Cropredy

[zotz]

Well, I've just remembered that I've a pair of proper headphones - okay, not actual hifi jobs, a pair of closed monitoring cans - but they'll do. Better than listening to the echos from the speakers in the next room. I've been listening to the new Kraftwerk album, and it's not bad. Not really up to the standards of their late seventies and early eighties albums, but very nice in parts, if a bit anonymous in others.

This has turned into quite a long entry.

So, the last time we spoke, I believe I was about to leave for the wonder that is the Cropredy Festival. A wonder, you ask? Well, yes. It certainly makes me wonder, anyway. It was a good festival from my point of view, as a) I got paid and b) my friends were there, but I thought the music was rather bland this year. I'd heard of the three headliners, and it turned out that one of the others was the singer from a band I've heard some stuff by, but apart from that it was all new to me. And while it wasn't bad, it didn't really grab me. swisstone's take on it covers the general feel quite nicely, but obviously I didn't have exactly the same festival he did.

I arrived on Wednesday, so as to be nicely in time to start work at nine on Thursday morning (and missing a Durutti Column concert in the process). I'd arranged for Chris WINOLJ (qv) to drop round about ten, which he duly did, and then we went off to pick up Ali (WIANOLJ) just off Leith Walk. This involved the usual daytime ratrun - Pleasance, Canongate, New Street, Calton Street, Easter Road - on the way over, but Ali knew a better way back onto the A1, and following his advice we were on our way very happily. After a brief stop for petrol and the most laughably "working" air-line I think I've ever seen (I think after ten minutes there was actually slightly less air in the tyres than when I arrived) just outside town, we headed southeastewards. Err . . . I have pointed out to all of you that Edinburgh is actually west of Bristol, haven't I? Anyway, Southeast it was, with the sun, broadly speaking, in my eyes - and also, broadly speaking, bloody intense. You may or may not remember that Wednesday. It was quite hot and I was quite worried about getting sunburned before I arrived. It didn't happen, though, and Chris and Ali were their usual excellent company so it went quite quickly. Of course, I pointed out all the amusing placenames (Conundrum, Hebron, Oxford) in Northumbria, as well as the signs for Shilbottle that they obviously have to clean the amendments from quite regularly. Obviously I'd have pointed out the Lightning near Claypole, but I think we'd crossed onto the M1 by then. We stopped somewhere near Rugby for icecreams, fluids, and the like, and to stand under a tree wishing for a breeze. After that, off the motorway at the Daventry turnoff and wander across country, stopping only to investigate every passing retail park for evidence of bank machines.

Arriving was the usual matter of bagging the usual spot before any of the pesky caravanners arrived (they think it's their field, of course, but it's not - it's ours, but we're good enough to let them use the bits we don't need). I'd borrowed a tent off gingiber and Seth, as mine was still in a warehouse somewhere. It went up very easily, and was much bigger than mine, which made a big difference in the heat. For hot it was - we found a max/min thermometer attached to the shady side of a St John's Ambulance caravan, and it said that it had been 39C recently. That's over 100 degrees in the old money, of course, and even allowing for it being a cheap inaccurate instrument, it still translates as too bloody hot by half. This didn't exactly make me feel optimistic abut the days ahead, but we bravely said hello to people and headed to the pub as if nothing was wrong. One curry later (brought to our table by a teenage gothy rock type wearing black - not so unusual, you might think, but should she be reading this I have some advice for her : if you're going to wear all dramatic black, and also have your g-string showing above your jeans - make sure it isn't baby-blue, OK? Doesn't work) and then to the Red Lion, watering hole of choice. We'd have gone there for food too, but for the last couple of years they haven't been serving any. This year they were, so next year we'll check before going somewhere else.

Errr . . . we were in the pub at this point, weren't we? Well, we stayed there. Until it closed at eleven (Oh Christ, I'm back in England again . . .) and we wandered up the road.

Day One.

This is day one now - Wednesday doesn't count. It doesn't start until Thursday.

The usual deal is that we go down about nine to tell Chris Pegg we're there. Chris runs the festival. Dave Pegg apparently handles the lineup, but Chris is responsible for the rest and runs the show on the day. What happens is that we get to the Caravan Of All Power and wait until we can get all braceletted up and given the gear - crew shirts, hats, dayglow tabards and radios. There's supposed to be a briefing shortly afterwards, but it's usually delayed a bit. this year it was quite short, and mostly devoted to what was expected to be the year's big issue - the blazing sunshine. Much water was available, and we were expected to use it. So we did.

