Saturday, 22 June 2019

Mill Hill Music Festival Day 9 - Rog's Festival Diary

We close the festival with Joe Angel
Wow, what a night we had last night. For us festival organisers it was a very long day. We started at 10am, building stages, erecting Gazebo's, putting up security fencing and lighting, etc. By 4pm, the site was ready for our soundman Vince to begin the erection of the sound system. Vince is the go to man for larger PA systems in Barnet and for an outside gig, with a nine piece band, he is the ideal man. As I mentioned yesterday, I've known Vince for 30 odd years and he's a man I trust implicitly to do the job and he didn't disappoint. We had an amazing crowd for the gig. First up were Recollection, one of the better covers bands in the locality. They served up an excellent set of standards and got everyone well warmed up for the Foundations.

The Foundations came on just as the sun was setting and the whole place was up having a boogie from the first bar of the first number. It was great to see so many friends turn up for the evening. The Golf club serves great beer and good food at more than reasonable prices. Where else could you watch a band with no 1 hits around the world and have a burger and chips thrown in for £20? The setting is glorious for gigs and with the amazing music, it was one of the most memorable nights in Mill Hill.

Here's a few snippets

Recollection kicked off at around 8.15, the sun was shining and during the set, the crowds built up (especially for the burgers). This is a short snippet of the Zutons Valerie, and a 360 degree tour of the venue.



Then we had the Foundations, this was the closing number, their iconic No 1 global hit, Build Me Up Buttercup


If you were wondering what numbers you missed, here's the setlist

It was a late night, with all of the gear needing to be put away, followed by a busy morning taking down stages and gazebo's, big shout out to the local scouts for the loan of the Gazebo, the festival is a truly community based festival, with local Churches, Synagogue, Scouts, sports clubs, businesses and residents all coming together to support us. Just to give you some idea, last night there were over 25 committee members and volunteers involved in the various tasks, as well as the Golf club staff of perhaps another 20 to serve food and beer and manage the logistics. To host the 300 odd people on site and make sure they didn't wait too long to get served with food or drinks is a massive planning operation. I like to think that every year the festival gets a bit better. We also had a surprise visitor, who was most welcomed. I was asked to join the Festival organising Committee by original founder, Jane Ellison, back in the 1990's. Jane was formerly a Conservative Councillor in Mill Hill, before moving to Battersea and winning the seat as an MP in 2010. She seemed set for great things, but narrowly lost her seat in 2017, following the snap election. Jane now works for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, but flew in specially to see the Foundations. Although we stand on different sides of the political divide, I've always had huge admiration for Jane as a proper politician who served the community and got things done. We need more people like Jane on all sides of the political spectrum. It was great to see her and she had a blast. She can be proud of her legacy in Mill Hill.

And so on to tonight. One of my favourite bands is closing the festival, Joe Angel and the Pamodzi band. I like them so much, I got them to play at my wife Clare's 50th birthday party a couple of years ago. Come down tonight to see why! I've got to walk the doggies now, then build a stage and a PA system at the Adam and Eve.

Hope to see you later.
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