North Newton, Nr Bridgwater in Somerset. Quite simply, you have to go next year if you weren't there this year. Wowee..........What a gig, what a place, what people, am-az-ing!
Unusually for us, we all arrived at different times, Sound Monkey got the wrong end of somebody's stick and turned up at mid-day. Others of the band arrived mid-afternoon, and some of us stumbled down in the late afternoon sun! Yes - sun. However, it wasn't to last too long. Arrival was interesting as back stage passes were like rocking horse doo-da and security was solid!
Eventually we got in and we were faced with the 'yard of ale' contest. Cool. Respect to all those that took part. I hope you made it through to the next morning. We sampled some of the million beers on display at the beer festival, (I have never in my life seen so many under one roof, well, canvas). I didn't realise at all why the bar seemed much less busy on the right hand side. I seemed to get served much quicker up there. It is only now, a week later, that it has been pointed out that the beers were lined up in strength order, weakest to the left! Mmmmm...... no wonder....
We settled back stage and prepared ourselves. Nerves were running high amongst a few with much standing in the now foul and heavy rain, easing nerves with nicotine and ale. 2,500 thousand happy, well oiled punters were listening to a quite brilliant funk band by the name of Freshly Squeezed.
Our time arrived and we set up and as always, before we realised it, we were playing. We kicked off with 'Take me out' and we were away with the rock kings.
The crowd were awesome. They loved absolutely every minute of our set and were there for some serious fun and frenzy. If we are honest, we didn't play our best with a few schoolboy errors occuring (latter confession session has resulted in the discovery of a rather over zealous sampling of the many and varied tipples on show by a couple of us!). However, did anyone care, did it matter? Well we were going to have a ball and so were the audience which makes for a top gig and brilliant atmosphere. Chelsea Dagger saw the whole crowd joining in with the chorus and Chasing Cars nearly brought the marquee down. Radio You again got a great response. We tried to get somebody on stage during 'Big Spender', and while successful, it had escaped their notice as to what they were supposed to do once up there! We encored and got off to enjoy the other excellent bands and a couple more pints of the gentle stuff.
Quite simply brilliant guys. North Newton rocks and we love you! It would simply be a priviledge to be invited back next year. You rock.
Love as always
RichXXXXXXXX
