FTR at Americana '97

Americana in'97 was one hell of a party ! The weather was great, the beer flowed and we kidnapped a band !!

You know how it is on Sunday night at Americana, everyone's winding down, some are going home, and only the country stage is still going. It's, well, a little too quiet really isn't it ? Well we moved the goalposts in 1997 !!!

There we were, wandering around, and some foreign bloke ( Bart, from The Hillbilly Boogiemen ) asked if he could buy a couple of cans of beer from us as we (FTR) were all walking around with a crate each. Apparently the beer tent was closed !! We shared a few cans around, sat down and had a chat and then we ran out of beer !! We told the band if they wanted more beer they'd have to come back to our site with their gear !!

Well that was the start of it !! Have a look !!

This is Arnold, Bart and AArt with Sue and Scott. The guys were great,   although Arnold, on the left, can drink like a fish and still hold a sensible conversation about The Meteors or The Guana Batz  !!

Tom and Grim both wanted to have a tryout on the Slap Bass, at least Grim managed to get it out of Dave's Olds first !! Don't you just love Grim's cheesy grin !! He's SO proud isn't he ?

From the left is Dave (not a band member !!) Arnold, Robert, Aart and Bart. These guys love their music, and they can play too !! Pike had a try on the mandolin and everyone tried out the Slap Bass. The guys played for hours and the crowd grew, it after two in the morning when they left, they had to get to Hemel Hempstead to pick up the rest of their gear before catching a flight back to Holland at seven  !!!

It took us about twenty minutes to pour Arnold in the van as he was literally legless, Bart was drinking very (and I mean very) strong coffee to stay awake Aart was the sensible one trying to keep Arnold in the van !!

After they left the party went on, in the end we shut our campsite down and left hoping it would be quiet when we got back. This wasn't such a good idea as Pike fell over a bin, someone suggested we walked in a straight line over all the fences and Tom fell asleep in the road !!!

By the time we got back everyone had left and we finished off a fresh bottle of Brandy between five of us, watered down with Cinzano as there wasn't anything else to drink !!

I tried to take a photo of some of our cars, thanks Grim !!

On the left is Karen who washed her hair using a washing up bowl and an Aquaroll, how can you miss a photo opportunity like that !! and on the right is Dena who thought Bart was a real hunk !! We told Bart about this of course........