Actually, I didn't really notice many casualties from this. there have been many more in milder years. I suppose that the multiple warnings all over the papers, radio and TV made people actually be careful.

Before the main field actually opened, we did our usual sweep of the field, traders, backstage and technicians to make sure that everyone was banded up. The traders always have a few stragglers, and the sound crew never have bands because their gaffer never gave them the tickets. Always. Every year it's the same. And they won't wear wristbands when they do get tickets, because it gets in the way. Gets in the way of what, precisely? I've used mixers, as had at least one other of us (Paula, qv) and it couldn't be that. Ah well. Masturbating, maybe. I can see that that would be an annoying thing to have to give up for the duration.

Anyway, it went fairly smoothly overall and we waited for the concert field to be declared open. Our job is to staff the gate between this field and the caravan field (that's "Gate six-nine", because the caravan field is field six and the arena is field nine) and (mostly) to patrol the concert field looking for lost children and pets, people who've passed out through drink or fallen over and injured themselves, folk who just can't find their friends or the toilets, oversized or inconveniently placed sunshades and umbrellas, livingroom furniture, hippies shagging behind the sound tower, people jumping the fence (to get in, that is, rather than out), and the like. "We" was the Concert Site Patrol. This is a fancy way of saying "about nine easygoing, probably overeducated and certainly somewhat sardonic individuals in silly hats".



That's me on the left, and Chris on the right. Chris looks tall in that picture, but only because I'm four foot two. There was also Ali, swisstone, and some new types including a bloke called Leon who bore a noticeable resemblance to this man. Needless to say, we resolved not to leave him in charge of any lost children. Worryingly, he did actually prove to be quite good at spotting lost kids . . . this line of thought had consequences later.

The first day always presents an interesting challenge that doesn't really arise on later days : where can we get breakfast? In theory the answer is to go to the crew catering stand, which this year was back stage. I'm sure I don't need to tell you, though, exactly how good an idea that is. In previous years it's been termed "The food-poisoning emporium", and while I think that was rather harsh, I do agree that it pales by comparison with the comestibles targeted on the punters. The problem is, though, that obviously none of these other, preferable, places are open before the main field is, so how do we poor undernourished (stop laughing) crew get our breakfast? The solution was to wait around for a while until one of the regular food stalls - one of the identically-signed, but curiously not remotely interchangeable Natural Healthy Food stalls - opened with their array of vegetarian dishes. This fortunately includes something they enterprisingly and with great sweep and flair term a "breakfast". This is good, because that's exactly what it is. Egg, beans, veggie sausage, a roll, tea or coffee and the added-cost option of mushrooms. Filled the hole. After that, I've a feeling I went looking for a Grauniad, and got back in time for the action.

If you can call it that.

I can't actually remember who was on on Thursday or when they started, except that it finished with Lindisfarne. It all went quite well, I thought. The new bods seemed very competent and fast learners, the crowd seemed inclined to stay still in the heat and quietly enjoy themselves, and I don't really remember much going wrong. All festivals should be like this. Lindisfarne pretty much started with Fog On The Tyne, and then pulled various other old hits and decent songs out of their collective hat. Not quite the Stooges, obviously, but then who is these days?

Most people, of course, were partaking of the falling-down water that was available over the bar. Wadworths have this concession, and very profitable it must be for them too, although I'm sure that the festival charges them nicely for the privilege. For a small number of people, though, folk festivals and drinking are not inextricably linked. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I speak of none other than the concert site patrol, who have to be completely sober throughout their time on duty. Weep for us, please, my friends, because even when the music's over, the lights are turned on and the memory of Jim Morrison is mocked by millions, we have to go looking around the field, stone cold sober, for about another hour looking for anyone who might be too drunk, injured or otherwise incapable to make their own way to their beds or the first-aid caravans. And after everyone's had their last pint and gone home and the bar's bloody closed, we can finally knock off and get five or six hours of sleep before starting the next day.

Day Two.

