Bluedot / Day 3: Mogwai

A nice start to the day, with two and half hours at the Notes tent for events curated by the charity Delia Derbyshire Day. The first was a panel discussion about some pieces of Delia Derbyshire’s music, including one that anticipated techno by about twenty years.

I also had a chance to chat to one of the guys from Electronic Sound magazine. I raised my dislike of the term ‘Krautrock’, and he said it was something the editorial team were discussing (but maybe he was just trying stop me talking about it!)

After that I met up with the Minx at a talk about meteorites and then we went across to the Nebula stage to watch Caro C perform, which was great. (See Extra.)

Then, while the Minx went off to meet her friend Ruth, I went back to the VIP area to do a bit of writing. I should note here that enjoying that area depends very much on paying for the privilege rather than actually being a VIP.

I asked a chap if I could join him on his bench, and he said I was welcome to, but that he had a couple of friends joining him, so I’d have to put up with them “talking bollocks”, and I said that was absolutely fine by me. And lo, his friends came along: his wife and her brother.

I finished my writing and recorded some of the ambient sounds of the area, which I planned to mess with in a fantastic app called Borderlands Granular. In retrospect, this is when things started to go tilt but that wasn’t immediately apparent. For now, the woman, Maggie, asked me what I was doing, which I tempted to explain. At this point her brother, “Berky”, chipped in with some mock outrage about me recording him.

Inevitably, then, I was drawn into their conversation and we all introduced ourselves, although I’ve forgotten the brother’s name. Let’s call him John. Maggie worked for an NHS Trust, while John was the lead guitarist from a band called The Microdots - apparently the last band ever to perform at the Haçienda - and Berky allegedly once did a lot of building work for Factory, and was big mates with Peter Hook. So far, so entertaining.

At some point, one of them went to the bar and came back with a load of drinks, including one for me. They seemed to have settled on the idea that I’d spend the evening with them, despite my regular protestations that I had friends to go and meet. Now, I suspect that at some point Berky had taken something because he became increasingly suspicious of me. At first it was just a bit of fun: I produced an old business card that I found in my wallet to prove my name, and also showed Berky a conversation on text to prove we really had a mutual acquaintance.

After a while, though, Maggie was apologising for his behaviour while John was busy telling Berky that he was attracting attention and making an idiot of himself. I was starting to make my excuses in as friendly a manner as I could. Maggie and John finally gave up on encouraging me to stay when Berky reached the conclusion that I was from Interpol, which was fun enough for me to make my exit while having a laugh (although he was totally serious).

As you can imagine, it was a relief to meet up with the Minx and Ruth, and after a couple of drinks we went to see Mogwai playing on the Lovell stage. I have to say, the sound at Bluedot this year has been brilliant, and Mogwai’s dense wall of sound can’t be easy for any sound engineer, but they sounded amazing. It’s great when seeing a band live just makes you want to revisit all their albums.

The final band of the day was Mr Wilson’s Second Liners, a brass band playing the whole of Leftfield’s ‘Leftism’ album. I guess you had to be there but it really worked.

After that, the three of us took a walk out to the fire garden, which is only open at night, and really quite magical, before Ruth went to meet her taxi, and the Minx and I retired to our tent.