Category → Rumbling
Sneaking Backstage 101
Unlike the wholesale anarchy that was Live at The Zoo, getting backstage at Future Music was a might harder. The On Dit staff scored themselves a bunch of laminated passes marked MEDIA in bold letters, supposedly setting us apart from the million or so losers with (ironcially dubbed) VIP passes, which pretty much just got you to a bar with a slightly smaller line and some plastic outdoor chairs. In reality they didn’t get us anything, bar a slightly shorter line-up. At the main entrance…
There was no MEDIA bar. There was no MEDIA area for interviews or schmoozing. Nothing marked on the free map. We couldn’t even get earplugs were it not for one kindly Security dude with a couple of pairs in his pocket.
I took it upon myself to rectify this situation. I would get backstage, or at least find out exactly how far this MEDIA pass would get me. Sauntering up to a gap in the fence guarded by a single confused looking Security guy. My friend Stevie and I walked right on pased him, nodding and motioning to our lanyards, not breaking stride. Success!
What we saw was uninspiring: A ruddy dirt track led to a village of transportable office like those on building sites. We walked onwards up a metal ramp and stood by the mixer watching CSS play. The soundie didn’t seem to mind and when I asked another Security guy if we could be here he just shrugged. Standing at the mixing desk is actually a bit shit, as you only get to see a third of the band, side-on. We wandered off and came across a rather snidey female Security type, her face so weathered and twisted that she bore a close resemblance to an old dead tree. We flashed our lanyards and she pointed to a sign which showed who could go where. Bands, tick; Security, tick; VIP, X; MEDIA, X.
I began to wonder what the fuck these passes were even in existence for, beyond arbitrary designation, and quickly began to negotiate, bartering to speak to someone ‘higher up’. She grudgingly motioned to a corrigated metal shoebox masquerading as an office. I strode purposefully towards the pseudo-office with an affected air of someone inconvenienced, Stevie briskly following like a bossy PA. We arrived at the office, finding it shut, locked and unlit, the organizers obviously doing something important like getting drunk in the bar behind us.
As I turned, I saw the Ent-like festival nazi facing away from us, the other side one of her deciduous kinfolk. As my mind raced I saw an opening. A roadie was wheeling an enormous road case the size of a bookcase. I grabbed Stevie by the wrist and pulled her, walking in step with our long-haired saviour, the roadcase between us and the tree-woman.
It was so proposterous, I couldn’t believe it worked. We followed the roadcase into the backstage band area, sighting the dressing rooms of Basement Jaxx, CSS and the perosnal room of Pharell Williams. Elated, we walked to the bar and ordered a drink. We turned to see before us, the withering glare of a certain security staff member with very unimpressed and ‘barky’ face.
A few fruitless excuses, and one final futile reasoning of “we’re already here’” and we were ejected upon threat of having our MEDIA passes confiscated, which made me laugh for the good they were doing. Later on during N*E*R*D I tried the same ruse, alas I was hot a 16-year-old in hot pants, and thus did not warrant Pharell’s attentions.
I guess the lesson is look like you belong somewhere, never ask questions and when it doubt run, deeper into backstage rather than out.
He who dares, wins.
Platonic Defenestration
On April 26th 2009 there was an incident in the (new) On Dit office, of potentially dire consequences. As Ms. Stephanie Walker was finishing her cigarette she turned and began to climb back through the window, which we smoke through. I, having just finished a cigarette myself, gave Ms. Walker a playful shove as if to push her through the window. She then said, quite firmly “don’t push me”, to which I pushed her, not especially hard, but ‘boy’ hard. It was to my horror that I saw her crash into the office, hitting her head on a pot plant and dislocating her knee. As I watched my co-editor’s body crumple into the ground I realized I had crossed the platonic female friend line.
Steph can definitely be seen as one of the boys, happy to drink, smoke and talk loud nonsense, at least until it gets a bit too ‘bitches and ho’s’ as she so succinctly put it. But while a girl can inhabit the ‘boys world’ for a little, eventually it will come crashing down, like an editor through a windowsill.
Guys grow up with roughhousing and it never truly goes away. Add to this the injection of alcohol to social situations and the testosterone fuelled moxie of post-pubescence and you have what can be a rough part of town so to speak. One party, after completing a game of centurion (100 shots of beer in 100 minutes, fucks you up real good, real fast) I was play fighting with my housemate Mr Metaphor/ when he pushed me, my alcohol-addled body limply falling, my head crashing into the car park ground. I was unconscious for a full 15 seconds, during which Mr Metaphor/ thought I was dead and promptly freaked out and ran away. The point of this story is that I groggily picked myself up, had a cider and a smoke, and went about my night, no hard feelings.
It’s not the first time I have been injured by and/or injured my mates in the course of having a good time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Drunken boxing matches, beer bottles waved in the air with reckless abandon, people being thrown into the boulder-rimmed pool. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then it’s hilarious.
Girls are great to have as ‘one of the guys’ type friends, but beware, they’re not quite as hardy as the rest of your beer-swilling mates. If you were to knock a girl out in a car park by accident, it would be a disaster of potentially party-ending consequence. Much like playing pushing a girl through a window. No one laughs, everyone feels bad, even the victim somehow.
Steph was okay, her knee popped back in (unlike the last time when her friend Jake was the perpetrator, and she had to pop it back in herself then went into shock) and I spent the night feeling like a dick, apologizing and offering to get her stuff. Our first aid kit contains only some gauze eye-pads, sunscreen and aromatic shower gel, but I did read the St. John’s Guide chapter on what to do if someone goes into shock, just in case.
We have however established some new boundaries. She’s still one of the boys. Just not one of the boys you push through an open window.