A few months ago in the small hours I heard what sounded like an old black traditional blues player on the Charlie Gillet show. The next day I did a web search and found Seasick Steve. White!, Alive! and soon to be playing in the uk.
So I bought a ticket for the Big Chill Festival. I hadn't heard of it before but I liked the sound of it. The bad news was I didn't take the bike. I had e-mailed the festival but I could't take the bike into the camping area and didn't fancy leaving it a mile away in the field carpark. In hindsight next year I will park next to the check in area which is floodlit & manned 24 hrs a day.
At the check in area your'e given a bright pink wristband - a sort of passport that lets you about the place.
This is my arm by the way !!
Miles of carparking , easy to lose sight of your bike
I lugged my tent & shit about a mile to the camping area and pissed about for 40 minutes trying to put the tent up in the dark, I couldn't tell if it was inside out back to front or what. My head torch only shone a small pool of light in the middle of the whole mess . At this point , being able to hear the festival in full swing in the background I stuffed the whole lot back in the bag and lugged it all back to the car ( where I came back at 2am to sleep ) I must of lost 10lbs.
I got on site proper at about 11pm , and spent the next 3 hours just wandering around and taking it all in.
I slept pretty well in the car and was back in the festival at about 10 am. I hung about the Southern Comfort stage where Seasick Steve was due to play at 1pm and cought a glimps of the main man.
Stick with it there's a small camera movie and link at the bottom of the page!
The first act I wanted to see was David McAlmont( who I know from McAlmont & Butler who I really like ) on the Castle stage at 12 pm which meant I could only catch about half an hour.
In the end I was disapointed as he sang a set of covers , Sinatra etc etc. So I pissed off about 12.15.
I set off back to the Southern Comfort stage and managed to speek to a girl who was messing about the back of the stage.She went off round the back stage and came back with Steve himself. He signed my programme " Dave , you da man , Seasick "
We spoke for about half an hour about acoustic blues and that he was going to play some electric to keep the youngsters happy, about motorbikes ( He has an old Indian !) and various gigs he was due to play . I cant make the next one in Scotland but will try to get to Belfast end of October.
He was totally genuine and thanked me for buying his cd and posed for a pic with me allthough I had my eyes closed ! ( I'll have to photoshop some in later ! )
The bullet proof vest thing I've got on is a bike specific rucksack
Anyway the show kicked off at just gone 1pm a bit slow at first with people not really knowing what to expect, just one guy and a small amp.
The Famous Mississipi Drum Machine, complete with Steve's old Harley number plate.
A few songs in Steve climbed over the barrier to terrorize the crowd and the laggers at the back on the beer tables.
Pretty soon the crowd got going and shoved up close to the stage
Show over , Cd's sold out and autographs and handshakes for the crowd,
Small clip of Steve doing his stuff, unbelievably on his "3 string trance" guitar, note the "mississipi drum machine" he's stompin on. The clip should play on Firefox & IE6 but is not supported on Opera.
You may need Macromedia Flashplayer to make it work. Here:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
Video for CHEAP
http://www.groovyentertainment.com/seasickstevecheap.html
Buy the current album and the new one soon here :-
http://www.seasicksteve.com
Well, that was pretty much it for me , the rest of the festival was just as advertised , a big chill. Loads of fantastic food of every type anD loads of stuff going on . I stayed until 8am Sunday and took the long wooded lane back to the car & home.
