Fear And Loving In Heaton Park
Last Sunday night, along with most of Britain I was hunkering
down for the evening, burdened by a combination of post-weekend
blues, too much sun, my domestic situation (Mrs B, 3 kids, 2
cats, 4 guinea pigs etc) and a mountain of work the next day.
Even so, the prospect of lounging on the sofa in front of crap
Sunday night telly left me feeling distinctly cold. Then, quite
unusually, I started wistfully thinking about some of the
mind-boggling experiences I've had over the years and the yawning
gap between those and the Sunday night in front of me.
One such experience occurred almost exactly 20 years ago
when the band I was in, The Adventure Babies stepped out onto to
the stage at the Cities In The Park Festival in front of 10-15,000
people. Bearing in mind, we had only been signed to Factory Records
for 6 weeks after an audition in our manager's lounge, had
performed our debut gig at the Hacienda in front of 100 friends,
family and Manchester music mafia 3 days before - it did in the
vernacular of the day 'twist my melon man'.
We were playing on the second day of the fesitval so we had
camped out and enjoyed the first night's festivities until we were
rounded up at dawn and transferred to our dressing room (nee
Portakabin). A heady mixture of bravado, nerves, testosterone, lack
of sleep, no food, and an early back stage bar started to ferment.
There were 8 of us in the band and at no point up to going onto
stage were we all in the dressing room at the same time. There's a
photo somewhere of us all waiting at the steps to the stage prior
to our performance, such abject fear and trepidation etched on all
our faces, you wouldn't have been surprised to see a guillotine on
stage.
Our name was announced and we strode jelly-legged onto the stage
and looked out at the vast writhing sea of humanity before us, the
sun was shining and this was our day. We kicked into the first song
and 2 minutes in actually started to enjoy ourselves, we
smiled and laughed, the crowd reacted and started to take note,
smiles as far as we could see beamed back. Song after song we grew
in confidence, the melody, rythmn and rhyme of the music powered us
along to the final song My Only Way - once described as a
gospel song that lost it's way on the East Lancs Road, the crowd
loved it and sang along. Our hearts and minds soaring we left the
stage to rapturous applause grinning like Cheshire Cats.
Now that beats any Sunday night in front of the telly - wouldn't
you agree?
Tagged:
The Adventure Babies