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Tales From the Pub Rock Circuit

In his first in a series of ‘Tales from the Pub Rock Circuit’ Rik Entwistle from local institution Big Lix gives us a taster of life on the road for a rock ‘n roll superstar…

“C’mon man, get up! C’mon, move it!” – shouted the voice.
“Ugghh” I replied, “just a bit longer.”
“C’mon, we’ve got to get there!” – I pulled my sleeping bag down, OOOHFF, my head, I felt mega rough, it had been a late night/early morning.

I was on the lounge floor of my bass player’s house in sunny Burton – feeling half dead, with breath like the bottom of a (parrot with diarrhoea’s) birdcage.

Our 4 piece rock band was scheduled to play at 11.30am at a music festival in Derby in the big public park, known locally as Markeaton Park.

This early start was not ideal. This was not rock ‘n’ roll. After a brew and a slice of toast we bundled into the van aka The Mystery Machine. With all our gear – me and the other guitarist (we were the babies of the band) shoved between amps, drums, speakers and the like – one over zealous turn of our chariot and we would have been crushed to death…

After half an hours travel up the A38 we arrived, alive, at the park. The stage was gigantic, the PA system was massive – great, this was rock ‘n’ roll.

We set up and sound checked our equipment, everything seemed ok, well perhaps not everything, I couldn’t help but wonder – where was the crowd?

The band were due on in minutes to play our set of jazzy blues rock. We had been together for about a year – successfully played at house parties, pubs, clubs, the local student union and now were ready to unleash our collective musical beast to a festival. Just one thing was missing, a crowd.

As I looked out across the field there was about 27 people spread over half a mile – which as you can imagine doesn’t exactly tick the Glastonbury box. We gave it our all, funking out for 40 minutes. As we did the field steadily filled up, looking more and more like the festival crowd we had been promised. Strange thing was almost everyone in the crowd was either a cowboy/cowgirl! The John Wayne/Dolly Parton lookalikeys clapped and nodded politely, we finished our set and exited stage left, to a ripple of applause, lumbering our gear with us.

Once we had loaded the van we wandered back round the front, by now the field was rammed – where the hell had all these cowboys and gals come from?

Aha – on stage now was a man and a woman in similar garb to the crowd. Through the PA speakers blasted some very middle of the road, cheesy listening Country & Western…. “1, 2, 3, back 2, 3, and turn 2, 3, forward 2, 3, switch 2, 3.” The crowd was ecstatic, whoopin’ and a hollerin’, hanging on to the guy’s every command. Yup, we had been upstaged by a line dancing possee, straight from the Wild West….of Derby, me duck.

This was not rock ‘n’ roll, this was a Country & Western line dancing extravaganza, Midlands stylee.

Oh well, might as well make the most of it – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…..1, 2, 3, turn 2, 3, switch 2, 3 – hmm, not as easy as it looks.

Later that evening as we reflected on our festival debut, one thing that we all agreed on was that everyone taking part in this strange ritual was smiling. Although not exactly our cup o’ tea, if that’s the result, then it can’t be a bad thing. Hi-Ho Silver! Yeee – haw!

Rik Entwistle