No I haven't acquired a TARDIS. This is a piece I wrote about 5 years ago but didn't know what to do with.Until now. Hope you like it.
Names changed to protect..me, in case they ever find out what I wrote.
Monsters Of Rock
Part the First:
The Journey
In which our heroes start as they mean to go on, travel hard and far and discover a place without a heart.
It was rather a long day. It started for me at 5am with a chirruping phone alarm and was to end…well, I’ll get to that in good time.
I showered and dressed with due dispatch. About 6am, just as I was considering whether to go and poke him awake, Little Bro appeared, followed shortly after by his missus and the girls. Neatly sidestepping the regular morning circus we made our goodbyes and set off for the coach stop. Five minutes up the road Little Bro discovered he’d forgotten his lighter. As is traditional.
In true British Public Transport fashion the timetable at the stop was significantly different to the published version. And wrong anyway, since the coach pulled in at the (published) scheduled time of 7am and left shortly afterward, minus four of the scheduled passengers.
Actually, minus five of the scheduled passengers. One of the initial problems was how to collect Nails from Cannock and this would have involved Little Bro getting up at Stupid O’clock to collect him and drive back to Stafford. Luckily the coach turned out to stop at…Cannock so at 7-30 ish a leather-jacketed figure climbed aboard clutching a bag of cheese sandwiches and strong lager.
The rest of the journey passed in manly talk and war stories and we arrived at Birmingham in good time. This was, alas, not typical of National Express’s service over the next day and a half. More on that later.
Having eaten all of Nails’s cheese butties, and having thirty five minutes to kill, we set off in search of a café, can of strong lager in hand. We found a café, yes, but then I noticed an ajar pub door on the other side of the road.
“Hey, do you think that’s open?”
“Want to nip over and have a look?”
“Can do.”
The pub “The Kerryman” was dark and less than inviting. In a corner, two hard faced men sat and stared into their pints as a cleaner taunted the floor with a mop. It had an aura of sullen rage and regular glassings. I stepped inside carefully, expecting to be chased out again. Or seized and killed to honour the Beer God. Joy upon joys! It was open and they served strangers. I stuck my head back out of the door and gave a double thumbs up. Little Bro and Nails trotted across the road and soon we were sitting at a table enjoying a nutritious breakfast of barley and hops.
Burping happily we made our way back to the coach station and there bought chocolate, fags and reading material wherein were bosoms uncovered and witty jpegs.
It was at this point that we started to have some doubts as to the competency of National Express. Having your driver step onto the coach and ask if anyone knew the way is not calculated to impress. It later transpired that the lady in question had just come back from a long period sick and had not been to Milton Keynes in many a moon. It took her three goes to find the stop in Coventry, she hurriedly got into the right lane barely in time to avoid a detour via Walsall and tried to overtake two juggernauts just before the turnoff for Milton Keynes, making it in the nick of time.
There is nothing of interest at Milton Keynes coach Station.
It is also in the middle of nowhere. In fact the whole town suffers from the same problem. Any given point is a long way away from any other given point with very little in between. It also has no town centre. Seriously. We got a shuttle taxi to the Bowl but decided to stop off at the town centre for beer and were convinced we’d been screwed. You see, Milton Keynes does not have a High Street as such but has instead a wide boulevard neatly separating two shopping/entertainment complexes. Picture the sort of thing that rings any sizeable town/city- a block containing a bar or two, some supermarkets and a cinema- and that’s MK Central .
Still the beer was cheap and cold and we could see many folk garbed in black taking their ease. Being in prolonged exposure to sunlight for the first time in quite a while, I broke out my sun-tan lotion, to mocking cries from my companions. “Put it away” they cried. And they did suggest that I was unmanly and smelt of coconut.
“Rather smell like coconut than burn.” Quoth I “ Come the close of the day I shall be dancing around you singing “Lobster boy! Lobster Boy!”
And the subject was dropped in favour of more beer. Investigating the delights of the Xscape complex, for so it was named, took little time. We also discovered that we were still a fair distance away from the National Bowl and not, as we’d believed, just round the corner. Again, this was to become important later on.
The strategy for the day was this: arrive a little later and take advantage of Wetherspoon’s competitive beer prices, missing Ted “Redneck Asshole” Nugent. This seemed a good plan. Granted, it meant we missed Roadstar but that seemed a fair sacrifice for cheap beer and not having to sit through The Nuge.
At last we deemed it necessary to make our move and summoned a taxi. Who took a long, baffling route and failed to mention that we could not, in fact, be dropped off at the entrance until after we’d been halted by a police cordon.
