My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 14/8/2004 - Ray's Mum's Back Garden, Stourbridge

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A lot has been made lately of the fact that The Mighty Boosh have had their own festival. I can't see what all the fuss is about - I've had my own festival for YEARS, and yet it seems to have not been judged QUITE so newsworthy by the Left-Wing Elite of the Washington Media.

Sorry, I appear to have been watching too much American news lately. I still don't understand why MY festival is ignored while The Boosh is LAUDED. Mind you, I don't understand The Mighty Boosh at ALL - I am like my parents watching The Young Ones, thinking "EH?" - but that's not really the point. So they have a festival named after them? BIG DEAL. HIBBETTFEST has been going for YEARS!

All right, The Mighty Boosh have theirs at a FARM and mine takes place in a back garden, and until recently I was the only act, and even the POLICE would have a job under-counting the number of people in attendance (though a crack team of Police Statisticians is, even now, trying to work out how to estimate NEGATIVE attendance at demonstrations), but that's about it. And yet the NME see fit to ignore it - TYPICAL.

The first ever Hibbettfest took place on this date as a SURPRISE for its host - a similar thing happened to Lord Knebworth once, when he got back from his weekly Big Shop to find Oasis making a racket in his back garden. The back garden belonged to the parents of Mr R Kirkham, who I'd met a little while before, when I'd played at his Leaving Of Winchester party. They'd got in touch with me to ask if I'd come over to DUDLEY for the day to surprise him on his birthday, and I say "HOORAH!"

I got picked up at the station by his Uncle and driven through The Black Country. "We call this area Little Delhi" he said, as we sped through an Indian area. FEAR! PANIC! Was he about to launch into DODGY RELATIVE RACISM? "It's great, everybody's friendly", he continued, reminding me that AHA! I was once more in THE MIDLANDS, where everyone is LOVELY! Also where everyone has BRILLIANT ACCENTS - Dudley has an ESPECIALLY fantastic version of the Brummie Accent, which sounds so much fun to speak that it always makes me want to JOIN IN. I'm pretty sure that this WOULDN'T be a good idea, so try to CONTAIN it, but it's very difficult.

Being a good boy Ray came out to help unpack the car as we parked outside, and thus I was able to ALARM him SPECTACULARLY by looming out of the front seat. AHA! He knew he was having some pals around, but hadn't realised a ROCK FESTIVAL would be occurring on the patio! I was on a BEER FAST at the time (NB not drinking it, rather than drinking it at SPEED) so set the INSANE ROCK TONE for the day by NECKING WHISKY. YEAH! COME ON! Er... ROCK! I was thus rather REFRESHED (as well as rather STUFFED by the huge mounds of GRUB Ray had made) when I staggered onto the stage (end of the patio) to do my set.

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and the tradition has continued ever since, although these days I do try to stick around for a little bit longer than I managed on this first occasion. I had an appointment in London that evening so, like so many FESTIVAL HEADLINERS before me, I had to make a swift exit.

Unlike so many before me, my exit was to an extremely slow moving Virgin "Express" train. The Mighty Boosh probably use a HELICOPTER, and frankly, I can understand why.

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