Mike Ward at Large
Too Close For Comfort
Preston Park, barely 10 minutes’ gentle stroll from my house, is hosting a two-day music festival, Together The People, at the start of September. This is easily the worst piece of news I’ve heard in a long while. Not because I’m worried about noise or disruption, I hasten to add. And not because there’ll be all those happy, smiling people drifting past my front door the whole weekend, off to enjoy the music and generally bubbling with youthful optimism, although obviously that’ll be bloody irritating as well.
No, it’s because I’m obviously going to be attending this festival myself, aren’t I? Probably both days. And that’s going to set a seriously damaging precedent. Living in Brighton for the best part of 30 years, I’ve become shockingly lazy when it comes to how far I’m prepared to travel to attend gigs. Or come to that, any form of entertainment. Why do you really think I preferred Withdean to the Amex..?
Schlep up to London to see a band? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s way too far, way too expensive and way too time consuming an exercise. All that, plus I’d have to share a train carriage with other actual members of the human race. Have you ever tried that? Don’t, it’s awful.
No, Brighton and Hove has been my geographical limit, gig-wise, for a good many years now. But at least, up to this point, that limit has included pretty much any venue in the city.
Not from September, I suspect. Not once I’ve been able to step out of my front door, amble a few hundred yards and find a line-up that includes several acts that I truly love, such as Super Furry Animals, Levellers, Brakes, Public Service Broadcasting and one of my all-time heroes, Billy Bragg.
Once I’ve done that, well, that’s me ruined for life, isn’t it? From that point onwards, no matter how much I may love a band or a performer, if their next tour doesn’t include the park where I walk my dog each morning, then frankly they can forget it. I may be keen on them, but I’m not that keen.
Of course, you’re wondering where this will all end, aren’t you? Will I get the hump with Billy Bragg, for example, if his future venues don’t include our kitchen? Or, preferably, our bedroom, so I don’t have to bother getting up?
That would be pretty bad, I agree. But no, I think I can safely say I’m not that lazy. Not unless Billy and pals are performing way down at the bottom of Preston Park, rather than at the top, in which case I’ll obviously be going by cab.
Mike Ward is the TV Critic of the Daily Star and the TV Editor of the Daily Express Saturday magazine. Hear him every Monday afternoon with Guy Lloyd on Brighton’s Juice 107.2
