Village Green ’14

I often write about the smorgasbord of talent that Southend and the surrounding areas has to offer. It seems that all of my friends do a thing whether it be music, art, poetry, stand up, juggling, improv, DJing, yoga, script-writing or anything else. What an incredible thing Village Green is therefore for being able to represent these things and even better was my invitation to perform as an alumni of my college along with Adam and Lance aka Charlie’s Hand Movements who I wax lyrical about at every given possibility and will no doubt continue to do so later on in this post.

I turned up early to collect my trader’s wristband, have a cup of tea and wander around the site as the last items were set up and the hordes descended. How different the place is, how serene and noble before there is anyone in it but the vendors, traders and artists trying to batten down the hatches. I watched the sound check on the main stage, ran into an old friend and waited for the clock to tick over to 12 before enjoying my first Red Stripe of the day.
Beside our performance area (because I’m that self involved) was a face painting table set up by SEEVIC. I considered a Stipean (or indeed now Stampian) band of colour across the top half of my face but instead just shuffled around pretending I had important things to do and hiding behind a tree to practice. The invite had been a little ad-hoc and last minute. As such I didn’t have any idea when I was on, how many songs I would be doing or what songs they would be and it was only when sat with Sam, Cat and Freya later I jotted ten songs down on a post it note. After watching Mikey, Adrien and Jack it was my turn. The face painting table was packed out. It was going to be good.
I played:
Good To Dream
An Oblivion I Own
Listen Up
Charlie
Broken Record Love Song
What Katie Did
Scratchings
Coming Down
Don’t Expect To Hear From Me

Wandering back offstage in a hot flush I sat and watched Charlie’s Hand Movements pull it all together. They played a blinding set including Missyerface which they assured me would be ropey at best. It remains one of my favourite songs of theirs because they pulled it off with such aplomb. There were also a couple of new tracks much the anticipated second album.

I loves Village Green. The complaints about the ten pound ticket fee should be laughed out of the park. Just think what you are getting for that ten pounds. Think where that is going and don’t forget the sunscreen.

My thanks to people who came to watch and to Cat and Sam for filming. Thank you to SEEVIC and especially to Charlie’s Hand Movements.