Mill Hill Music Festival Diary : Music brings people together

One of the things that you find when you do sound systems, especially at gigs such as the Mill Hill Music Festival, is that you have frantic periods of activity followed by long periods of boredom. The PA crew arrive first. They have the heaviest gear to set up. That all has to be in place before the band can start their setup. You work towards the soundcheck, which is probably (or should be) your most crucial time. When that's done, you don't have much to do (except possibly play a few CD's) until the band take the stage.

Professional soundguys don't get pissed on the job. Therefore you have plenty of time to contemplate life. Watching Elaine Delmar sing last night got me thinking about the way music has changed my life and the way I think. When you are in a band you develop a strong bond with the people you play with. You spend time in each others pockets so you can also develop an intense dislike (especially if you steal another band members partner!). One thing you quickly realise is that racial & religious intolerance is a completely ridiculous concept. If you are playing with a talented musician, you don't think she's Black or he's Jewish. You just feel honoured to share the moment with them. It is pretty much the same with sport. I remember one football team I played for recruited a fantastic black player, who transformed the team. One of the other team members privately told me that he "usually didn't like blacks, but ****** was ok". I asked him how many other black people he actually knew and perhaps unsurprisingly, he said none. Over the course of time, the two players became firm friends & developed a huge mutual respect. That is why sport and music are important. They unite us around our strengths. They break down barriers and we see people for their worth, not through our prejudice.

My company sponsors the Mill Hill Music Festival. I do it all for free, as does the rest of the committee. It takes a major chunk out of my life, for instance I'll hardly see my kids on fathers day. I see it as an investment in society. We had an excellent crowd last night. Many of the older customers tell us they love live music, but can't easily get up to town to see it. For some it is the highlight of the year. At the last festival, a couple of old ladies from the Drapers homes on Hammers Lane approached me at the Dixieland Jazz Lunch gig at the Three Hammers. This is a free event. They expressed their gratitude to us for organising it. They said that there wasn't much they could get to these days.

That's why we do it and that is the payback. Got to go, got a jazz lunch at the Hammers to help at, then it's down to the Adam and Eve for the Good Old Boys (featuring Alan Barratt, Nick Semper (ex Deep Purple), Pete Parks, Simon Bishop & Richard Hudson (the Strawbs), and a big PA to rig