Staging it

 On a day when the temperature was tipped to exceed 40 degrees the most welcome text message I received was the one advising the cancellation of Folk Festival gigs on the Fiddlers Green between 1.30 and 5.30 pm. By some act of the gods this coincided with my scheduled shift as stage manager, and left me free to endure the heat in a manner of my choice. It left me, however, with one shift to complete on Sunday night.

I arrived at my designated venue (the Shebeen Bar) at the regulation 15 minutes early, to be greeted by the preceding stage manager. She said she would introduce me to the venue supervisor (assuredly “very officious”) who would take me through some sort of induction process and make me sign a piece of paper to indicate I had understood what he told me. 

The induction involved pointing out the whereabouts of exits, fire extinguishers etc., and more importantly, the need for me to be wearing closed footwear rather than the open “slide sandals” I was sporting. I assured him I had some shoes in the car (which it turns out I didn’t) and would change. Eventually I donned a pair of dark socks to make it look less obvious than bare feet.

Towards the conclusion of the supervisor’s address a group of half a dozen teenage girls burst into the backstage area, purportedly seeking autographs from members of the very popular band “19 Twenty”,  who were preparing for their upcoming performance. I commented to the supervisor that these looked like groupies, and queried the legitimacy of their presence in the area. He immediately swung into action, telling the girls they could leave their items to be autographed with him and he would give them to the band, whilst they would have to wait outside (thus avoiding any activities other than autograph collecting).

“19 Twenty” whipped the audience into a frenzy and the screams of “more” at the end of its 60 minute set could only be quelled by an announcement regarding the need for changeover time. During a lull in proceedings I noticed a young man sipping wine in the shadows and queried his need to be there. He assured me he was the manager of the next act - an African funk band called Cool out Sun.  I took him at his word, and he did seem to be legitimate. His later requests for the location of, firstly, a rubbish bin and, secondly, a toilet, were more than testimony to his managerial status. If the induction program included identification of toilets for performers I missed that section, and could only suggest the facilities available to the public.

The final act was a funk dance band called the 7 Ups, who seemed to mellow the alcohol fueled crowd into a rhythmic sway. During onstage introductions of individual Seven Up members I thought I heard “Michael Schack on percussion”. Surely not the famous Belgian drummer sitting in? I queried the band excitedly at the conclusion of their show only to discover the percussionist was “Michael Sacks”!

Midway through the SevenUps performance a couple of young men bounded into the backstage area wanting to know what to do. Somewhat mystified, I eventually established that they did not have festival armbands and had somehow talked their way past the gate attendants by telling them they had a personal invitation from the singer of the band (whom they had met in the pub). They had been directed  backstage, so I escorted them to the main audience area of the Shebeen and told them they should be alright there if they remained quiet. It was only later I realized there was no singer in the SevenUps - a totally instrumental act.

My two final duties were (1) to take a photo of the 7 Ups from the stage (with the audience in the background) and (2) to give authoritative consent to an encore as it was the last act of the day. The encore over, chants of “one more song” rang out for a while before the dismantling of the drum kit sent a message the audience couldn’t ignore.