I continued to try to link up with my friend sending text on the move while in search of Ray Davis. I wonder how Terry and Julie managed to meet up at Waterloo Station without the aid of mobile text messaging? with more success than me it seems!
I walked, my stick marking my stride towards the Acoustic stage with purpose, RD had started at 10.30 and it was now nearly 11.30 and I was beginning to wish I hadn't hung out so long with Neil.... I pass across the right turn which is the route back down to Jazz Work making note to self as I intend to head down that way later in search of Blockheads at Avalon.
A little further on I take a left turn just past the kidz zone and see the warm light spilling out from the Acoustic Tent and like a moth I gravitate towards it. The familiar Kinks sound speeds my pace. The whole tent is heaving and alive as the audience have all become backing vocalists for the band, and I want to join in.
Ray is as one with the audience and is enjoying it as much as they are, he has aged a little but is still slender and is instantly recognisable with his mouth, which has always reminded me of the joker from Batman, delivering one gem after another..Lola la la la la lola... it is magical
Ray tells us how early record execs proclaimed the music "not hit material" and "the lead singer too ugly" for either to be a success, as he launches into "You Really Got Me" ..well, he surely did get them and for that matter me and everybody else here too.. we couldn't get enough of him, he obligingly gave us about 6 encores and his generosity was rewarded with us all singing in unison with him followed by energetic and heart felt applause.
As I head back down the hill with my fellow vocalists I am aware that I am a little on the drag for my next musical appointment however, in what I now recognise as true Glastonbury etiquette, there is not a hint of a push or a shove as we all head towards the narrowing gate way which will lead us back onto the dusty (dusty might be a bit of poetic licence but the mud had begun to dry a little)high road again.
I had arranged with the boys to meet them again at our designated meeting place, the familiar Brothers Bar at 1am for our hike back to the yellow car park and the drive to mattress heaven. But prior to that I was keen to catch the Blockheads for a trip down memory lane to the time, back in the day, when I spent a year touring with them and my then partner, a psychotic (or as I described him at the time, shy) guitarist or as he described himself, an ex semi-named guitarist from Canvey island, as he spent a year recording and tour with them and Mr Dury.
These plans however were foreshortened by a role reversal situation with my son, who text me to say they were tired and wanted to go back to the B&B. Despite my trying to convince him that he really did want to stay another hour, there is no arguing with a tired teenager and so we headed off! me leaning on, instead of hitting, my rhythm stick.
Once again we reached the Jag feeling as though we had crossed the Sahara and reached a green oasis, our now wellie into the boot routine completed, we crawled on to the welcoming leather. Junior curled up immediately on the back seat and my new navigator politely tried to keep his eyes open in the co pilots spot up front.
Finally we tiptoed in stocking feet up the stairs of our lodgings, no plans for an early breakfast, I gratefully crawled into my single bed. As I lay down my phone was bombarded with delivery messages as all of my text to my friend had obviously just arrived, I hoped she wasn't at 1.30am trying to follow my SMS ginger bread crumbs around the site? The oil painted pair on the wall stared down at me again, the gruesome twosome! "I'm sorry" I said "but I'm afraid I'm am going to have to remove you till the morning, nothing personal"..
End of Part 7
