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Published: September 30th 2015
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Micha's Merry Men For a good few weeks now, Ben and Ellie have been arranging a mega 21st birthday party for Ellie – Outdoors, at Holt, where our friend (and our resident drummer), Robin. . .'s. . . dad has a splendid old pile out in the sticks and an amazing walled garden the size of two football pitches! And that's where he was going to let us have our party!
So Ben's been building up for this for the last 2 or 3 weeks (That boy’s working too hard! – he’s gonna need to take some time off now that it's over!) and the rest of us were called in to action on Friday and Saturday to . . . .set up a stage using my market stall/marquee, arrange a canopy for the food , rake up a couple of gazebos and a chill tent - and a portaloo - and get down to organising the camping and parking areas in that beautiful, apple tree lined, big walled garden in the middle of (a very expensive part of) nowhere, without upsetting anybody.
It was great! And how come the sun shone this late in September? I hear that Ben
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Birthday girl Ellie told all his musical friends that it would - so they didn't need to have an indoor Plan B for this party, on the 27
th September in England!
Anyway, turns out he was right, so we spent Friday afternoon in the sun, putting up all the tented contraptions and then Saturday morning (musicians morning time, just short of noon!) carting and setting up van loads of stage electrics; PAs, bass amps and all the rest of that (big, heavy) stuff, while Ellie's mum and dad, Brian and Sally, sorted out a mountain of food and drinks for the BBQ and picnics.
Then, lunchtime, and (for me) it was a quick round trip back home to get changed and pick up Harriet, pack the campervan and get back to the party - which was in full swing with musicians on the stage from 2 o'clock till, eventually, 11pm, when we had to quieten down and stumble over to the campfire with a mellow DJ with a nice little blue-tooth speaker to see us through the night.
Lots of fun, all day! Ben had lined up 4 bands, with a couple of acoustic acts, including
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Floodlit! me, starting the entertainment off in the afternoon sunshine. And, I must say, it was a lovely friendly crowd - lots of our chummy musician friends and Ellie's happy family- and nearly everybody knew each other, so there was nothing to stress about - just a very chilled vibe and lots of fun and games in the field.
Ellie's friend Hannah started the ball rolling on stage, karaoke singing over some great big LLoyd Webber show tracks to get us started and then little me came on with my guitar - and the head-mic that frees me up - and I had a very good time playing through an acoustic set of old ‘Incredible String Band’ covers from the 60s that the kids had never heard, mixed in with a bag full of my own tunes from down the years – and it was all sounding very hunky-dory, given such a friendly, and intimate space - cool!
Sam (Wyatt) needed to get away to pick some fruit – don’t ask! - so he followed me, although it was still quite early, and we started to get into the proper musicians. Sam, doing his laid-back, finger
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Robin doing creative drummer faces picking Sam thing and singing in his inimitable Sam way – gave us a bunch of sophisticated and bouncing versions of Ray Charles ‘standards from a bygone age’ and a bunch of his own contemporary and upbeat, mellow jazzy songs - all delivered in Sam’s very likeable and listenable jazzy style. That’s coming from a Wif Waf and Quinn's Quinney man, so he sure can play all that jazz!
His fun set over, Sam disappeared to pick some fruit – don’t ask! - and once we got into the late afternoon slot; came the bands! Robin's dad, John - that very good man who was so kindly letting us use his wonderful walled garden for our partying - took to the stage with his trusty band of (perhaps he wouldn't mind me saying 'ageing') rockers - Apart from Robin playing drums they’re all getting on for my age! - and those boys rocked our socks off with everything from 'You really got me' to 'Satisfaction' and on to 'Feel like making love!' and a full set of classic rock numbers from the 60s and 70s! The place was rocking!
After that, as the light slowly faded
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Our sophisticated stage lighting - and with a seamless change of generation and genre - Micha and his Merry Men took to the stage; with Ben on bass (and, of course, Robin still
there on the drums); and galvanized us with their hard-hitting green political messages all wrapped up in that (this time, only) 4-man package of versatile upbeat fun and passionate funky musicianship that is ‘Micha!’ So lots of Fun was had by one and all!!
Night time, visible breathing and cold campers sporting extra layers of clothing, crept up on us while the music and the beer continued contentedly into the night . . . with Ben and Ellie's own new line-up, bringing us . . .the wonderful Liam (in his fur coat) and with his immaculate, mellow and melodic voice delivering the vocals; Tom, stepping in at late notice, on bass; Ellie on alto sax and Ben doing a good solid job on guitar while Duncan's wondering around somewhere in India and, of course Robin,
still on the drums - good man!
They – whatever they’ll eventually be called! - gave us a very mellow set of mostly Ben's own numbers (just a small sample chosen
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Sam songs from the ‘almost one a day’ pile of tunes he’s written in the last year or so. That boy’s a machine!) And it all sounded very cool and up-together. And you wouldn't have known this is a new band gigging with
lots of new numbers for the first time. Nice! (And I got to play some cross harp on one of their bluesy numbers! Lovely!)
The wonderful Kaia and Tim were due to play a jamming set with Fat Panda DJ, Jevan, late on, but, unfortunately Jevan had gone down with a migraine early in the afternoon – we never saw him; he was sleeping in a van somewhere - and he couldn't make it.
And then we hit the 11pm deadline for noisy stuff, so Kaia and Tim, despite their animal onesies, had to call it a day - and I still didn't get to hear their wonderful new set. I’ve been dying to hear it! Damn!
Anyway, I'm sure we will soon. (Ben's right in the middle of recording it right now and it seems to be taking forever) - But these guys are exceptional, so I can't wait!
Anyway, a couple of
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On stage with Sally's bunting quiet, chatty hours and some of Sally’s sweet home-made veggie soup around the fire and we were into the early hours - and, bit by bit, gradually melting away in to our (I dread to think!) cosy September night tents and various camper vans, to get some kip.
The amazing thing was; it was just as sunny on Sunday morning – all the time, while we dragged ourselves out from under our warm blankets and drifted around in a post-party haze; packing the whole elaborate kit and caboodle up again; and took it all home. Marvellous!
That was a great day! Happy Birthday, Ellie!
Where’s my bed?
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