The End of the Road Festival, 12-14 September 2008, Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset

Festivals: General

It is a peculiar quirk of the English psyche – call it optimism, stoicism, delusional or plain eccentricity – that any prospect of sunshine, no matter how vague, must be celebrated out of doors, in a field, throwing shapes or gently swaying to live music.  Because it’s summer, yeah, and the weather is gonna be wik-ked!  Never mind that the chances of extended brilliant warm sunshine during the English summer are, although less slim than Gwyneth Paltrow contributing something of relevance to the average person’s reality, still quite unlikely.  It’s summer, and that means it isn’t spring (grey, with the sort of rain which gets inside your socks and winds gusty enough to turn your umbrella inside out), winter (dark, cold, with winds capable of whipping through your outer layers to your bones) or autumn (shorter chillier days wreathed in misty flumes, bonfire smoke and golden sunshine).

The Kindness of Strangers – Built to Spill, Scala, Thursday 24 May 2007

Being fairly petite and vertically challenged, my gig modus operandi, is to rock up suitably early to secure myself a raised vantage point, with a railing to lean on when Knee tires. The only fly in the ointment is that after having secured such a position, one needs to hang on to it for dear life. Unfortunately, after a pint or so, the need to relieve one’s self may interfere with this. This is when having a bud comes into its own. However, my buddy Jaya was wandering far and wide, trying to secure his ideal vantage point in the midst of the scrum. With a shrug, I thought ‘easy come easy go’ and scuttled off to the ladies’.

‘Jeff Rules!’ – Wilco, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Sunday 20 May 2007

So came the inebriated cry, in a quieter moment during the Wilco set at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Sunday 20 May 2007. Wilco frontman, Jeff Tweedy, wrapped up in bringing a song to a close, did not acknowledge it but most within the vicinity chuckled.

Clumsily articulated, perhaps, but never was a truer sentiment expressed.