The usual crowd set off on the last weekend of July 1970 for Phun City festival in Worthing in the South of England. Of all the festivals we'd been to it was the only one that was free in the true meaning of the word. The advertisement read "There's 20 acres of woodland, partially enclosed in polythene to provide cover for sleeping - and this will be available for copulation, bopping or whatever else you want to use the woods for. Get your end away at Phun City". With an invite like that who could refuse?
Among the acts due to play were Stray, Kevin Ayers, Free, The Edgar Broughton Band, Matthews Southern Comfort, The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies, Michael Chapman, and the headliners from Americas motor city Detroit, the MC5. There was a strange irony that of all the booked acts, when it was announced a few days before the festival that it would be free and the acts were asked to offer their services as such, the only band to refuse to play were Free. We'd loved The Edgar Broughton Band and Kevin Ayers but we'd seen them both so many times that we knew their sets by heart. And the MC5! Well that was something on a whole different level. We'd been introduced to their music by Ray Daunter who was commonly known as The Wizard.
Ray Daunter was the same guy I'd worked with in the textile factory a few months earlier and the same guy who had instigated my trip with JC to Hempstead to see Screaming Lord Sutch. Around that time I was in a band called War playing bass along with a lead guitarist and drummer and fronted by Ray. A good half of our initial set was MC5 covers. We had to change the name due to Eric Burden (ex of the Animals) fronting a band with the same name but that's another story.
The Wizard should have been on the Hempstead trip with us but he had a regular lady in tow and wasn't into travelling the music festival circuit like the rest of us were. But Phun City was different. MC5 were different, and because it was MC5, Ray Daunter had to be there. Magdalen had nicknamed him The Wizard when she found out that he dabbled somewhat more than healthily with black magic. I think it's fair to say that most people have a fear of the unknown, so nobody really mentioned it too much in his company in case he put the hex on them and they woke up one morning with the dreaded lurgie or some other incurable illness.
JC and Magdalen didn't give a damn though. They just said what he said and to hell with the consequences. It was really funny to listen to them. They'd be having a conversation about nothing in particular and out of the blue JC would ask The Wizard something like "well if you he really pissed you off could you turn him into a frog" or Magdalen would occasionally say to a third person within earshot of The Wizard "don't take any notice of that hokus pokus mumbo jumbo, that's just shitt'n". But the pair of them were such lovable people that I don't think anybody took offense to anything they did so, despite any misgivings they were safe in the company of The Wizard.
It was the MC5s first gig in Europe and their debut album Kick Out The Jams was so full of energy we just had to see them perform live. Unlike other trips we all went separately, arranging to meet at the festival site whenever. Magdalen took the train with Carla, I hitch-hiked to London with The Wizard JC and Screwball, and Mr Wha, Hornpipe and the rest took whatever journey that suited their work schedule as despite our wayward activities, with the exception of Screwball who we all considered a little too intelligent to get his hands dirty, we all had jobs doing some form of manual labour. With that, some of us had to work Saturdays which meant there were times when we weren't all together, but the mainstay of JC, Hornpipe, Mr Wha, Magdalen, Screwball and myself always seemed to make it.
Walking ahead on the dual carriageways hard shoulder it didn't take long for Screwball and The Wizard to wave to us from their lift and we hoped that our lift would come soon. But it wasn't the best weather for hitch-hiking. The rain was beginning to get harder and it looked as though the sky was about to open so we walked back to the motorway entry and took shelter under a flyover. In no time at all we had a lift, and not just half the way. We got dropped off at Edgware in the North of London and having saved the train money we'd set out with it was time to spend a little. We took the underground (which was at that point an over ground) train towards the city where we'd get a connection on to Worthing where the festival was.
It was mid-day on Friday so there were no commuters around and we were the only two passengers in the compartment. A stop or two after ours and two girls got on who we immediately got talking to. I still find it hard to believe what happened next was not a dream but you have to trust me here, I wouldn't lie. The two girls sat next to us and it was one of those moments when you know exactly what the outcome is going to be, so no matter how insane the procedure is you go through with it in any case. We started kissing, instantaneously bypassing all the formalities. Before finishing our first embrace we were tweaking on nipples and grappling to get into their knicker elastic whilst discreetly getting some hand treatment, and as an added bonus for our efforts JC and I were blessed with sticky fingers. Unfortunately though, like the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and that day was not the exception. The train was filling up so we pulled our partners in tight and turned to them to the window so that the other passengers couldn't see that our hands were inside their tops or up their skirts. In retrospect a blind man could have seen everything but at least we made the effort to be decent about it. It eventually came to the point where we had to go our separate ways. On a passing note the girls invited us to join them at a pub in the city where we could make love to them on a big oak table in the middle of the bar in front of all the punters. It was an interesting proposition but miles out of our way. JC was always up for everything so I know he would have if we weren't on such a tight schedule on that occasion but it wasn't meant to be. The music always came first.