Friday. Again, I can't mostly remember who played, but it finished with Procul Harum. They've played Cropredy before, and while I managed to avoid them almost completely by the simple tactic of being on a gate on the main road at the time, they were widely pronounced (by the crew, at least) "a bit boring", or words to that effect (or words to that effect but less polite, in some cases). It did occur to us to ask Leon if he still did cleaning jobs, and if so whether he'd be prepared to sweep the stage clean a bit later on, but sanity (if not taste) prevailed and we kept our mouths shut. After all, what if he had? I've always wanted the adulation of a grateful world, but not just for arranging the capping of a bunch of geriatric musos.

So after we'd come to terms with Procul surviving their set, we got on with our first job - main field sweep. In theory this should happen about eight, but it never does. For a start, there are never enough people on the gates to seal the field until later. Usually we get going about half-eight or nearly nine. Actually, later would be better, because at that ungodly hour most of the traders are still (wisely) catching up with their beauty sleep (not that all of them need it). We don't actually go waking them all up and getting them to prove that there's nobody lurking within their tents, because that would be pointlessly heavy-handed. We wander around between and behind the stalls all day anyway, so we'd spot any surplus soon enough. By this point the sound techs probably all had tickets but were still refusing to wear the wristbands, if last year is any guide. I don't personally know, though, because I didn't sweep the backstage at all this year.

Once the sweep is over, somebody gets to make a pompous-sounding radio call to Chris Pegg announcing that the field is clear and the gates can be reopened. They are, and people start trickling in and sitting down on their folding chairs or (I kid you not) folding sofas in front of the sound tower, in spite of the fact that nothing's going to happen for about another four hours. A tape does get stuck on eventually, of course, which has a couple of Kirsty MacColl songs, one Leonard Cohen, something by the Men They Couldn't Hang and a few other odds and sods to keep terminally disgruntled old gits like me happy. The rumour is - and don't tell anyone you heard it from me - that the Afro-Celt Sound System might grace a folk festival in Oxfordshire one of these years. Or they might not. Personally, I'll believe it when it happens. The patrol, of course, take breaks or sit watching an empty field for a few hours. You do see the oddest things, though - a tall stringy blonde woman came up the field to our gate and walked through. As she approached us, we could see that she was wearing a sleeveless top (very sensible on such a hot day as long as you've got good suncream) and a slightly unfashionable knee-length straight skirt. As she walked past, it became apparent that this skirt had no back to it. Of course, the penny dropped pretty quickly that she was from a food stall and was therefore wearing an apron over a pair of shorts, but once you've had the shocked suspicion that the trendy young things might have adopted the backless skirt as their new fashion item, it's hard to shift. After all, it's no dafter than the skirt/trouser combo, and you still see a few of them on the streets.

It had become obvious by now that two or three of the more fondly-regarded food stalls weren't there. I hope this is because of a clash with an event elsewhere, but I guess we'll see next year. Chutney Polly's wasn't there, and neither was Potato Moon. At least one other, too I think. No book stall either, but then that's always been sporadic.

Friday was actually a bit cooler than Thursday, as I recall. Also, we'd settled on soaking our Tshirts in water (usually by pouring a bottle down the neckhole), which it turns out will keep you cool for almost an hour. Sunblock had been essential. I was on factor 35, although some people went higher. Some years ago nik_strychnine did this gig, and he's still remembered in some circles for having sunscreen so fiercely effective that he stood in the sun for three days and left paler than he'd arrived. I believe it can still be bought, under the tradename "Dulux Brilliant White Emulsion".

It has been suggested (mainly by us ourselves) that what we officially spend our time doing is not terribly productive. This is because our official job is to look out for crowd crushes. Obviously heavy-duty moshing, slamdancing, stagediving and crowdsurfing are major problems at folk festivals, so the council in their infinite wisdom decreed several years ago that as well as people in front of and at the side of the stage to spot crushes, there should be two or three people on the field wandering about searching for these things, and somebody on the sound tower looking forward, at all times while there is music being performed. This, of course, is the rationale for the existence of the concert site patrol. This, of course, is a terrible rationale, because we don't see anything that the people at the front don't see better. Crowd crushes tend to happen, after all, against the stagefront barrier. Still, if we're not there then the festival is in breach of its licence, so our presence is required to keep the council happy.

Let me tell you about the council. Let me tell you about the council's plan to evacuate the field.