I also couldn’t help noticing that the two gentlemen who’d set off – on foot – shortly before us had arrived at the same point at roughly the same time. My memory is a little hazy but it is entirely possible that we failed to tip.
The short walk to the venue itself left us with a little time to consume the last of Nails’s supply of strong lager – an evil-minded Polish brew whose very name gives me a headache.
And so we came at last to the great bowl of Milton Keynes.
Part The Second: Monsters Of Rock
In which there is much drinking of cheaper than expected beer, the Hill of Death is contended with and the day contains many other marvels.
We joined the stream of black-clad bodies flowing towards the gates, ignoring the entreaties of the ticket touts. That must be a risky profession, knowing that the packet of tickets in your hand is worth less and less as the gig goes on. Anyway, we had nothing to offer them and they had nothing to offer us so we passed them by like, erm Odysseus passed by the sirens. Except not in a ship obviously. Also, the average tout - hairy scary bloke rather than alluring, anthropophagous woman.
Anyway, into the arena. Somebody was playing and after a while we worked out that it was Ted Nugent. “Oh bugger.” We said. “Is he still on?” and repaired to the large tent nearby. In return for handing over £3 each a nice young lady walked over to a table where large paper cups of beer were lined up, selected three of them and handed them over with a smile.
We liked this idea. You can take it as read that whenever we were at a loss for anything to do one or more of us would revisit this place of happiness.
Ted Nugent was still playing, it may even have been the same damn song, so we browsed the stalls that formed a semi-circle across the back of the Bowl, neatly dividing the arena from the Hill Of Death.
I haven’t mentioned the weather yet and I should really , it being such an important part of the day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear and blue and bereft of clouds and we were comfortably warm. I had opted to leave the leather portion of my armour at home and it seemed I was vindicated. If I had been foolish enough to wear it I would have ended up in a hospital being rehydrated through a tube and a bright shade of pink. Little Bro and Nails had brought their jackets but doffed them quickly.
This is why bandanas seemed such a good idea. Eventually we worked out how to tie them. I hadn’t worn one in over a decade and I’m sure Nails hadn’t either.
Heads safely covered we stripped to the waist and lay down in the hot sun to await the moment of Ted Nugent buggering off. Soon I had to redon my t-shirt. Women and small children were crying out in horror and there were complaints that the glow of my white flesh was painful to the eyes.
And now is the moment we were to encounter the Hill Of Death. The Bowl is exactly that, a deep dish formed of earth and ringed about by steep slopes. To get to the toilets we had to ascend these and almost immediately my hips, knees and ankles screamed their distress up my nervous system.
In true festival tradition the toilets were things of stench and wickedness and best glossed over.
And now on to the first band we actually bothered watching.
Queensryche played a set drawing exclusively from the two "Mindcrime" albums. For the first two songs it worked." Revolution Calling" and "Operation Mindcrime" were a highly effective one-two punch, an unnamed woman in an LBD sauntering on to add powerful backing vocals to the second song.
Then it went a bit pear shaped."Suite Sister Mary" is a long epic, with large sections devoid of vocals. A strange choice for festival set and even Geoff Tate's dramatics failed to stop me losing interest. Not just me. The three of drifted back through the crowd, probably visiting the beer tent at some point, before tackling the Hill of Death once again. Little Bro and Nails found a spot they liked and were, in fact, to spend a large part of the afternoon here. The rest of Queensryche's set drifted by, culminating in "Eyes Of A Stranger". For me they were a disappointment. Too many songs I wanted to hear but didn't.
I shall take a moment here to mention the Forest of Still Men.
As the Hill of Death sloped up from the arena on three sides so it sloped back down again on the opposite side. And this slope was thick with trees. Now the queues for the toilets quickly grew to epic proportions so many men looked at the trees around them, looked at the queues once again and thought "Wellll..."
So, as I returned from filling our water bottles from the standpipe (unfortunately we'd already spent a stupid amount on bottled water before discovering said pipe) I cut through the trees and beheld many men standing close to tree trunks avoiding all eye contact.
Now might be a good point to mention a few random things: The amiable chap, out for a day with his children, who began bigging up Blind Guardian to us. The girl in the short shorts who stood outside one of the stalls. Possibly a vendor. Possibly a siren luring men into the stall with her pert bottom.( I didn't check round the back to see if there was a pile of gnawed bones.) Several large bronzed bellies attached to large bronzed men who made me feel both svelte and albinoesque. The wide range of t-shirts ranging all the way from hoary 70s rock to extreme metal to Gorillaz. (That one raised an eyebrow or two, I suspect)
Anyway, enough of such trivialities. Back to the gig.