When we arrived at Phun City to say we were disappointed was an understatement. The place was so small compared to other festivals we'd been to. Of the expected audience of 20,000 only 6,000 turned up and at least half had already left due to the weather. The rain had been lashing down all morning so the whole place was like a quagmire. I couldn't imagine the festival ever being a success and as it happened, for most people it wasn't. The girls bailed us out though. They were guaranteed to put a smile on our faces no matter what. Magdalen was a mixture of domestic housewife and scatterbrain hippie. Of course I knew that like her mother she was an intelligent human being, but she'd been talking in riddles for so long that most people thought she was loopy. Speaking gibberish had become a habit for her but inside she knew that the people who really mattered understood her so she didn't care about the others.
We met them as we entered the field and they took us straight into the woods where they'd set up camp. It was a home from home. We had a small tent that the four of us were supposed to squash into later that evening, and outside the girls had collected stones to make a big half circle around the front of it like it was the perimeter to our garden. They'd also gathered some wild flowers which they'd placed at each corner of the tent with some more at the opening to it and at strategic points of the garden.
Before we arrived the girls had gone into the neighbouring village to buy some provisions. It was a welcome we weren't expecting but certainly appreciated. After a hearty meal cooked on an open fire I walked further into the woods with Carla. In those days we all seemed to be more interested in what dope we could get or what chaos we could create than in anything else so I was never a romantic girl go getter. But Phun City was like the weekend that I grew up. I was to see things I hadn't noticed before or had simply chosen not to see, I was to feel emotions that were until then alien to me, and I was to respect a partners feelings for the first time that I could remember. Of course I had an emotional side because I'm basically a caring and emotional person and of course I had a normal boy girl relationship with Carla, but I have no recollection my emotions coming to the fore until that weekend. But walking hand in hand with her through the woods something had changed. Pulling her in tight to kiss her I felt her breasts against me. But I didn't have the usual urge to touch them. It was a warm feeling just being with her.
The memories I have of my life around that point in time are that I had a set of procedures that were in a list of priorities. I worked, I played and listened to music at every opportunity, I got stoned, I got drunk, I slept, and I had sex, in that order. Sex was the bottom of the list and there's a possibility I wouldn't have had any meaningful relationships at all if I hadn't met Carla, but fate and destiny have a habit of dealing everybody a good hand at least once in their life.
When I look back I loved Carla to bits but back then we were immature kids and a lot of the time when we made love it was simply because we wanted to try it under the effects of this or that or just because one of us was horny. So we did it, even though sometimes the other didn't really feel the need to at that time. We never seemed to have what I would consider today to be a normal life together. Kids today live together or have their own apartments where the partner stays over on weekends but back then we all seemed to live our lives at other peoples places. None of us had our own except for Magdalen and that wasn't so much an apartment as two rooms that shared an electric fire. And when I was alone with Carla it was usually under a tarpaulin that covered the boat we were trying to sleep in at Porthcawl, or we'd be at somebody's place crashing on the floor surrounded by a dozen other bodies, and no matter where or when, we were always stoned. I can laugh about it now but they were hardly romantic times. At least, not until my weekend of enlightenment at Phun City!
The sun was going down when the festival finally got started. It should have begun around mid-day but work on the stage and everything else had been put back numerous times due to the rain. Before going to the stage area we took some amphetamine or speed as it was more commonly known as, the plan being that it would have a double effect. On the first hand, even if it pissed down with rain again, in our minds everything would be hunky dory, and secondly, it would cool our sexual tendencies when we got back to the tent. I mean, there wasn't room to swing a cat in it let alone anything else so we took the speed, smoked continuously, munched like crazy on chewing gum - a habit I never partook in unless speeding - and spoke an incoherent form of gibberish at a hundred miles an hour that would in itself have given Magdalen a run for her money when she was shitt'n. And when it came down to the nitty gritty the love organ had lost all its senses.
