On Sunday afternoon I’d totally forgotten about our local music festival.
By the time we went round to the park, I’d missed the Rolling Gladstones, an R&B band who play every year, and a reggae band are playing. Gilad Atzmon’s band are fantastic, as always, and then I bump into Ian Ritchie, who’s been playing sax on Roger Waters’s world tour since I last saw him at the dress rehearsal at Bray Studios in 2006. I have a natter with Ian and his wife Holly, a cabaret singer, and Gilad’s bass player Yaron joins us. He will be recording with Ian this week.
Gladstonbury is a small, friendly, low-key festival and this time it’s being held in a different part of the park, which suits the event really well.
As an Afropop band plays superbly, young Mums dance on the grass with their tiny daughters, and a woman who works in the music business tells me the group is Algerian. Her husband has their dog on a leash and their friend puts some mineral water in a plastic glass and gives the dog a drink, which the animal really appreciates on such a warm day.
“He likes red wine,” says the woman.
Then the Emerald Dogs come on and start rocking and Gary Scott is singing, “What’s that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster?” I know Gary and chatted to him earlier. Jan taught his kids and knows his wife.
Their second boogie number starts with a dirty, growling guitar and, as they jam, Gary persuades the crowd to move closer to the stage and sing : Sweet home Alabama / where the skies are always blue / Sweet home Alabama / Lord, I’m comin’ home to you.”
That song always puts a smile on my face : I hope Neil Young will remember / A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.
They rip through a Cranberries number, one by The Killers, a U2 tune, a bit of Eurythmics, and by now 30 teen and subteen girls are pogoing in front of stage and photographers are onstage taking pics of the audience, not the band. The punky young guitarist is playing his Gibson down below knee-height, like Nils Lofgren, hamming it up, and as Gary sings, “I’m going to Wichita,” the guitarist cheekily asks, “Not Cricklewood?” and Gary laughs and misses half the next line.
The Emerald Dogs are real crowd-pleasers with tons of stagecraft, unlike many young rock groups, who are too earnest. They finish at 7.05 pm and while I really want to see the headline band, I want to see Spain v Italy even more, so I walk home quickly.
I’m in a frisky, summery mood and hope to stay like this till the season starts. A folkrock harmony group has put me in this mood : Fleet Foxes.