The Yorkshire Vet: Getting into the music festival groove - Julian Norton
It had been a few years since Anne and I had attended a music festival like this. We’d enjoyed a couple of trips to family-friendly festivals when our kids were younger, almost twenty years ago. One highlight was at the front of the crowd watching St Etienne, with a four-year old son sitting on my shoulders, dancing his heart out. Another was when Archie wandered off with ten pounds of his pocket money, only to return quarter of an hour later sporting a huge hat in the shape of a panda. It was everything to everyone. Warm, furry, cute and very funny and it suited him and his young personality perfectly.
Before that, it was Glastonbury. Our first trip came about because Anne had been seeing practice during her final year as a vet student with a world-renowned cattle practice in Shepton Mallet. She’d been with one of the vets to Worthy Farm to examine some cows, and the iconic view of the Pyramid Stage from the cow shed had given her the idea that we should go. In those days, Glastonbury festival was a very different beast and it was simple to get tickets. You phoned up the number in the local paper, gave your name and address, and sent a cheque. The tickets arrived, without drama, in the post a few days later. Rustic, quaint and non-commercialised. Anne’s Gran lived within walking distance, which made pre-festival accommodation and a post-festival shower another straight forward affair, although the walk, weighed down by rucksacks, tents, sleeping bags and cans of beer, was longer and less direct than we’d imagined. Our plan to “…. just follow the sound of the music,” did not go completely as expected, but we arrived safely, eventually.
For our latest festival we were dropped off by a taxi just a few minutes’ walk from the venue- much easier than our first Glastonbury trip! This was a dance-music festival at Harewood house, where some epic performances were expected. We soon found ourselves in conversation with another couple, living their best life enjoying the thrill of live music. They came from near Leeds and the lady proudly declared, “We were the first people to arrive! My husband insisted the traffic would be bad and he didn’t want to be late!” Before long, the music was pumping and the crowds were gathering. In the summer sun, with a cold lager in hand, this was a very relaxing place to be. Our main aim was to see the fabulous Groove Armada, who were be the headline band. If you can call them a band, that is. I’d say, more of a phenomenon than a band, but I am biased, because I knew the lead member when I was seventeen years old. He was in my school cross country team. Luckily, his musical talent far outweighed his running ability. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I’ve followed the progress and loved the music of this amazing duo since their inception.
Before too long, and just before dusk, the first of their iconic tunes and inspirational sound boomed out of the speakers. “Enter in the dance, plug it in and we begin,” they sang, and the crowd went wild, which was expected. More familiar tunes followed, including two of my favourites: “My Friend” and “If Everybody Looked the Same…” the next lyric is We’d get tired of looking at each other. Sadly, the end of the evening came too soon, and we had to hurry for our lift home, just before the end of the performance. It’s an irksome habit I’ve developed, especially when the performance is so good but, ever the pragmatists, we wanted to avoid the queues and crowds. To the taxi drivers, everybody did look the same.