In brief you could end up with any partner you wanted but at the end of the night couldn't do anything about it. And why I wanted to calm my sexual tendencies with such a drop dead gorgeous creature as Carla who knows? But drugs do have a tendency to make you act irrationally. It seems insane now when I look at those situations from the outside and think about the decisions we made. On the one hand you could cuddle up to your partner and make passionate love all night or on the other you could take some speed and talk bollocks until daybreak. No contest. Speed won every time.
Magdalen was quite partial to smoking dope so she'd taken some hash with her. It was very liberating back then to be smoking a joint in the middle of a crowd of people at the same time as you're speeding your arse off and thinking your King Shit for doing it. Consequently, we were all too full of our own self conceited smarmy self importance to give it a second thought when Magdalen got the munchies and dragged JC off to the Friends tent for something to eat.
As was the situation with so many times before when the big hand was on the twelve and the little hand was on the lets get stoned marker LSD was the choice drug for all of us. We loved the insane consequences of it. The hallucinatory effect, the unpredictability, everything about taking it was guaranteed to lead to a story that would last a lifetime. So despite the fact that we were already under the influence of one drug that made us want to chill out at the same time wanting to do everything at break neck speed due to the amphetamines, we couldn't resist the opportunity to top it off with some microdot acid tablets that the guy next to us was selling.
Other than that and it being another trippy night the evening came and went with nothing out of the ordinary happening, but as I got back to the tent with Carla we found two large bags of what was obviously food. What we hadn't realised was that as the festival kicked off a certain Mr Carter who had the concession for selling food had threatened the Friends tent which was also selling food by saying "if you sell any more food I'll run my fucking land rover over your tent". JC and Magdalen were there at the time and just happened to be talking to the proprietor of the Friends tent as the whole argument kicked off. Between the three of them it was decided that the Friends would give the food away and JC was the man to make it all happen.
With the woodlands being the main sleeping area the food was taken to our tent for distribution. Throughout the evening the freaks had come and gone taking rolls, and burgers half cooked on the open camp fire in our garden while Magdalen made endless cups of tea. It was an event to continue until the early hours of Monday morning when the police were to eventually raid the place and send everybody packing. But for the time being it was welcome to Chez JC and Magdalen's Diner where what started off as two carrier bags of food fed what seemed like the population of Phun City for two days and still a load got thrown in the bin when we left.
It was impossible to get into the tent with all the food so Carla and I walked into the woods again. It was like a repeat of the earlier trip but with the added effect of both of us off our fucking heads. This time we did touch, but we both knew that neither of us could follow it through even if we wanted to. It was like I was a school kid going through the motions. I put my hand up her shirt, squeezed her right breast, moved to the left one and applied a little pressure, and upon the obligatory spaced out look of no response I took my hand out again. Kissing was out of the question at times like that but the reassurance that her tits were still intact was all I needed. Yes tripping was fun.
We thought the rain had stopped though I could never tell when I was on acid. It reminded me of when we'd gone to Caerphilly in Cricko's van. As always we were off our heads and when we went into the local pub it was all a little too much to take in with the breathing walls and dart players throwing flying saucers and all the other hallucinogenic stuff going on in our minds. Leaving the others in the pub JC and I went to sit on a bench on the perimeter of the castle across the road outside.
Caerphilly is a very historic place dating back to the Middle Ages and Caerphilly Castle is a castle in the traditional sense of the word. With its gothic architecture, a moat, and a drawbridge that was the only entry or exit, it was everybody's picture of what a castle should be. And as we sat on the bench talking the usual rubbish, or as Magdalen would say shitt'n, we spent what seemed like an eternity watching witches on their broomsticks fly in and out of the battlements, serpents raise their heads from the waters of the moat and the cars on the road turn into horse drawn chariots. I was eventually the one to break the ice. I think its raining. You could be right JC replied. The fact of the matter was that it was pissing down and we were both drenched through to the skin, and it was situations like then that made me say dropping acid always resulted in a story you could tell for evermore.
