After many years of admiring legendary rock band Spinal Tap from afar, I finally got to meet them backstage at Glastonbury this year, where Nicky & I take a little jolly each year working backstage production on the Other Stage dressing rooms. Not only does that get us a nice private camping spot behind the stage, with oak-panelled loos & showers, all-you-can-eat gourmet food & free booze, but also access-all-areas passes to the Pyramid stage. Result! I was more excited than normal this year when I realised that my heroes Spinal Tap were playing the Pyramid Stage on Saturday afternooon.
After their cracking set, I went to meet them, hopefully for a chat & a bit of a stalk on the way back to their rooms. Eagerly clutching my 1982 soundtrack album, I lost my cool and for the first time ever, approached a band to get autographs. Bass -master Derek Smalls was excited at the site of some vinyl for a change & was amazing, inviting David St Hubbins back for a chat, who then invited me to come through to their dressing room to meet Nigel Tufnel, the man with whom goto11 would have to be called something else!
The guys were amazingly nice & I was struggling not to crack up, as they stayed fantastically in character the whole time (me too, calling him Mr St Hubbins at one point).
The whole weekend was a blast, & we got to see dozens of bands, with a healthy dose of stalking backstage & in the dressing rooms. My highlights this year were, Fleet Foxes, The Whip, Spinal Tap (of course), VV Brown, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand & best of all, The Prodigy, closing up Sunday night on our stage with a belter. The guys went mental on stage & look completely alarming, but were as sweet as anyone you could hope to meet & while their entourage got through 3 cases of Veuve in the after party, Keith, Liam & Maxim went back to their room for a nice roast dinner then went to bed. Rock & Roll!!
Looking forward to next year already!
