[ Post a Response | a messageboard for fans of Donny McLean ]
Posted by hannah on July 28, 2008, 9:49 pm
Here’s my version of events then. It's quite long so I might have to put it in more than one post:
I arrived at the Trowbridge Festival with my friend Mo at about 12.30pm having stayed at her mum's house in Midsomer Norton just about 12 miles away from the venue, the night before.
We had to park what seemed like miles from the site and trek across rough grassy terrain in the blazing sun to get to the site. It was a bit like Lawrence of Arabia - the budget version, without the camels.
We gave in our tickets and were duly tagged - i.e. had a pink wristband securely fastened to our wrists so we could come and go from the site unchallenged. (Apparently Donny refused to have one on the basis that they should know who he was. Heehee. Funny old Don 
).
We went in the first tent with music going on. A woman was singing a song about a budgie. Hmmm. I picked up a pint of 6X from the bar though and Mo and I meandered through the stalls. There was a bloke dressed in nothing but a tutu (strategically placed) sat on a podium with a fishing rod with a note on the end of the line on which the words "Fishing for compliments" were written. He didn't get any.
We passed another musical tent. Someone was singing a song about Lonnie Donnegan and the words were something to the effect of "Lonnie Donegan he's still doing it". I assume they meant he was still performing and I assume the song was written before his demise! But it reminded me of the Cambridge Folk Festival back in 1980 when I sweltered in a boiling tent all afternoon to get a good pitch to see Donny in the evening and as a result, featured in quite a few shots of the audience in the later series of BBC programmes about it. The trouble was, they switched clips of the audience around so I was seen enthusiastically applauding Lonnie Donegan whose concert the night before Donny's I had not bothered to go to. As a result all my friends thought I was a fan of Lonnie! Altogether now - "Oh My Old Man's A Dustman....."
You may have deduced dear fellow Donnyite that my attitude towards the Festival in general was slightly negative at this point - about 1pm on - was it only yesterday? I think it was a lot to do with the heat which was pretty uncomfortable.
We got a programme and Don was due on at 10pm. Nine long hours to kill.
We eventually found our way to the main tent where Don was due to perform and met up with Bill who had already set up a mini encampment with two camping chairs which he had picked up for a nifty 9 quid on his way to the venue. We purloined another couple of "Empty Chairs" which belonged to the venue and started looking for Annie and Angela.
The guy who was on when we got there was good and so were the next act. But the one after that was a Portuguese lady and she had been shipped in at the last moment as the Russian act which had been due to perform had been unable to get visas. What she did was probably all right if you were into that sort of thing. Lots of oobeedooobeedos among the Portuguese lyrics, sort of jazzy type stuff but we just weren't into it and she went on for hours which made for a very long afternoon. I began to think of the other things I could be doing instead of sitting in this sweltering tent watching this boring stuff. Why I could have been watching Nanci Griffith in my own home town tonight. That cheered me up no end!! Here we were waiting to see Don and here was I feeling fed up! At least we knew there was no danger of Nanci making a surprise appearance and duetting on AILYS!
Bill eventually found Annie and Angela while I was out topping up the beer. Well Annie will no doubt tell you about her adventures in staking out Donny's tour bus so I'll leave that bit to Annie.
Fast forward 9 hours then. Just to mention that at around 7.30pm ish the heavens opened and it absolutely tipped down. I had always referred to Don's plans to do some outside venues as the “Donny in a muddy field” sketch so I was right after all. . It did cool the tent down a bit though which was nice.
Donny's concert then. In the interval while they were setting his stuff up I went towards the stage to find Annie and Angela who like me at Cambridge 28 years before had spent a long time staking their claim to a place at the front. However I was able to get within about two bodies of the front barrier only to find I was standing next to Bill. This was a surprise as when we were in Ireland Bill languished in the seated area much further back (and filmed the event) rather than doing the classic Donny "fan" bit and standing at the front. Annie and Angela were a bit miffed because they had stood there for hours during previous performances to secure a good position and here we were floating in half an hour beforehand and getting almost as good a position. Well the spirit may be willing but you sort of fall apart when you go past 50. That’s my excuse anyway. Standing all the way through Donny’s slot would be enough to cope with at our age!