Once again I made my way down to the arena floor for
Thunder. I had seen this bunch of London boys twice before and been impressed both times so my expectations were high. I was not to be disappointed. Danny Bowes is not only possessed of a fine set of pipes but a natural charm that quickly had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Four men beside me started linedancing. It seemed to fit somehow. Even the material with which I was unfamiliar plugged itself straight into my spinal column. As I left to rejoin Little Bro and Nails I can remember pulling out my mobile, ringing them and, bellowing above the cheers, "Backstage Journey are shitting themselves because they've got to follow that."
AOR gods
Journey had not played the UK since about 1980 and I was surprised to see how many people gathered at the front to see them. I also was somewhat bemused to note how many of these were large, burly men who fit firmly into the category "Would not like to spill his pint."
They opened with the majestic "Separate Ways", briefly lost momentum with a guitar solo immediately afterwards, then recaptured it with a selection of melodic rock gems. They got away with playing three ballads, let the drummer have a go at singing (He was damn fine too. He managed to be better than half the vocalists I've seen live and turn in a sublime drumming display) and even survived the lead singer's sartorial flaws (yellow trousers? C'mon dude). They would have been the band of the day if it wasn't for Thunder.
Officially
Deep Purple were headliners but the three of us conferred early on in the day and decided that we would leave early to A) beat the rush for taxis and B) get back to the town centre in time for a few jars before we headed for the coach station. So this meant for three men from Stafford at least
Alice Cooper was the headliner. This was the band Little Bro and Nails had come to see and they came down from the hill especially.
Right from the start Alice and his band seemed to me to be a lot punkier in attitude than I'd seen before. Vincent Furnier is an artist that has been adopted by Heavy Metal without, in fact, actually being so. Come to think of it, the same would hold true for nearly every band on today's bill. The only band indisputably Metal were Queensryche. This sounds like I'm complaining. Far from it. Metal has always been a lot more varied than it has been given credit for.
Sermon over. Back to the review. Well, I can sum it up as "Quite respectable but.." For a performer with such a strong emphasis on visuals it seemed silly to leave the video screens switched off and I was possibly too far away to really get into it. We caught the set from middle distance,as it were, lending an ear as we circled the stands looking for food. We ate over priced noodles on the hillside, I used the last of my coconut sunscreen to graffitise the grass and browsed the record stall with many happy cries while Alice Cooper played songs old and new to cries of "We're not worthy!" from the faithful down the front.
At one point he had a young lady in a pink negligee cavorting around him on stage. Apparently this is his daughter, which seemed somehow wrong...
There was the customary guillotine stunt before the dark one stepped out of a coffin, resurrected in white suit and top hat to bring the show to its end.
As the closing notes faded away the three of us headed for the exit.
As we were to discover, the day was not even close to being over.
Part the Third: The Voyage Home
In which our heroes see more of Milton Keynes than they had intended, National Express get their names inscribed in the Big Book Of Hate and the journey concludes as it began.
The plan of action was this: leave early, find a taxi back to Xscape and there drink beer. Then, at a suitable point, we would head on to the Coach Station.
The wheels came off almost immediately. Despite the sign over our chosen exit reading "taxis" there were, in fact, none in evidence and we were now on the opposites side of the bowl from where we came in. Ho hum. Circling back around we set off back to Xscape on foot.
The sun was setting as we walked and we had the streets to ourselves. It felt good. Soothing.
Twenty minutes later we seemed no closer to the shining dome we could see in the distance and I was beginning to wonder, loudly, whether we were going the right way. We would have asked one of the locals but...there were none. Not a soul. We got directions from a helpful drunk in a Co-op and set off again through the empty streets of Milton Keynes. Children did not play in the streets, teenagers lurked not on corners, men did not walk to the pub. It seemed as though we marched through an episode of the Twilight Zone, one of the old eerie, black and white episodes that spoke of paranoia and things not as they should be.
Once or twice we saw people but they fled from us. I am not exaggerating here. We were planning to ask a nearby, rare, pedestrian for directions but as soon as I made eye contact she sped up and disappeared into the distance. I do seem to have that effect on women.
At last we came to the bright lights of Xscape, and, after a quick visit to a place of tiles, took one look at the Ben Sherman shirted hordes around us and decided not to linger. Taxi!
Back at the coach station once again we found the cafe open. Also the shop. Which contained nothing except a few packets of fags and a few magazines of the sort favoured by elderly church-going widows. The nice man behind the cafe counter sold us fine cups of tea indeed. He told us that his little place of work tended to be dead from 10 to 6am. We nodded in reply and settled down to await the coach. We knew it would be a long wait. We had arrived some three hours before the coach was due at 1am. Luckily I won £15 on a fruit machine which would fund the purchase of the many beverages necessary.
