I am going to the Rythm festival in Biggleswade this weekend where it is going to rain and I am going to be accompanied by three Southampton supporters who will undoubtedly be gloating about their rise to the top of the Championship whilst Reading flounder in the lower echelons. However, that is the only bad bit, as they are good chaps really and they have a similar taste in quirky music to me. The line up featuring The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Toots and the Maytals, Nine Below Zero, Imelda May, The Buzzcocks and From the Jam is one for every middle aged music lover to envy, I am really looking forward to it, even if I do get Trench Foot.

I am being picked up at any time between eight and eleven in the morning and we are aiming to set up camp in the afternoon in preparation for a weekend of action. Time really flies with festivals as apart from a few day trips to the Reading and Guildford events in recent years I have to track back to the V festival at Chelmsford in 1997 for my last weekender. As I recall I spent most of the Saturday evening out of my head on Ecstasy whilst searching for my lost friends in between watching Blur, Kula Shaker and the Foo Fighters. We didn’t camp then as my friend Gavin who lived in Chelmsford put us up, however my memories only revolve being lost in a field and some poor sod getting run over and as I recall, killed. Not many happy memories there, no wonder it has been a long time since my last one.

Previous to that was the Phoenix Festival in Long Marston again with faded memories, but I am sure I can recall watching Paul Weller, The Beautiful South and Terry Hall. I can also recall a comedy tent a spliff and a comedy duet called The Rubber Bishops doing a spoof of the Dire Straits song Romeo and Juliet, a modern day version where Romeo comes home pissed up with a Kebab. The reason I can recall this so clearly is because I laughed until I nearly died, but I am still not sure if that was because of the spliff or the comedy on stage. The other memorable moment about this trip was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag and having my head being stepped on by a pointy stiletto at 5.00am. I still have the scar on the bridge of my nose to this day, that really hurt, but I suppose on a positive note it missed my eye.

The only festival I kind of recall before that was Reading in 1992. When I say recall I am lying a bit because I can’t remember one band who were playing. All I can remember was that I went with a bunch of lads a good ten years my senior that featured Fox & Hounds (Tadley) regulars Pete the Feet, Brian Shakey Wakey Wakefield and Gerry“don’t fuck with me” Brady. To this day, Gerry, a Northern Irishman is one of the most charming, yet toughest individuals that I have ever met and to spend an evening with him was thrilling stuff as he could utilise charm or menace in individual measure, resulting in free entry, free drinks, loads of girls to chat to and an invite to drink and smoke around a fire and set up camp with strangers. It was a surreal evening and one I will never forget, if you spend an evening with Gerry anything seems possible and on the rare occasions I see him now I always thank him for that night, it was great fun.

So what this festival will bring? Who knows, but I am working on the assumption it will be relatively straightforward, I certainly won’t be swallowing any pills apart from aspirins. However, with the various Real Ale tents available, there is a likelihood that some strangers may wake up in the middle of the night with me incoherently urinating on them, something I am praying but not guaranteeing won’t happen. That apart I am banking on  my forty-something maturity outwitting a general tendency to be clumsy, forgetful and totally fucking hopeless. If I come home half naked and soaking wet, but still carrying my front door key and wallet, I will regard the weekend as a relative success. I will definitely get lost at some point, I always do.

Let’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Bloody Hell, I have found the Rubber Bishops on YouTube, I didn’t know it was Bill Bailey…click here