Weirdtongue (20)

Continued from HERE.
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Gregory Mummerset woke at dawn. He and Suzie Mildeyes had pitched their tiny tent when it was really too dark to do so – and the rain that had seeped in towards their sleeping-bags they blamed on their own amateurish efforts of tightening the guy-ropes rather than on the low quality of the tent itself. They always bought things too cheaply. The buy one get one free mentality that meant people these days put up with shoddy goods just for the sake of a bargain. They feared the ground would become muddy which was an unwelcome feature of the festival held here for some years now in the shadow of the Tor.

Upon yawning, he crawled from the front flap, pleasantly surprised that the sunlight had replaced the rain with its own promising shadows that had nothing to do with the shadows of the night before. Earlier darknesses had been shaken off with the change in direction of his thoughts. Suzie slithered in his wake, then stretching as she stood, smiling at the new atmosphere and the fresh concerns. Many other campers travelled on their bellies to leave their overnight shelters … some with guitars strapped to their backs.

The larger tent that held one of the performing stages was glistening with dew. In the distance, they squinted to see the larger erection of scaffolding which would later bear the main acts. ‘Goldfrapp’ was headlining tonight, the group they had come all this way to see. See and hear. Seeing music was the only way to hear it, especially if there was more to the music than just the sound. Gregory enjoyed loud music when it was in enclosed spaces veritably vibrating the ribs of his body. It was only then he could actually feel he was living within the music. He rather doubted that open fields or tents would do justice to the claustrophobia he felt was needed to contain the sounds.

Goldfrapp’s supporting group ‘Nemophilia’ that were already rehearsing in the nearby tent (currently closed to the public) filled the fields with haphazard shafts of jagged music startled from synths. Either tuning up or the real thing, Gregory wasn’t sure. In his quieter moments, he rather enjoyed Classical Music, even the more avant garde versions to which one needed to acclimatise (almost self-brainwash) before the seemingly strident sounds reached the parts of the soul most other music couldn’t reach. He also enjoyed the sedate conversations of chamber music … Schubert, Brahms. Then, in other moods, the decadent prefiguring of modern warfare in turn-of-the-century Mahler followed by moto perpetuos by Shostakovich. ‘Death In Venice’ music by Mahler reminded him of his earlier dreams-of-promise visiting all the Middle European health spas as part of a necessary convalescence from too much dreaming. The mountains were pulmonaries of shiver-veined delight.

He shook off his own shivers - on this fresh morning after a close-stitched night of dripping canvas - by taking Suzie in his arms. He kissed her lightly on the lips and then looked into her eyes that were aglow, awet even, with both a waking love and a desire to live life for every moment it could give them free from any cloying dream. They were, for once, real. They were here. And, as Nemophobia took sway with true rhythms of pre-cast musical score rather than improvisation, they drew breath to lengthen their next kiss together.

Gregory and Suzie, hand in hand, left the communal tented area to visit the various side-shows and sales-stalls and other New Age or Arthurian paraphernalia, whilst listening to a mix of rehearsals blending in and out of each other as the distances changed the angle of each musical attack. Some music – great music - is fiction injected straight into the vein, thought Gregory.

The fields came to life with birdsong – not to be outdone by the music – and other animal life urged forward to graze both in the stylised shapes of the configured landscape and for real as living breathing creatures. Lowing cows traipsed in a line up the slopes towards the Tor itself, a slow race, a becoming breed.

CONTINUED HERE.

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