Although it had been a great day it had also been a long day and the walk through Milton Keynes had been epic. We settled down , hands clasping teacups, to discuss the day and engage in male bonding.
And that was when every bugger and his uncle walked in through the door. The cafe filled up almost instantly and they kept coming. Soon the nice tea-master was looking harassed as he battled to keep his charges fed and lubricated. There were South Americans three deep at the counter contemplating Mars Bars and folk in black t-shirts stacked up outside. Most were newly arrived from the Milton Keynes Bowl but some clearly weren't. Who were these people and why did they roam the highways and byways so late into the night? Perhaps there were tales to be gathered.
I drank my tea in silence and thought of my bed.
Coaches came and went and the throng grew gradually less. Outside the Patagonians listened to Spanish rock music and dickered with taxi drivers. Come 1 am the three of us were loitering outside eager to behold our coach swinging around the corner. A coach came. Alas, it was not ours. Neither was the one after that.
I looked at my phone's time display and was somewhat alarmed to see "01.30" blinking back at me.
Our problem, you see, was this: we had to catch a connection at Birmingham about 4am-ish. According to the schedule there was thirty minute "safety gap" to allow for delays. Each minute the coach failed to appear ate into this gap. And anyone who knows British public transport will laugh at the idea that the trip would involve no further delays.
It was beginning to look as though we would be stranded in Birmingham until the next Stafford coach arrived.
Assuming we got to Birmingham in the first place. The small man who'd been ringing the coach office at regular intervals announced that the coach was an hour behind schedule. A second call, later on, brought the more alarming news that they didn't know where the coach actually was. The small knot of people staring hopefully down the road sagged in despair. And one of them was shivering. Leaving my leather jacket in Stafford might have been a good idea under the blazing heat of the sun but at 2am the chill of night was seeping into my bones and the many cups of tea were helping little.
Still, I was confident that eventually we would get home one way or another. Annoyed but confident. The two family men with me were, for obvious reasons, not so phlegmatic. Little Bro especially was not enjoying the thought that his little girls would wake up without him being there.
The next scheduled coach to Birmingham was at 2.40. We were seriously considering storming aboard and to hell with what the tickets said. Ten minutes before the possible hijacking our coach finally rolled in, well over an hour late, with any chance of missing our connection as dead as Michael Jackson . The mood of the gathered passengers was ugly. Nearly all had further to go than Birmingham and small faith in National Express getting them there. especially when the coach driver got lost in Coventry. Eventually he abandoned his attempt to find the coach station and dumped the one Coventry passenger on a random street. Days later I was still wondering if he had made it home. Then, coming into Birmingham, the driver appealed for help yet again to find Digbeth coach station. Little Bro stepped forward and, standing at his shoulder, skilfully steered him through the dark, silent back streets of sleeping Birmingham.
Stepping off the coach, barely awake and creaking at every joint we were marshalled towards two waiting taxis and split according to final destination. Ours had three heading for Stafford (us) and three for Stoke. I worked it out afterwards that any profit from the sale of our tickets had mostly been swallowed up by the cost of said taxis. Nice way to run a business guys.
Birmingham at four in the morning is not a nice place. We passed through the town centre and saw the one belligerent drunk ringed by coppers closing in for the kill, another standing in the centre of the road swaying slightly with a dubious damp patch on his jeans and a gaggle of clubbers noisily debating something or another with much waving of arms. Meanwhile two of the Stokies conducted a debate on the meaning of life in dry, Ayckbournesque tones. The other slept.
In Stafford we parted company from our erstwhile travelling companions outside a petrol station and staggered home. I made tea and stared into space. Little Bro took Nails back to Cannock. I stared into space some more, woke up enough to browse the satellite channels and presented Little Bro with still more tea when he returned.
We stayed awake long enough to see Little Bro’s other half and the girls when they came downstairs. And then I trudged upstairs and fell facedown into my bed for the first time in 26 hours.
Part The Fourth: Postscript
In which our narrator draws a few conclusions.
1. Yes we would go next year.
2. No we are not going by coach. I would rather amputate my genitals with a rusty fishknife than patronise National Express again.
3. We have no idea what we will do transport wise next year. Maybe via car, maybe via train. Possibly a hotel is required.
4. But not by coach.
Obviously going back the next year didn't happen. I'm told the promoters lost a bundle on the affair and that's a shame. With High Voltage conspicuous by its absence this year, maybe there just isn't the market for a UK Classic Rock festival.
