Double Lives

I had a beaut time, I partied and had fun but I also worked; my partner and I put on events in our “spare” (ha!) time and I think it’s easy to underestimate what hard graft that is. We got to our venue at 10am Sunday morning and set to work putting out chairs, comfy cushions for people to sit on, arranging logistics with artists laden with gear because the road was closed for the fest, putting up signs all through the Old Town so people knew where to find us, rigging up bunting, putting up banners – I used so much gaffer tape that I gave myself a blister on my thumb from repeatedly tearing it! We put on a stage in collaboration with MG Boulter, a great friend of ours, and it was brilliant, and we had a super crowd, so packed that some people couldn’t even get in at some points, and we didn’t properly sit down with a beer and cheers each other and say well done, yay us, until gone 7pm when it was all over. That’s longer than a shift at the day job!  

I’ve been doing this kind of events work for so many years now, I can’t imagine ever not doing it. Because I do this with my partner, it’s a big part of our lives. There are always event posters and flyers in our flat for our next adventure. There are always emails to be answered, bookings to be made, venues to liaise with. It’s also the reason we know so many of our lovely friends – lots of them have been previous bookings at our gigs, and we’ve got on so well we got to keep them as friends. How lucky is that? I feel constantly grateful that I know so many great musicians, writers, comedians, poets and other creative types.  

It’s funny, then, after an event like this, when you’re morning-blurry from staying up chatting with the band that you’ve had staying with you, limb-tired from standing up at the side of your stage for 9 hours with only a bag of terrible chips to keep you going, gaffer-blistered, feeling grubby even though you’ve had a shower, the weekend’s weight still somehow on you when you go to work in the morning.  

I often feel like I have a double life like a lot of other promoters and performers who have day jobs; I walk into work in the mornings, check my emails with a cup of tea, get cracking on my to do list, talk pleasantries with my work pals, write articles, get that report done, more tea to keep me going – but the songs from the weekend are still in my head. I’m thinking about a funny line that the comedian said, or I have an earworm from a musician I didn’t know until the day before, and when I listen to them this morning, it somehow makes my heart go all big and I’m welling up with the memory of it all.  

It’s hard work, putting on this stuff, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. We always say, Jo and I, that we’re going to slow down, not take as much on, say no a bit more. And we are going to do that, but even last night after our gig, down the pub, over a rum and coke, we hatched a plan for a couple of new gig ideas. The double life continues.

* FYI, the LFF earworm is Trees and Gold by Samantha Whates, and you can listen to it here: https://play.spotify.com/track/1qTyfYEiqPW8lS7w3w6gg1