphemism matron!)… it was during the 'fag break' however that things started to get ‘interesting’ news had just arrived from the East, from Andy’s brother Nick, who, with wife Rosie and daughters Indie (rock) and Boo McManus the disco cat, had already arrived at the festival site and reported that, at the VERY LEAST wellies and waterproofs would be required, but if it got much worse, the life guard would have to be informed!…The rain was torrential.
Once the second set was complete, it was time for a detour before we made our way to Endorse IT. It came in the shape of Focus… (Can’t remember are they the DIY arm of WHSmiths??, anyway doesn’t matter)… This was to be the scene of the first memorable moment of the weekend… oh apart from the sight of ‘City dweller’ Grim, squealing like a girl at the sight of a luminous squidgy orange wormy thing on the path outside chez Baron, (it turned out to be a slug!)… but I digress. The first real memorable moment is The Scratch spending their entire £50 weekend appearance money on 4 pairs of green wellies and 2 rolls of ‘essential’ black bin bags!!! A final a quick stop for food supplies at Sainsburys and we were finally on the road to festival fun!…
Tucked away, seemingly miles from anywhere, not least as Grim’s Sat(crap)Nav was starting to find smaller and smaller thinner and thinner farm tracks to drive down! We finally spied the Endorse IT festival’s rain lashed and windswept entrance as the clock ticked just past 6.00pm. The deep, deep tyre tracks already told the story as Tina began her first blag as a guest, collecting the sparkly wrist bands, and securing a nice camping spot with the band by the bins!
This preceded, first John’s car being towed from the gully between backstage camping and the car park/pond by a tractor and, more trickily, Grim's (that seemed to have no visible towing facility), resulting in the Baron passing most of the bands equipment over an 8 foot fence to John and Andy, but not before (despite being warned) picking up the merchandise box upside down and ‘showering’ the muddy pool with our precious Critical Mass CD’s!.. Finally the day was saved by a hay bail wielding JCB that ended up pushing Grims car back up the hill and into the backstage camping area… where the fun was really about to begin…
Tina’s £5 Asda tent, went up in seconds… Hovever, The Baron’s borrowed £99.99 Halfords version was proving more of an issue, at times resembling a wind surfers sail more than a tent, it took 4 people clinging on and a ‘tent pegger’ to secure the beast before the inner section and the eye bulging lilo blowing up (There was more than one casualty of Airbed eye!) could conclude this Kryton Factoresque marathon!…
Just as the final bung was pushed into the final hole… Nick phoned to say that as they had the kids who were by now understandably miserable… they were going to reluctantly have to head home to St.Albans…But as in the story of Life and Death, one departs and another is born and so into the story we introduce Sam and Raj, who had just been towed into the car park and were looking for the campsite.
In the backstage area things were still very wet, but at least the tents, though swaying quite violently, were up and it was at last time for a well-earned beer. A five minute squelchy walk later and the welcome sight of merrily staggering, muddied and colourful hatted, cider jug wielding 'Crusties' came sprawling from the beer tent to great us, to the cool reggae skank, chug of the Ska-lites…. It looked like we had some catching up to do!
Not sure what Cider Tina had for her first drink, but she seemed to be assimilating well! Sam and Raj joined us around 9 after Raj had managed to prize his muddy contact lens from behind his eye!!! Ouch!…
By the time the Buzzcocks took to the stage just before 11.00 The rain and mud were beginning fade into after thoughts. The bin liner skirts and wellies had won the day… as too had the ‘Buzzers’ who having seen them on many occasions in the past were on sparkling form. The Diggle 'wiggle' and triumphant 'Townsend arm wheels' along with Shelley’s fantastic vocals and delivery took on majestic tones as they crashed through all the classics, but also not oft played gems like, 'Breakdown' from their seminal Spiral Scratch ep (we know a song about that one don’t we Geoffrey!*) Our Endorse IT festival had really kicked off.
Sam and Raj decided to hit the hay (well it is a farm!)… So Team Tina hit backstage hospitality and the great Endorse IT bus bar!… Andy meanwhile ran off to find The ‘Buzzers’ as they left the stage and to finally shake the great men’s hands (PSWH?) while they squelched through the mud with carrier bags encasing their 600 hundred quid shoes … it was a moment of true catharsis, 17 after years after the purchase of the amazing Singles Going Steady album!… The others had hit the bar following a quick visit to the hospitality tent to hand in set lists and collect our food and drink vouchers for the following day.
Around 1.30, we were beginning to flag, it was time for bed, John favoured the car over Grims thunderous snoring…while the ill boys ‘topped and tailed’, bouncy castle stylee on the other muddy lilo! I bet the Buzzcocks were laying into the hotel mini bar by now?
Can't wait for high Noon!
Squelch you later!
xx
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