Originally, the council said not just that the patrolling stewards would have the power to close the festival down if necessary (which we do, but we'd be mad to use it - there are almost exactly no situations that we'd spot first that would make it a good idea), they also had a helpful suggestion for making sure the assembled punters - all 20 000 of them - left the field in a timely and orderly manner. Actually, scratch that word "suggestion" - they put this in writing as the required method.

Imagine, you will, a concert field covering several acres with a gentle slope. At the bottom is a stage, and either side of that is a speaker array. In front of it, maybe 100 yards or so back, is a scaffolding tower with the sound desk on the lower floor and the lighting desk on the upper floor. Obviously this makes it over 20 feet tall, and at least that per side also. Between the riser and the stage is the densest part of the crowd, although the crowd also stretches right back up the field.

Now imagine there's an emergency justifying the music being stopped and the field being evacuated. Think of how you might move 20 000 people.

The council suggested that stewards pick up a rope that had previously been laid along the stagefront and hold it taut between them as they move up the field, sweeping all before them towards the back exits - obviously including the sound tower, which would have to have been mounted on wheels. Surprisingly, the year they suggested this, it survived as a plan right up until the festival started and the stewards heard about it. There was even, apparently, a rope lying across the front of the field as requested.

Never let it be said that licencing authorities are ever known to be unrealistic.

The day and evening were mainly quiet. We weren't getting as much gyp from people insisting on putting their sunshelters up in front of the sound tower, which we don't allow. We haven't been allowing it for several years and the message seems to be getting through. In some ways I wouldn't object too much if Cropredy became a bit more like the Cambridge Folk Festival, but having a solid knotted mass of people sat right at the stagefront so nobody can get close who didn't bag sitting space at 8am isn't one of them. There was a dog patrolling the field as well. Somebody worked out eventually that it wasn't lost. It just liked wandering about, so it did. When it went past me, it really did look like it was on patrol - I had this sudden urge to stick my cap on it and nip off for a shower. There was also a very very drunk bloke being incapable and abusive right in front of one of the stalls, whose owners eventually wanted him moved. They'd put up with him for several hours by this point, so I think asking him to be somewhere else for a bit was quite reasonable. This is the guy Tony mentioned, and he was back on Saturday.

The last band on, and as I say the only one I can remember, was Procul Harum.
Several things spring to mind, and "one-trick-pony" is about the kindest of them. They went on a bit. They went on a lot. And the longer they went on, the more people could be seen leaving the field. As soon as they'd done "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (with Tony singing along with the words to "My Old Man's A Dustman", apparently) it became a flood. Oddly, they chose not to finish with it, so their last couple of songs were pretty much ignored. We had some slight regrets about not asking Leon to take care of them for us, but it was obviously too late by this point, so we hung around looking stupid for another hour and then went to bed.

Day Three.

Saturday. Although it had been very hot on Thursday and Friday, on Saturday morning things were looking ominous. The early-morning haze and cloud were burning off very quickly, promising us that having made it this far was no guarantee of survival. I think the sun was properly out before ten, about an hour earlier than before, so I personally wasn't looking forward to it. Having said that, though, I think we were also a bit more used to the temperature and had taken the right advice on keeping cool, so Saturday too went fairly smoothly. The music was even a bit better too. Mark Gillespie's music wasn't really my sort of thing, but he carried off his band's set with a lot of humour and panache. During the brief soundcheck he was singing comments to the sound engineer in a very convincing jazz-improv style, and seemed to be making flippant alterations to the song lyrics as he went along right through the set. Later the set that I had, after a brainfart, taken to be by some bloke from Dr Feelgood turned out to be some bloke from Dr Hook, which made him marginally less dead than I'd expected. My parents were big fans way back when, so I knew most of the songs - this is a rare event at Cropredy. Finally, of course, there was Fairport. What is there to say about this majestic folk-rock colossus?

A great deal, doubtless, and I'm not going to say any of it. Nice enough stuff, but I was recruited for being willing to work through their set, and I still am.

