We arrive side of stage at 8.40 PM for a 9.00 PM show. During an English summer this is every band’s dream time slot for a Festival performance & I was excited to play a tent. We’ve been lucky enough to play main stages a lot this year but nothing beats the atmosphere in a tent, it’s more condensed. Punters walk to a tent with a sense of purpose, no one is there by accident. It’s a more familiar home for ‘road dog’ musicians like us too. I have total confidence in my ability to conduct the tent, for 45 minutes this tent will become my house. We were a few miles from the peak district & the sun was just setting, splitting through the grey clouds, the sky a perfect pale blue & yellow. It really was quite beautiful. The weather had stayed good for us all day & there was a slight chill now as I got off the golf buggy that dropped us side of stage by a tractor & a stack of industrial sized vegetable oil canosters. The smell of manure & festival blew over us. There had been a strange, calming lull to everyone’s energy during the day. Dora, the photographer we’ve brought on tour with us since last year, commented on it as we walked to stage ‘I wonder when I’m gonna feel like we’re about to do a show’. I smile and feel proud of the family environment we have worked to cultivate over the years. Each member is essential, valued & personally invested. Collectively this is 𝘰𝘶𝘳 show.
Behind the curtain is the buzz of a gig about to start and gigs just finished. Crew members dressed in black work to get gear off site, others start gathering to watch. My tour manager Brett walks to the opposite side of stage to where we are huddled & radio’s over to our front of house sound engineer Lewis. We await final checks and to hear our cue, ‘go for show’ in our in ear monitors. I do a quick plank to get my core engaged for singing and feel the familiar dried mud and whatever plastic & metal festival stages are built of under my hands. I dust them off on my tights. The band & I take a moment to hold each other, make eye contact. A brief moment of focus in the excitement & fast paced environment. What feels like all of a sudden (even though we’ve been waiting all day) it’s time to go and Chrisy, our drummer, walks on stage first and triggers a pad that starts the sound of an organ. We’re opening with ‘Don’t you want to share the Guilt’ at the moment. Then myself followed by Boom & Emma walk on too. The tent is wide and packed. It’s a throbbing, breathing mass and with Paula’s lighting they are cute & shiny jungle bugs, a mass of caterpillars or the pink slime from ghost busters except not evil but receptive, full of anticipation & ready to burst out of their cocoons & welly boots and into beautiful loud mouthed butterflies. They have bucket hats, glitter eye make up, bikini tops & sunglasses, rain jackets zipped all the way up, embroidered & beaded bracelets, peter pan collars. A hen party wears matching T shirts each with different lyrics from ‘Foundations’ printed on the back which they hold up with pride. They are totally with us. I don’t have to work for it, but I do anyway. This is the one thing I give 100% to, this is maximum effort. I will not prioritise laundry and have very little desire to clean or put things away, to open letters or answer the phone, but to this I am truly dedicated. I have often wondered if I am inherintly lazy but when I do my job I am reassured that I am not and I feel a true sense of purpose. I will saueeze every last drop of myself into this crowd and I’m comforted in this brief moment by my own self confidence and what I’m willing to give as a performer. I have a strong work ethic & I am good at this. There’s not much else in life I feel this sure of or comfortable with. There are a few technical difficulties but nothing can overshadow the euphoria. It’s a special one. I take a moment during the gig to look at each of my band members to enjoy this soon to be memory with each other. To steal a slice of it for us. After the gig I meet fans and take selfies, some are so young that I’m surprised. One girl tells me she sang Foundations at the X Factor concert they have at her school and then cries. I’m given a pink friendship bracelet by 2 tiny girls in faux fur hats. A band, that opened the tent the previous day, give me a sticker and they look so fresh faced and sweet I almost feel a bit worried about what may lie ahead so I quickly tell them not to trust anybody in the music industry & to never give up & I promise to listen to their music. I’m really inspired to see so many Gen Zers in my crowd, singing words to songs that were long since released the year they were born. We have completely different cultural reference points yet here we both are. Sharing something, sharing my music. They feel different to me, in their social habits & interactions. It’s the first time I’ve really felt that with younger audience members and for some reason it makes me slightly emotional and hopeful.
Backstage I take off my sweaty costume in a small, bright white dressing room with strip lighting that has windows blocked by external means, I assume parts of other temporarily constructed dressing rooms. I use face wipes to clean myself as much as I can and a small hand towel to dry off. I tip toe naked towards a bag with dry undies & socks in and pull them on along with my trackies & a green hoodie. I have a rare moment alone and walk to a hospitality truck past the picnic benches and fairy lights next to the tour buses and temporary, slightly wonky, sunken into the mud toilets with the pungent dark blue liquid and splatters of shit around the bowl and make myself a peppermint tea. The scene is comforting & familiar. A young man from another band chats to me about our set, he’s sweet & positive, he loved the gig. If I’m honest I’m shocked at how nice everyone is. I realise my experiences have left me ready for negative interactions but maybe this isn’t how things are anymore. Were they ever? Or have I had my back up unnecessarily. It does feel like younger bands are friendlier & seem more open. He tells me he ‘didn’t know the show would be like that’. I get this a lot. I’ve had one commercial hit, when I was 19 years old. A lot of people haven’t kept up with my career because I chose to make music on my own terms. That’s not to be misinterpreted. ‘Foundations’ & Made of Bricks were made on my own terms, I wrote those songs in my mothers living room. What I mean is I chose to continue down a path that was truthful to me. The music I wanted to make ended up being different to the music radio & record labels wanted to support. This was necessary for me personally. Redefining what success means to me has been essential & carving out my own unique space has given me the room to become a skilled performer & confident artist. I’ve also had the same band members & lighting engineer & tour manager for the past 13 years. There’s a solid fluidity to how we function. We’ve consistently showed up & worked our arses off to put on great shows, we’ve continued through the rough patches. Anything tough we have faced, we’ve faced with a feral look in our eyes and a mischievous grin. We have laughed through a lot of shit & stuck to the main goal, to make great shows happen. The work has paid off.
We pile into the van, the sounds of headlining bands & bass from giant sound systems pumping into the darkness. There are fair rides and infamous tops of stripey, pointed tents. In many ways we are much like a travelling circus. We drive back over to the tent where our crew members Sam & Les are still loading gear into the other van. Paula is waiting for her lighting box to be travelled up to the load out area. We debrief about how to resolve certain tech issues and Lewis tells me I accidentally turned my own mic off which is why it stopped working and we laugh. We all praise Paula for her lights, it’s never the same without her and we are a full package when she’s with us. Emma tells the boys that she will come up with easy hand signals for side of stage communication during the gig as she knows matakon.
In the van on the way home I eat a cold bean burger leftover from dinner backstage because they stopped serving food at 8.00PM and I like eating after the show. We listen to music and drive back to London and stop at a services to pee and order a few portions of hot, french fries at a mcdonalds, which I haven’t eaten in about 12 years. There’s something perfect about it tonight at midnight on a motorway services in Northampton. I get home at about 2.00 am. Emma is sleeping over in our loft and goes up to bed. The dogs are happy I’m home so I cuddle them for a little while until I make a herbal tea I know I won’t drink and take it to bed with me. Tom always wakes up when I get into bed later than him, even though he doesn’t ever remember the next day. I tell him the gig was amazing and that I’m really happy and about the girl and her X factor school concert, he smiles with his eyes closed and I think he looks like a sleeping baby hamster. I read one page of my book and fall asleep too.