The band I’m in is on a spring tour, 16 dates across the UK, from Tavistock in Devon to Edinburgh by way of Birmingham, Norwich and Liverpool. The first gig is in South Petherton, a village in Somerset where we played once 10 years ago.
Here’s what I remember about last time: we arrived after dark and loaded our stuff into a chilly village hall with a high ceiling and a narrow stage. Normally I set aside time to learn a few local facts in order to ingratiate myself with the audience, but on this occasion there was no phone reception.
So when the time came I stepped up to the microphone and said: “It’s great to be here in South Petherton; it brings us one step closer to our dream of playing in North Petherton.”
There followed a short silence, and then everyone booed, and I mean everyone. There were catcalls, and also some hissing. Up until that point I hadn’t even been certain there was a North Petherton. Evidently, there was.
For a while I thought we’d lost the audience for good, but we managed to finish the set to polite applause. Afterwards a man came up to me, shook my hand, leaned in close to my ear and said, “Seriously, North Petherton is a shithole.”
Ten years later, I don’t intend to let South Petherton forget any of this.
This time we arrive at the hall on a sunny afternoon, but everything else is as I remember it: the ceiling is high, the stage narrow. Phone reception has not improved at all in 10 years, but that doesn’t matter: I’ve come prepared.
“I have a lot to say to the people of South Petherton tonight,” I tell the rest of the band as I review my notes in the dressing room.
“Go for it,” says the guitar player.
“I mean a lot,” I say. “We may have to cut some songs.”
Our hour comes. We take the stage and, as rehearsed, play the first three songs on the trot. Only then do I step up to the microphone.
“Well, well, well,” I say. I remind the audience of what I said a decade ago, and of their unedifying response. But “remind” is clearly not the right word: nobody who is here now was there then. This is the first they’ve heard of it, and they’re bemused.
At the time, I tell them, I imagined the animosity between the two municipalities stemmed from a dispute over the drainage of a shared playing field, or the parking charges at the community hospital.
“I didn’t know then, as I know now,” I say, “that North Petherton is 22 miles from here.” The hostility clearly had nothing do to amenities.
“I can only conclude,” I say, “that it’s a prejudice based on fear of the other, and for that reason I have come armed with many interesting facts about North Petherton.” I reel off a few, and the audience play along as if they enjoy being sported with. But I also feel some of their animosity being transferred to me.
By the interval I feel this particular comic seam has been pretty well mined out, but a few songs into the second half an awkward moment arrives. Half the band are to vacate the stage, while the fiddle player, the piano player and I take the front three microphones to sing a song. The stage is narrow, and the choreography poor; we fumble about. I find myself in front of a mic that is too tall for me, with a weighted silence on my hands. I adjust the mic, and reach for the bit of paper in my breast pocket.
“North Petherton is twinned with the French town of Ceaucé,” I say, “while South Petherton is twinned with … anybody?” The silence deepens – no one knows.
“There’s a huge sign!” I say. “You must pass it every time you get milk!” At this point I sense the goodwill of the audience eroding a little. I think: remember this is South Petherton – these people can turn on you in a moment.
The song begins. My voice is a little raspy, but as we reach the chorus I’m mostly feeling the strain in my knees. How odd, I think. My calf muscles begin to burn, and I realise I’m crouching, a little deeper with each passing line. The microphone I’m singing into is slowly sinking.
It occurs to me that as karmic retribution goes, this is a little prompt. There is no point in the song when I can lift my fingers from the strings long enough to raise the mic. I try to calculate, estimating the current rate of descent, how low I will need to be by the end – mostly likely I’ll be sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Instead, the microphone suddenly collapses with a squeal of feedback in the middle of the last verse, bringing the song to a halt, and leaving me standing there like an idiot.
And that, apparently, is the kind of thing the people of South Petherton find funny.
