Blog: Win A Day In A Britpop Band

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What a STRANGE, BUSY and EXCITING day it was yesterday - by the end of it it felt like someone had bought me one of those EXPERIENCE GIFTS (those boxes you see at Christmas for people who have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what to buy someone), this time "Win A Day In A Britpop Band".

Things started off fairly unglamorously with an EXTREMELY frustrating half hour at St Pancras where it seemed there was only ONE ticket machine for about a MILLION people. I was fairly sanguine for the first twenty minutes queuing but things did get rather FRAUGHT towards the end, especially when the backpacker in front of me discovered that the last letter of the code for his pre-booked tickets had wiped off his arm, where he had written it. EYEBROWS were RAISED, and there was much SHUFFLING SLIGHTLY FORWARD.

One slightly delayed journey northwards and I was in DERBY, where I somehow got chatting to a Match Official as we crossed over into Pride Park, where I met The Validators and our Britpop Experience Day BEGAN. Mr Will Stone had joined us to take some pictures, for LO! It was time for a PHOTO SHOOT!

We've never really done one of these before, but I thought it was necessary - hey, if we're going to be plastered all over the news networks then we can't really re-use that picture of us all in Tim and Emma's conservatory (which isn't even THERE anymore) from about eight years ago. We spent the next hour looking slightly uncomfortable, POSING while large numbers of people passed on their way to the football ground. Perhaps Match Day WASN'T the best day to choose for this? Still, we did get some really quite good pictures taken - in some of them we even look like a REAL BAND. In some, we do not.

Next it was time to shoot a VIDEO - as I may have mentioned, we're planning to release Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid as a free download single a couple of weeks before the album comes out, so I'm going to make a VIDEO to go with it and, as we were all in one place for the first time in AGES I thought we might as well take the opportunity to shoot some BAND shots. Will stepped in to man the camera for this, and we sat in the car park of the pub nearest the ground attracting a LOT of LOOKS, but got it all pretty much done. I'd worked out what needed doing WELL in advance - on the train up, in fact - so I'm SURE i can't POSSIBLY have missed anything.

With that done we went our seperate ways, with Mr F Machine heading over to the football ground where we met Master Machine (who'd got there on the BUS - but surely he's still only FOUR?!?) and went in to watch Derby County play Barnsley. I was quite excited - it was The Championship! - and my excitement was only increased when we went into the new stadium. It was AMAZING, also HUGE - I've not been in one of these new stadiums before, so was amazed at how BIG and also how OPEN it was, it was one big space full of people!

I was impressed by the HUGE amount of well practiced CHANTS Derby County have, although their Own Proper Song is nowhere NEAR as good as "Posh We Are", but then i suppose with the rough times they've had of late they must have had to find SOME way to cheer themselves up. It has to be said the GAME itself wasn't particularly inspiring - INDEED it took me back to the many MANY times I've seen Peterborough before the recent Ferguson-based UPSURGE, as the majority of crowd reaction was of the "What are you DOING?" and "You're going THE WRONG WAY" nature. I felt quite at home!

Afterwards I JUST managed to get the early train home, and HOPPED OFF at St Pancras expecting to be home soon... before bumping into Radio's Mr Steve Lamacq, just returning with a pal from the Leicester/Colchester match. We ended up going off to his pal's PUB in London's Fashionable West End, it was all a little KRAZY really. I have to say this particular pub had some DELICIOUS beer in it, and so it was a Slightly Confused Hibbett who strode out an hour later... and headed off in entirely the wrong direction, having to double back and walk round the block to get back to the correct tube station.

All in all, then, I would heartily recommend the Britpop Day Out Experience - I missed out some bits, like The Good Mixer, The Dodgy Night Club and The Disappointing Second Album, but I had a MARVELLOUS time!

posted 22/3/2009 by MJ Hibbett

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