No Direction Home - notes from a festival

'Remember...(pause) just (shorter pause) remember'. Warren Ellis' last instruction to the crowd as Dirty Three finished an amazing set on the first night of the festival.That man looks like he's wiped and rebuilt more memory banks than most. Another role model for growing older with energy and style. My favourite wellies had sprung a leak. I had used a plastic bag as a temporary repair. We'd pitched the tent, but we were in the eye of a storm, it felt like seaside weather but we were at Welbeck Abbey, in the middle of the Midlands.No direction home seemed an apt description of the site, as the mud slides built up on the access routes. I was wet and cold, and beginning to think I should give up on festival going. But I was in good company - my older son and daughter, and we are veterans of some very wet Green Man festivals. We were also less than an hour from home if things got bad - as long as we could get the car off the field. So Warren, I do remember, I will remember. That's what this blog is all about. Back in the day I recognise that I was more observer than participant. I feel like a witness, and I'm a witness who had my wits about me. I remembered other festivals - Bath in 1970, one I have written about recently. Knebworth in 1976 - the Stones played but Todd Rungren made the big impression. Lincoln and Bickershaw with Joe's cafe - an offshoot of On the 8th Day in Manchester - it had more in common with a refugee camp soup kitchen than the pretty and vintage style food outlets you get at festivals nowadays. At Lincoln we were outside the corrugated festival perimeter fence - I don't remember seeing any of the music, though I think I heard Rod Stewart and the Faces. Bickershaw was great, in spite of the mud, because we were just at the side of the stage.I remember Dr John, and Beefheart and Hawkwind. And of course the man who did the high dive into a tiny tank of water! We were next to the Release tent, and I wish I still had a copy of their typewritten instructions on what to do if you were busted by the drug squad at the festival! I remember it quoting the words 'Oi sonny, you're nicked'. I went to Womad for a day when it was in Morecambe and saw Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. And then I didn't camp or go to a festival for a long time - until we made Green Man in the Brecon Beacons our annual family get together back in 2006. But this year we thought we'd try No Direction Home. The food was great, especially the breakfast pastries from the Welbeck Farm Shop tent. The Literature and Comedy yurt was a good place to get warm and dry whilst being entertained - and taking off muddy wellies in the entrance definitely helped keep it clean and comfortable. The Somerset cider bus, the red double decker bus cafe, the Mexican cafe - all highlights.Three generations in one place - the babies in their trollies with coloured covers like miniature wagon trains. A swan in the evening moving over the lake.Performers enjoying the festival, in the queues for the loos ( good) and drinks. Comedy highlights were Josie Long and Simon Munnery. Literature highlights were Jon Ronson, Mick Jackson , Katherine Hibbert and Richard King. All very thought provoking.And people you'd never see anywhere else, wearing clothes they'd never wear anywhere else. There were some familiar faces among them. Babies dressed as fairies ( cute) and a 7 year old and a 57 year old ( I'm guessing) wearing Sex Pistols T shirts! And the comedy compere revealed himself as a massive Captain Beefheart fan, so I had a conversation with him about my on tour experience back in Clear Spot days. John Robins - if you are reading this take a look at the last post of my old blog, Life and Death in the Peak District, written in response to the news of Beefheart's death. On Friday night I thought it would be my last festival. On Sunday after a gloriously sunny day, I look forward to the next.