“Going off The Unthanks” a friend I met at Moseley Folk Festival offered.
“Preferred ’em when they were just a capella and clog dancing. Too over-produced nowadays.”
Over-produced clog dancing…I ask you.
Admittedly there were long, quite long moments when the sisters stood gazing wistfully towards West Bromwich, while a melancholic solo trumpet and hissing cymbal crescendoed around Moseley Park, but happily this soon gave way to waves of forboding violin chords and the occasional death knell wallop on a couple of drums.
Then the clogs kicked in again. Magnificent in their mystery (and misery).
The festival was on Fryday, Fatterday and Funday (beer and chips a-plenty) or you could opt for a bag of green stuff, falafel or healthy Bakewell flapjack. One family was seen eating chicken legs with hands encased in those plastic gloves you use to fill up with diesel. I didn’t stay for the trifle.
Having been once told I looked like Dave Pegg from Fairport Convention, and was almost asked for my autograph at another festival because of said similarity, I kept an eye open for more famous faces in the crowd. Saw a man who looked like Robert Plant, heard a woman who sounded like Marianne Faithful, and smelt something that was possibly being used for medicinal purposes.
Then she spotted me. A woman in high-viz made straight for me, never taking her eyes off me. Here we go again, I thought.
“Would you mind moving along sir, you’re standing still in an area where you should be walking…”
Now if I’d been dancing in an area where I should have been whistling, or thinking in an area where only weeping was allowed…
Rebel Without a Clue – that’s me.
I moved on, sympathised with a bloke who was having a good natured rant at a dustbin, and waited for The Monkees to entertain anybody over fifty who was intoxicated with nostalgia, and amuse/annoy the rest.
Well, I guess I’ve reserved my place at the back of the queue for next year’s do.