The music issue (semi-annual)

So many things I've meant to write about, and, much like the English summer, it's been a bit of a washout over the past few months. One of the things I planned on posting about was the Cornbury Festival back in early July. We decided we couldn't leave this green isle without experiencing the tradition that is the British summer music festival. However, as we are now old, we selected the one we thought would have the cleanest porta-potties and then bought a single-day pass so we would have the Sunday to recover from the uncharacteristic excitement. (All our camping gear is in Canada, anyway.) We rented a car and drove out to the Cotswolds to the grounds of a stately home, where the festival is held. After the most ridiculous goose chase to find it (hippies aren't exactly great with signage and organization) we parked in a field torn asunder by the Land Rovers of the wealthy.

We followed other people streaming in on a roundabout path through a woods, down a hill and over a bridge, where we were met by a man who said that, in spite of the complete absence of signs to this effect, we were meant to have exchanged our tickets for wristbands back at the car park. (Like I said, hippies are lovely folk but not terribly organised.) Swallowing our spleen as we didn't want to harsh out the peace and love vibe, we went back over the bridge and up the hill and through the woods, claimed our wristbands, and finally, finally, crested the final hill into the event. We were just in time to hear (3 of the original 4) Bangles perform 'Manic Monday'. They weren't bad, and have certainly been doing their pilates - you'd never guess they've been around so long. After that show, we wandered around the patchouli-scented stalls and snickered at the Pimm's Bus (staple of the summer festival) and the huge lineup at the Tea Tent (ahh, Britain). There were lots of families, which was fun for people-watching. The boys did their thing - large inflatable weapons were quite popular.

And the girls did their thing. Tutus and fairy wings were in abundance.

Near the second stage was the stately home itself, where a real live English Lord lives. Lord Rotherwick, in fact. I know this because, back when we were taking part in the project to locate England's ancient trees, he wrote us a very snooty letter about why we were Most Certainly Not welcome to wander off the trails in His Forest in search of venerable arboreal specimens. So I was quite pleased to see they had situated the porta-potties right outside his front door.

On the second stage we saw Mick Jones, formerly of The Clash, play with his new band called something like Carbon Silicon. Or Silicon Carbon? They were obviously rather forgettable, but further confirmed the vintage of person at whom this festival was aimed (and we are not far off that age). Before long it was time for the fabulous Toots and the Maytals, whose sunny reggae was accompanied by a drizzling rain.

After this we sussed out the various multi-ethnic food options (another reason to choose a festival for the middle-aged - decent food). As I have been dearly missing the Caribbean Roti Palace in Toronto, where I used to eat at least three times a week, I made a beeline for a stall that set my heart racing with those four blessed letters. We waited in line, only to be told that they were out of the wraps to make roti. Blinking away tears of disappointment, I made do with curry and rice. The sky grew menacing, and as I ate my meal a gust of wind quite literally upended the flimsy paper plate all over my lap and the ground. Some people next to me laughed until another gust knocked over their margaritas. Then it really started raining, and it was still two hours before Paul Simon went onstage. So we walked all the way back to the car and sat inside for an hour and a half watching the rain lash against the windows and listening to the live broadcast of the festival on Radio 1. When the radio announced that Paul's cortege of dark grey Mercedes Benzes had arrived at the festival (guess he is no longer bohemian enough to hang out and eat veggie sausages with the festival-goers - or he just decided the weather was too shite), we hauled on sweaters, waterproofs and wellies and set out in the blustery, rainy and now darkening night, reminding ourselves that it was the weekend and we were Having Fun. When Paul Simon went onstage, I had trouble spotting him. I had heard he was short, but really he is truly tiny. All I could see above the heads in front of me was his hat so I contented myself with watching his taller bandmates and occasionally holding my camera up to snap photos of what I was missing.

It was a great show. He played almost everything you'd want to hear - Simon and Garfunkel songs like The Only Living Boy in New York (one of our faves) as well as songs from Graceland. I had an unlikely moment of bliss as I danced around in a cold, wet and muddy field in July, in a resolutely cheerful crowd too similarly uncool to care that I actually can't dance, all of us wearing ridiculous head-to-toe raingear configurations, and I know I sometimes complain about this country but it was a moment of pure Englishness and why I love the place so much. On the way back to the car I turned to look back through the raindrops on my glasses (all the better to see tiny Paul Simons with) at the mass exodus behind me. Lit up by strings of lanterns on poles, umbrellas of all the colours of the rainbow flowed down the hill, across the bridge over the estate ponds and back up the hill to where I had momentarily stopped. It was breathtakingly beautiful. (Then Paul Simon's Mercedes Benzes nearly ran us down as they beat a hasty retreat.) As we hiked back up to the parking lot past all the forlorn, sodden tents of those who were staying the whole weekend, on our way to a nice dry car and ultimately a nice dry bed, I felt an enormous sense of well-being.

We haven't had much other musical activity this summer, besides a winning a capella performance (and I NEVER thought I'd find an a capella performance winning) by Out of the Blue, a troupe of utterly charming Oxford students who perform the loveliest version of a a great old Hunters and Collectors song:
Throw Your Arms Around Me
I really suggest you watch that video clip. Everything, including the 'drums', is done with voices (you can see the guy on the right beat-boxing). And aren't they just the cutest things? I want to pinch their rosy cheeks and ruffle their tousled hair and take them home as pets. If I were seventeen I'd have been completely head-over-heels in love.

Two nights ago we hung out with the 21-year-old hipsters at an MGMT show, which will be our last live music event in Oxford. I really like the old Oxford Zodiac, now the Carling Academy, and we've seen some great shows there. MGMT was pretty fun, though with only one album the repertoire was a bit limited and there were moments of endless prog-rock guitar noodling that might have sounded cool if you were really stoned but otherwise approached Spinal Tap proportions. However, you can't deny that Time to Pretend has been one of the year's anthems here. Even Noel Gallagher likes it. (I also like the song Kids. Yes, they have odd videos.)

So there you have a belated update of sorts. I've been so lax about writing lately, and haven't even been putting photos on Flickr though I've taken loads. The next week won't be great for writing either as it's going to be a crazy (and emotional) last week in Oxford. Then we have a one-way ticket to Dubrovnik next Sunday. We'll work our way up through Croatia and Slovenia, then around and across Italy, and be back in Oxford for two days at the end of September. Then we move to Barcelona for two months. Sounds like we'll be back in Canada for Christmas, possibly to stay for a while. Things feel very strange now, and I'm going to miss this place and these people so very very very much, and it's late and now I've made myself melancholy and sentimental. Time to go eat ice cream and listen to my happy song.
Five Years Time by Noah and the Whale