In non-music-related news, this was probably the most eventful night. Mr Pissedarsehole from the night before spent most of the day sat right in front of the same stall, until the stallholders were quite upset and worried about having him there. Eventually we asked him to move, and he did - about twenty or thirty feet, until his legs folded under him and he flopped down in the middle of a pathway. A passing constable had a word with him about not winding people up, but after a few minutes he was back at his old spot and Mr Plod walked him up to the top gate and told him to keep walking. His dog, which people had worried about getting all protective, turned out to be an absolute sweetie and was last seen happily drinking water provided by a WPC before being reunited with his semiconscious owner. Less happily, some inebriated youths decided that it would be fun to overturn a chemical toilet with some unsuspecting other punter busily using it. Fortunately they turned out to be as thick as the toilet contents - they didn't make sure there weren't any officers of the law around. Certain young men were soon reported to be helping police with their enquiries. The unfortunate punter was reported to be thinking of suing, which I guess is understandable under the circumstances. Just afterwards I heard a noise behind me, and turned to see a man swinging a woman around in a half-circle by her waist. I stared at them for a few seconds while I worked out whether this was friendly or not. After a very short time it became obvious it wasn't, as he started shaking her and shouting. The constabulary had obviously been watching slightly longer than I had, because three of them appeared from nowhere at a full run to peel the two apart and remonstrate with the man. All I heard was him shouting " . . . but she's my wife", which I trust got him nowhere at all.

All this counts as a lot of trouble in Cropredy terms. Usually there's an arrest about every other year, apparently, so this wasn't a good one. As far as I know, though, nobody was hurt significantly, so it could have been worse.

At the end of the evening, of course, Fairport finished with Meet On The Ledge, all the punters sang along, the air was heavy with emotion and the punters were soluble in alcohol, and we had to go and stand down the front because the stage barrier got dismantled ten minutes after the last band left the stage, and the field was still full of people. The last event of any interest was one of the new bods spotting something up the field and taking off after it at full speed. I guessed that it would be best to follow, and amazed myself by being able to keep up with him in spite of being ten years older. It turned out that someone had decided that it would be a good time to demonstrate firebreathing, a notion that some other crewmembers were disabusing him of as we eventually arrived.

Of course, after the music was finished and the field was clear . . . it was 1 in the morning, but we still had the crew party to go to. This took us a while to find, but when we did a couple of happy hours were spent sinking pints and annoying campers by laughing in an inconsiderate manner. One man got up, threw his tent into his car and drove straight off home. Another came to remonstrate. He said something about gettng the stewards, and of course a forest of hands went up. To be honest, we were nearly finished my then, and I guess we mostly went to our beds sometime around three. The crew parties used to be backstage, and had food provided by the inestimable Leon (Leon of Leon's highly-recommended food stall, rather than patrol member and presumed hitman Leon, of course), but that stopped a few years back, sadly. Perhaps the celebs were annoyed by reports that we had a better aftershow party than they did.

Sunday. All over. We got up, got washed, got paid and went home. There had been some notion about staying until Monday, but it must have been dropped, because what ended up happening was that I drove into Banbury to drop swisstone off at the station, and them I took Chris, Ali and Ali's brother to some place outside Oxford called Kidsomething. I had a shower. We all had showers, and used a proper flush toilet that wasn't in a portacabin. Cropredy has better toilets than any other festival, of course, and as crew we get to use the same backstage toilets and showers as the artists and celebs. But they're still not quite as good as the real thing. And unlike in previous years, the attentions of several festival workers didn't immediately block the toilet completely.

After a bit of that, I went into London to my sisters' place. She wasn't there when I arrived, so I put my feet up for a bit.

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Side-splittingly hilarious!

(However, memory - and the running order on the website - suggests that Mr Gillespie played on Friday.)

[zotz]

Shows how much attention I was paying, I suppose. Quite an indictment, that, for a crew member. Especially as I was even on the main field nearly the whole time.

And, of course, thank you.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

You should wear orange more often ;P

[kiaransalyn.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!

I really enjoyed reading that.

[lovingboth]

their late seventies and early eighties albums

You make it sound like they've done more than an ok one, a 'greatest hits rewerked' one and a single since then!

That almost made me want to volunteer next year.

[zotz]

Well, as opposed to them and to their first two or three, which didn't have the earthshattering impact of their truly crucial five (?) albums.

As for Cropredy . . . well, it's quite variable, but usually fun. The rainy years are the worst, obviously. Trying to help push trucks up muddy slopes isn't much of a laugh.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

You missed something; if you're considering having your G-string show above your trousers... don't. Never mind the colour.