Right, it’s the Friday of Glastonbury, we’re all freezing cold and piss- wet through so what better time to reflect upon a period when the promise of summer held us in its thrall?- Yes, fellow campers, it’s time to offer our belated blog about the first festival of the summer, Bearded Theory, in Derby in May. For the first time, we had the full AH road crew with us including the legend that is Phil Booth- mo, the last minute but beautifully appointed Chris and the human sat- nav that is Ben so our load-in to the “next band on” portacabin, courtesy of Mark’s excellent and highly selfless transit, was seamless. The mighty Andy Theremin and I then took the opportunity in the 20 minutes we had before stage time to wander through the festival site for the first time. We came upon the merch tent and being a lad of simple pleasures, I cannot deny how thrilling it was to find that the festival t-shirt had our name on the back of it- in the same sized font as The Orb and The Undertones and in an only slightly smaller one than Wagner!! A small victory, then! We returned to the Beard Top stage to load in and observe a virtually empty tent which was a bonus as it allowed a good sound/line check with no chance for hecklers or nerves. We were the first second stage band of the day to come up against a main stage band in the scheduling and being Friday afternoon, not everyone was there yet anyway. However, whilst we’re not sure how many were watching the opening main stage band outside, when we started at 3.30, we had a decent crowd in our tent. We were really pleased to have been given a 45 minute set which, having become used to 30 minutes at recent lesser multi- band gigs was a fantastic opportunity to run through the full card. Not being wallflowers we went for broke and opened with Stage Fright, working on the assumption that if we played our first single and one of our biggest hitters first, those who hadn’t heard us before might stay and give us the benefit of the doubt. The strategy worked and would have worked even better had Paul’s lead guitar been audible in the first third. Its absence is still a mystery and the BT FOH crew scampering around testing leads during the first few minutes of our biggest gig ever whilst something was clearly not quite right will stay with me for some time to come. In fact, part way through the second verse when Paul’s huge electric lead guitar turned up in the monitors my initial reaction was that yet something else had gone wrong... I think we settled down during our fourth song and BT forum fave, Foot Tapper. We have been blessed on a handful of occasions in our career with a great monitor (and out-front) sound and BT was certainly one of those (so cheers to the BT crew and of course, Booth-mo) Foot Tapper was perhaps the first song in the set which really took off sound-wise, and we were laughing from then, really. We were aware that we weren’t necessarily playing to an Amber Herd crowd but that song and the following Magnolia perhaps touched on the opposite poles of the assembled demographic and were a good mid set 1-2. The punky howl of the former contrasted well with the folky introspection and open - mouthed maelstrom ending of the latter with Andy wrenching every drop of spare current from his Theremin. Into the home run, then, and our speculative statement on Sherwood Radio back in January came true when it started raining outside just as we were starting Red Gold. Paul and I both felt the rain pouring down the main tent pole hole onto the stage but at that moment, with a now packed tent, it seemed churlish to do anything but be electrocuted in battle. Thus, we cracked on and Red Gold and then, particularly, the closing Thursday, with Andy again wrestling seven shades from his “TV aerial” proved the highlight of the day. If we are allowed, for once, to blow our own trumpet, the crowd reaction at the end of Thursday and as such, the end of the set, made the whole Herd venture worthwhile so if you were there and you were one of them then thanks a lot!! As I walked off stage the first person I came upon was a folk hero of mine, the mighty Attila The Stockbroker, who was on directly after us. He shook my hand and offered us a gig at his Glastonwick festival in June 2012, which of course, we were more than grateful to accept. In fact, we’ve sent Andy off to Glastonbury this weekend to agree our ale rider with him! After packing the gear away we were accosted backstage by the unhinged We Love Festivals mob and in particular the incredible William Fontayne, from NYC and his foil and ersatz manager, Zoe. Paul and I participated in a hallucinatory interview and live acoustic session in the back of their black cab located in the middle of the festival site with reg.number XXX XLSD. At least, we think this happened.... The rest of the early evening was spent being music fans, rather than performers and we all loved Sonic Boom 6. The rain really happened then and the next (uncensored) thing I remember is being on stage with Athlete and nicking a drumstick for my 10 year old daughter... Overall, then, a mighty first festival appearance. Many thanks to Andy. Phil, Ben, Chris and everyone else who helped us. Let’s do it all again at High Voltage next month! See you next at The Poacher on 26th June xxx Setlist- Bearded Theory, 13/05/11: Stage Fright/Days Like These/Leaving Home/Foot Tapper/Magnolia/Bonfires/Catching Time/Red Gold/Thursday