Lodestar Festival 2011

Lodestar Festival returned at the weekend, and for the second year running I was booking the theatre/comedy/non-music acts, this year I even had a title - 'Director Of Theatre', which I liked very much. I'm not sure why I had any doubts this time around, possibly because I've been so busy this summer with the fringe, the tour, the gigs, so coming into the festival I was a tad worried that I just wasn't prepared enough. No need to worry though - Lodestar is an amazing place to be, run by amazing people. I will even go as far as to say this has been my favourite weekend of the year so far, and I'm not sure how it can be bettered. Arriving on Saturday morning, I was instantly handed a walkie-talkie, with my additional role of stage manager for the stage I'd booked the acts for suddenly kicking in. Our stage this year had moved to another part of the site, partly I think because of my request after last year (in which the noise from the main stage was overpowering) but also because Doug the organiser is a bright man and probably knew this himself. Although our stage was a fair walk away from the main attractions (it was in it's own field), it was easy enough to find and had it's own bar, so we were never short of an audience. Alongside the general walking around, getting confused about who is allowed backstage wristbands, and trying to look important, my first performance of the day was with Flaming June, who were the second act of the day on our stage. Fresh from our performance the night before, this was the Flaming June I love - the fiery, slightly manic at times even, the night before we were all a little drained from the excessive heat of the venue, but in the open air in front of a quickly gathering crowd we played our regular set, but played it pretty well if I may say so. Next up was Laura Tapp, one of my label artists. Laura's great - very confident on stage, perfect for the festival vibe, and it was nice to join her on stage for to play congas on three tracks - the three we recorded earlier this year. My old chum, Tracy Harris, then put on another fantastic play, performed by the dude from the Kitkat advert, and then another friend, Paul Kerensa, proved that stand-up comedy can work in a field. I'm genuinely amazed at how into comedy/non-music this audience were, it was a hot sunny day but instead of watching bands on the main stage it felt like we had a good majority of them in our field. Paul has writing credits including 'Not Going Out' and 'Miranda' for television so there's no doubting his credentials, and his performance was perfect for the hot summer's day, it was no exaggeration to say he went down very well indeed. Next up was my final performing commitment of the day - and the one that perhaps I was most apprehensive about, 'Relationships, Eh?' - the musical. Written in about three hours, aided by a four-pack of Carling on a Friday night a few weeks back, I'm shocked how well this came together. The concept was simple enough - take the most inventive choir in Cambridge (Dowsing For Sound), put a storyline around the songs (tried to keep it light and fluffy, failed, it went a bit dark at times, especially the bit about liver failure), bring in two top-notch actors (Angela Rowlands and Vaughan Allanson), a confident and talented narrator (Michelle Golder) and then rehearse...er, once with the actors (none with the narrator) and twice with the choir. The fact that it worked so well says a lot about the talent up there - the choir seem to hang off musical arranger Andrea Cockerton's every move, they're so responsive, they seemed to passionately enjoy being part of this. The band (Andrea, Gav and myself) were fairly tight too if I may say so myself (apart from the odd drum blip, but I was preoccupied with the script/my backstage duties/life in general) and the cast/narrator performed like they'd been doing this for years. Even when Angela was briefly taken away by a security guard who wrongly mistook her acting as troublesome behaviour, things didn't fall apart, the show kept going. The audience - plenty of them, stuck with it, and I'd like to think they felt rewarded by the happy ending. It all felt like a happy ending to me anyway. The excellent Cambridge Improv Factory were next up, Tracy then put her play on again, and comedian Peter Buckley-Hill went from having only an audience of a handful to a packed field laughing at his every word, there was even demands for an encore - again, this is in the middle of a field, it was all brilliantly surreal and probably couldn't happen anywhere else. With my work for the day done, we had burgers, watched the headliners on the main stage (The Datsuns), and drank till the early hours of the morning, good conversations with some of my favourite people in all the world. Woke up feeling rubbish (hangovers, sleeping in a tent, the usual), and a slightly more relaxed day over at the Arts stage ensued. The Gamlingay Players (a generous and warm bunch of people) performed a great little show as the rain poured down making it difficult for audiences (unless, like myself and Clare, Heather and Vorn, you wanted to sit under an umbrella), my new play, 'How About You?' was nice and gentle for a Sunday afternoon (the script was aided by some wonderful acting from Alan, Jules, Kimberly, Steve, Vaughan and Clare), and then my good friend Andy Higson put on his sketch show, 'Firenado', which was rather amusing. I had a small role in that too, I enjoyed myself. With the rain clearing, the Arts stage concluded with another superb performance by the Cambridge Improv Factory, and I could finally hand back my walkie-talkie (big thanks to Amy for looking after it overnight for me in her handbag, guessing I was getting a bit drunk) and enjoy the Sunday headliner - the surprisingly fantastic Magic Numbers. More than fantastic - 'Love Me Like You' is currently my favourite song in all the world, they were heartbreakingly good, and a perfect way to end what was a frankly amazing weekend. Amazing for it's creativity - okay, so I'm knackered now, but my brain is buzzing from the success of it all, and the realisation that all art can work at music festivals if done properly. I was all over the place at the weekend (having written two of the plays, drummed in three bands, cameoed in a sketch show and ran the stage) but I enjoyed every second - probably because I had the pleasure of doing this with some of my best friends in all the world. I was pretty stressed in the run up to Lodestar about how it would all work. I miss the stress now, I'm already looking forward to doing it all again soon. In the meantime, time for some new challenges...