When I consider the events of that evening in retrospect, if I had half a brain back then I would never have taken drugs again. It was on the way home later when Cricko was driving his fifteen hundredweight Commer van. I mean driving on acid is insane period, but driving on acid with a van full of passengers who are tripping their nuts off is, and almost was suicide. On the way back to Newport we got lost and twelve miles out of Caerphilly when we should have been home we were somewhere in the opposite direction on the top of a mountain in the Welsh Valleys. Almost on top that is. We were fifty feet from a hump backed bridge that went over the mountain railway to our left. To our right was a sheer drop of two hundred feet and no safety barriers should anything go wrong. Don't ask me why but Cricko saw the bridge ahead and decided to stop and think about it. Turning the engine off, that was our chance to get out of the back where half a dozen of us were huddled together but did we? Did we fuck? Cricko started the motor and turned the ninety degrees to the foot of the bridge, stalled and started rolling backwards to the drop behind us. Did we get out when it finally came to a stop and gave us a second opportunity? Hah, don't ask silly questions. It was on the third entry to the bridge that we made it over and with the exception of getting pulled over by the police some miles later, presumably for no reason other than looking like hippies the rest of the night was uneventful.
When we got back to the tents in the woods at Phun City we sat with Hornpipe and Mr Wha as The Wizard went back to his tent and left us to it. The acid was wearing off, and as the fire had gone out the hungry hippies had gone back to their tents, and for the first time since the festival started we felt something like human.
Uncomfortably cramming like sardines into Hornpipes tent we eventually fell into a deep slumber as the sun came up. No sooner had we dropped off though than we were awoken by the commotion of the freaks queuing up for their free breakfast at JC and Magdalen's Diner, the tent next door. As any normal person would wake up and yawn or stretch Mr Wha let out a deafening "whaaaa", and for those not already awake, they were then. There were a few hundred people camping in the woods and they all seemed to want a burger for breakfast. JC and Magdalen were on top form. Even though they'd taken some acid the night before like the rest of us you could never tell with either of them.
Magdalen as always talked like she was learning a new language and JC wore an ear to ear smile for at least ten hours of every day. "Good morning" I said as I got out of the tent. "So will you be getting up now" Magdalen responded in an Irish accent and it couldn't have been more obvious that we were already up, standing fully dressed in front of them. "Tell the others I said" she instructed which was her way of telling us to wake up Hornpipe and The Wizard and to come and get some food from the never ending supply before it had all gone. Upon the realisation that everybody was in the land of the living she asked "would you like some breakfast"? still feigning an Irish accent that reminded me of JC's first sexual encounter, Mrs Wilson. And why the Irish accent nobody knows. Magdalen was spontaneous like that though and speaking in different accents was another of her million ways of entertaining anybody within earshot. "We've got rolls, burgers, burgers in rolls, rolls on their own or burgers on their own". "Don't forget the double burgers JC chipped in" laughing at the same time as the words came out of his mouth. It was one of those insane one off situations like when Jimmy and Mob had broken into the roadside kiosk in Penarth a year or so before.
We jumped the queue at JC and Magdalen's Phun City garden and put a few burgers on the fire. Looking back now it must have been some sight. About thirty dirty smelly hippies, talking total shit, smoking joints, fondling one another's private parts and having nothing whatsoever in common with one another other than the fact that they were all weird. And all this before ten in the morning, it was a little too much so Carla and I walked into the village to kill some time before the events of the day began. The festival site looked as desolate then as it had the previous day when I arrived with JC. Of course I still have fond memories of it but as festivals go it really was the worst of the worst, and with it being free in the literal sense of the word there were no barriers. Only the occasional hedge to stop the cows from grazing in Field A when they should have been in Field B which only served to make it look even bleaker than it really was.
Nothing of any importance happened that day other than scoring some speed so we took the tabs and caught up with some old friends, or should I say rock stars before they did their bit for the audience. The whole place was so free that the backstage area was an extension of the front stage area and even then there weren't any barriers or obstacles. We talked a while with Arthur Grant of The Edgar Broughton Band while Edgar, his brother Steve and their mother Mama got into a heated debate with Peter Jenner, the head honcho of the film crew. The Broughton's were a few years older than us and we never heard any of them talk about or saw any of them taking drugs, despite being in a business that almost commanded their use. We put this down to the guiding influence of Mama who being their roadie was obviously always on the scene.
They didn't mind playing for free as long as the cameras were switched off. Of course Peter Jenner wanted them switched on to record the whole event for posterity and possible television royalties but the Broughton's were having none of it. Over the past few years they'd become the darlings of the festival circuit and whenever you heard the words free and festival in the same sentence you almost always put the word Broughton in there too. Corporate capitalism was something different though. If the band weren't making any dosh why should somebody else make some off their back? The issue was eventually resolved and the Broughton's took to stage accompanied by the Kevin Ayers Band, JC on guitar and backing vocals, me on harmonica and occasional vocals and Magdalen performing topless gyrations. Of course, we weren't a part of the band but not only was it a free festival it was a free for all where anything went.
