'BEEN AND GONE' ......... EXTRA page

The 'FESTIVAL IN THE CAR PARK!'

In May 1987 - 2 years after I took over The Greys. I had this idea to 'put a few acts on in the car park, outside the pub' .......

I got a bit carried away - I thought we could move the pub furniture outside, have the staff do table service and have some fun and a bit of a festival for ourselves .....

What actually happened was .......

Some builder customers sorted out the scaffolding.

I borrowed some staging blocks from the University.

I hired in a 4.5K PA rig - operated from the back the truck.

We used the Sculpture College (behind the stage) as backstage and dressing rooms.

About 35 acts performed (at about £30 per act!) over 3 days, including a children's afternoon on the Sunday.

What I didn't think about ......

You need permissions, licences, toilets, security ...... and probably a few more things.

For a pub that could hold about 70 people - about 600 came everyday ........

Top of the page is the only photo that I've ever seen of the event - just mailed to me by Chris Beaumont, the soon-to-be new landlord, it's taken by Gill Perkins who is now his wife and will soon be your landlady. What a find after all this time.

The act is 'Girls behind Bars': can't see the drummer, but on the left is Mike Roberts - I played with him and Boring Bob Grover for a few years in a very late and curious version of the P*ra^£as (the name is obscured to protect the guilty!) In the middle is the band leader Tracey Gunn and on the right on bass is big Steve. Mike now works on sound for Yes/No People on the STOMP shows, Tracey is in Brighton, and Steve works on a project in India.

An interesting conversation took place midway through the Festival ....... I had a call from the local Police - about 3/4 mile away - I told them everything was fine and that we just had a bit of music on ..."I know" said the Officer, "I CAN HEAR IT"

The ACTS ........

click the Programme to see the acts.