So to get the point - after a lot of fiddling around with Tony's keyboards (Bill said they seemed to be having a job with the sound on the keyboards in Belgium too), Donny came on and launched in to some Buddy Holly numbers, but some refreshingly different ones from the old stalwarts. They included "Well ....All Right", Peggy Sue Got Married" and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".
We had the usual fast ones - "In A Museum" which I now can't get out of my brain, “Love In My Heart” which is probably my equivalent of Bill’s “La La”, "Tulsa Time" which I enjoyed more than usual, it's more fun if you're bopping around to it, Fashion Victim, where somehow Mike - Pat's Brother who was lead guitarist on this occasion, got ahead of Donny or Donny got behind, depending on which way you look at it, and they were totally out of sync. Don looked behind to see what was going on and managed to get back on track, laughed and carried on. Probably no-one else noticed other than us die hards. “Lovesick Blues” was a refreshing surprise inclusion – a nice bouncy version. Then there was Homeless Brother.
He did Crossroads quite early on and went quite flat on that at the beginning but I don’t think he could hear Tony’s keyboards very well. Vincent came fairly early, about half way through. Then he sat down to do some quieter ones and we got “Empty Chairs” without the band. Then, AILYS, Castles in the Air and Wonderful Baby and he did the Frank Sinatra one that he did in Belgium, which the two Bills have been talking about. Very nice.
“Crying” he got through on perfect pitch though he looked a bit relieved at the end of it. And of course we got a long rendition of AP as that’s what the non-Donnyites and indeed probably most of the Donnyites had come for.
He looked on great form and his voice sounded better than it has for some time and he wasn’t slurping butterscotches or anything. Sorry Neil, but as you predicted, the only banjos in sight were those on one of the stalls. As Don walked off he threw his plectrum but it fell in the “no man’s land between the stage and the barrier. One bloke thought he could see it and climbed over the rail but couldn’t find it and gave up. Moments later I saw a black plastic object in the grass. That HAD to be it. An official came wandering along the no man’s land bit. “S’cuse me” said I, and asked if he could retrieve it for me which he did and I was triumphant. Unfortunately my triumph was shattered an instant later when it turned out to be a black plastic bottletop. Darn! Should’ve gone to Specsavers. So that precious guitar pick is probably still lurking there….
After one of the songs Don said if it wasn’t for a few of his songs taking off, he would be singing in the street for pennies but he wouldn’t mind. Bill and I when we conferred afterwards agreed that he could easily afford to sing that song.
The outfit Karmie? All black.
All in all a very enjoyable show. Don appeared to enjoy himself and it was well worth waiting 9 and a half strenuous hours for. There was a lot of talking going on in the outer reaches and not so outer reaches of the tent during Don's quiet numbers which was a bit irritating but I did have a splendid view of Don in the end, though my feet don't half hurt today....
We lingered a bit after Don’s slot, it was nearing midnight by this time but the compere came on and did a great impression of George Bush. As we were walking out after that we saw an unsuspecting Ralph wandering towards the tent with a beer in hand and chatted to him for a bit. He said they were off home the following day and that the two gigs in Belgium and Trowbridge had paid for the trip. He said Pat was in the middle of adopting a Russian baby and was also quite tied up with a TV show in America. He seemed slightly disappointed that the European Tour was cancelled as they were planning on bringing their wives and everything but it was something to do with the economic climate.
After that we did the long trek back to the cars. Bill as usual couldn’t find his. Eventually it turned out to be right next to Mo’s. Poor Bill was facing a long trip home. Mo gave him directions as to how to get back to Bath. Bill doesn’t take any notice of women’s views on directions so he’s probably somewhere in Wales by now.
