More music....

I wrote about going to Cropredy, the Fairport Convention Annual Festival, with the ever patient Shaun and his little pop-up (and his tent....) and I hinted that I intended to write more about the music....well now seems a good time....

I was more than a little excited to discover that a band called Stackridge was playing... I delved into my wardrobe and pulled out my Stackridge T shirt and looked lovingly at the LPs I purchased in the 1970s. Stackridge was a Bristol based band I met through a school friend, and I went to a few gigs with them, even going out couple of times with the drummer, Billy, until drama school in Manchester called, and we lost touch...

The band broke up soon after, a mix of intense creative personalities falling out, and also a failure to 'make it' in the music business despite a loyal following: their music was different, couldn't be pigeon holed and didn't have a place in mainstream : I remember their first single, Dora the Female Explorer, (really..) being reviewed by Annie Nightingale on Radio One, and she just made fun of it and dismissed them: I hated her from that moment on.

Stackridge made history: they turned up uninvited at a small music festival near Shepton Mallet one year, and were lucky enough to be asked to play: unbeknown to them they opened the very first Glastonbury Festival!!! This year, having reformed, they played again at Glastonbury and went down a storm.

So it was that I left my usual place half way up the arena, and dressed in my Stackridge T shirt, I pressed myself against the pit barrier and felt myself fill with joy and nostalgia as the opening notes of Lummy Days hit me: I was not alone, there were many joyful Stackridge fans in the crowd, and we were all singing along to Marzo and Slark: the band were as brilliant as ever, and maybe now their peculiar brand of prog rock/folk will find a home on the festival circuit.

Billy is no longer with them, or Mike, but four original members are still with the band. I thought, I'd love to say hello, but I was a slip of a girl of 17 when I knew them: I'm now an older fatter 55, and they won't recognise me, sadly.... then they came on stage, and I was shocked by the line up of old men! Long flowing locks of dark hair have been replaced by grey, and gone completely to bald heads..I am not the only one to feel the ravages of time.

But the joy of their music speaks for itself: and I hope I see them at more festivals next summer. I did speak to them, and no they didn't remember me, (why should they!) (Billy would of course....) but they were friendly and lvoely and pleased to be remembered and back in business.

Have a listen. Prepare to be amazed. Let tears fall at the story of Percy the Penguin, or Syracuse the Elephant....