Last weekend I had three gigs in a row, all different repertoires and ensembles. Good for the brain I hope and actually, apart from the four years when Blowzabella was on the road constantly, not a-typical of me. I like it. It keeps my brain ticking.
The first was a club in Staffordshire with Narthen and then off we went to the continent. When I say ‘we’, there were, as usual, travelling complications to sort. The Saturday night gig was a Blowzabella gig in Hazebrouck and the Sunday one a ‘Voices at the Door’ Michal Morpurgo gig in Ieper, Belgium.
The Blowzabella gig only came about because my sister had originally taken a Polka Works gig on that date and that meant we couldn’t do a Christmas show. On the whole December is kept for Christmas shows. We have occasionally done Haddenham Ceilidhs with the Old Swan band in December and that has always been linked to a Christmas concert in the afternoon of the same day at the same event. Anyway…suddenly I was free. The importance of this is that our friends ‘Smitlap’ in Belgium wanted to celebrate their 35 years with us in 2018 but we had struggled to find a date when we were all free . It was little short of miraculous that not only were Blowzabella free but Smitlap, the venue etc etc were all free too. So the gig was born. The conundrum around travelling for this one was how I was going to get there and back. My sister, Fi, had decided not to do the gig she had taken and that meant that my she and my brother-in-law , Barry, could transport me to the gig. It did mean that, after not getting to bed until 1.30am, we were up and away very early on that Saturday morning to get me to the Blowzabella sound check on time, but it all went smoothly and it meant that the rest of the English members of Blowzabella could travel in one car. (Gregory was coming by train).
You’ll have seem some of the photo’s on facebook. The gig was lovely. We had guests playing with us. The event was sold out and all was well with the world. It was also lovely to see friends. In a band that I have been in for 30 years you meet a lot of people and as you become invited back to some of the same places you meet them again and again and they become friends. One of those people who turned up was Alfred Den Ouden. it was so lovely to see him. A man with very twinkly eyes.
When Blowzabella were on the road full time we often looked for ‘filler’ gigs to help with a night off or a journey to and from Europe. Alfred at that time lived in and ran a bar/restaurant in Flanders in Belgium. It was called Half Maan…Half Moon.
The downstairs was the restaurant. I have a vague memory of going up a dirt track drive to the venue itself. The front door opened in the middle of a long side into the main room. Bar at the back slightly to the right, fully to the right ,at one end, the fire place. Sturdy wooden tables and chairs throughout. Behind the bar was the kitchen area. Above the bar was a completely open room where we slept. perfectly comfortably but all in together..can’t remember if I was curtained off or not…. The deal was that Alfred would run a themed evening eg English food. He would do a meal and as part of his ticket price there would be live music…us, crammed into the fire place. We’d be fed as well of course, there was plenty of beer snd we could wind down easily afterwards knowing that bed was only upstairs.
More often than not we were on our way to or back from other countries in Europe.
In those days there was no Euro. I dealt with the money side of things for the band and had to make sure I had enough currency in various denominations to get us to where we needed to be and back…Belgium Franc’s, French Franc’s, German Deutsche mark, Austrian Schilling and Italian Lira….and yes that could all be part of the same trip sometimes with Luxembourg thrown in. So there was a lot to organise. We often used to meet at ‘Tilthams’ , near Guildford, where Paul lived, climb in his yellow and white Renault van and off we’d go. But this was later than that. The rendezvous in the same place but we took a sound engineer with us and his van, Keith Carlton and his Iveco. Keith, also now as ‘Picks’, in addition to doing sound was a guitar case maker but he had a little saying for his PA business. “From the smallest place to the largest hall, Carlton acoustics can do them all”. The nice thing about that van compared to the Renault was space. The instruments and PA got locked in a windowless, boxed in, section at the back. From the inside there was enough room for everyone to sit but there was also a shelf, the size of a small double bed, complete with mattress and bedding. It was on top of part of the boxed in section and meant if we had a long journey drivers could take turns and sleep and the rest could take turns at other times. No need to sleep on the way to Belgium though…it’s not that far.
This time we’d got to the rendezvous, packed all the instruments, merchandise and people into the van. PA was there already and off we went. We were within about 40 minutes of Dover when Paul said, jokingly, ‘I’m not gong to check whether everyone’s got their passports.’..at which point my whole body turned cold, my brain turned inside out and there were red bleeping, flashing lights behind my eyes with a loud klaxon and a sign flashing danger..danger..danger…FUCK (excuse the swearing but that was mild in comparison to how I was feeling)…which complete idiot hadn’t brought her passport. The one thing that hadn’t been on my check list. We were too far gone to go back or anything and we’d have missed the first gig. I was faced with the thought that they’s have to leave me at Dover, they’d do the gigs on their own and I’d make my solitary, depressing journey home at great costs and no earnings and no fun and music…or….
We discussed it and thought we just might get away with it.
I climbed up onto the bed at the back of the van and covered myself with duvets and kept very still. At the port Paul, who was driving, explained that we were one person less than on the booking, and on we drove….I got out on the boat feeling like I had ‘Guilty’ tattooed on my forehead, got back into my hide out for the checks on the way out and we were though. It was quite lucky really as vans full of men were quite often easy pickings for customs…potentially smuggling something. They’d never have guessed about this type of contraband though!
I think that was the weekend when all the gigs were in Belgium. It was absolutely freezing . Minus 13 degrees with freezing fog and the frost on all the branches and the tiniest twigs was magical. As well as performing at the restaurant we were playing elsewhere in Belgium but come back to the Half Maan to sleep and to eat wonderful food that the lovely Alfred had prepared for us.
I did not feel comfortable the whole weekend as I was scared I wouldn’t be allowed back into England again. The whole thing had taken the shine off everything and my anxiety levels were high. On the way through the French side I was back in hiding but at the English border I couldn’t stand it any longer . I climbed into the seat at the front (my normal position due to travel sickness) and handed over everyone elses passport whilst saying I’d left mine in Belgium. She said, ‘Are you sure you’ve left it and not lost it madam?’. I said I was sure and she explained that she was only asking because they could help me apply for another …there and then… amazing…and we were waved on. Pheeeeeew! ….maybe those temporary passports were still available then. Remember those?
I never ever want to repeat that experience .
The title of this blog is a little play on words and relates to a solo Cd I did called Female Smuggler’ after one of the tracks on it.
here’s a track..Words Jo Freya tune Barry Coope..’Roses’..a difficult topic you might need a hanky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97F84IDKLa4
The story behind the song..another time!
Jo Freya’s Musings 