Magdalen's performance was an encore of the earlier set by the Pink Fairies where band members Russ and Twink had danced naked on stage. But even women like to see another woman bare her tits in public so Magdalen's performance was one of the highlights of the evening. The speed was kicking in big time with me and I blowed and sucked on the harp oblivious to the fact that I was blocking the view of Magdalen. I guess its only natural that when a lady is kind enough to exhibit her boobs then other people will want to see them, so after a few choice words from some male members of the audience I did the only decent thing! I left the stage leaving everybody else with a clear view of Magdalen.
I slid away to join Carla who's equally bra-less breasts bounced in tune to the beat at the front of the audience. As we boogied to the sound of the music and sang at the top of our voices to the chorus of Out Demons Out we were deafened by the intrusion of "whaaa". Mr Wha, Hornpipe and The Wizard had appeared. Mr Wha and Hornpipe were speeding and by that time were on their fourth packet of gum and third pack of cigarettes. Mr Wha didn't smoke when he was straight but the moment he threw some amphetamines down his neck he started puffing like the proverbial trooper. But even then he didn't smoke properly. He'd stick his head out forward, pucker his lips like Mick Jagger, lightly puff, and blow the smoke straight back out without inhaling. It was quite funny seeing him together with The Wizard as he didn't smoke either except in moments of rebellionism when he used the same method to suck and blow.
The Wizard had no interest whatsoever in drugs of any kind and I always thought it was weird that any straight person would want to be in the company of a drunkard or druggie. Not weirded out in the way that I was with Boom Boom though. The Wizard was totally straight in every sense of the word despite looking the freakiest of us all with his flowing mane of deep black hair and flower printed kaftans and paisley bell bottomed pants. He didn't mind the ribbings that JC and Magdalen gave him in response to things like his black magic antics or the contradiction of his dress sense compared to his way of thinking. He was very easy going about things like that in much the same way as JC was, and in times when others used him as a prop for their jokes he would simply smile from ear to ear, just like JC.
After the MC5 finished their set we went back stage to meet them. Not that it had ever worried us in the past but even then there was no official security whatsoever. There was an over bearing presence of Hells Angels who'd taken it upon themselves to be marshals for the weekend but nobody was heavy, and after we'd explained to the band that we'd travelled from Wales to see them they seemed more than happy to talk a while.
It wasn't hard to see why the bands home town of Detroit was called the motor city. Their travelling vehicle was a forty foot articulated lorry fully fitted out with a dining area, cubby holes with beds, and the middle section of the right side folded down to make the floor of another room cum reception area. Of course, today such travelling hotels are common place for big stars who could pay for one with the proceeds of one stadium concert, but this was 1970 and stadium rock was a term that hadn't yet been invented. I went in with The Wizard first and we were talking with the bands singer Rob Tyner and bassist Fred Sonic Smith for about ten minutes before JC and Magdalen joined us. Carla was speeding big time and was content to dance in front of the stage to Legs Larry Smith like some demented wild animal with Mr Wha and another girl we'd met earlier. By that time it was well after dark and getting colder but it didn't stop Carla taking off what was left of her clothes. Even though I wasn't with her at the time I can tell you that she would have been a very inviting sight. That was before the days of runways and other such designers pubic hairstyles. When her pants came down you were greeted with an untrimmed triangular bush inviting further investigation and that's as simple as it got.
Still to this day one of the highlights of my life was meeting the MC5 that night but there was a seedier side to them that we weren't aware of at the time. JC slid off to the front of the trailer with the guitarist Wayne Kramer and some girl who just happened to be there. Reappearing a few minutes later JC asked do you want some smack? It was no secret that JC and Magdalen had been taking heroin in increasing amounts over the previous months and it was the only area of drug taking where he didn't command a dedicated following. We'd all dabbled in almost every illegal substance available but our philosophy was that drugs were supposed to be fun and when they started to get serious, that was the time to get out. But JC was a compulsive person who never did anything in half measures. And of all of us he would always be the one to take everything to the absolute limit. If you took an acid tablet he took two or if you stayed awake for sixty hours he'd stay awake for sixty five. It wasn't deliberate, it just happened that way. But despite it all he didn't know when to stop and Magdalen went along for the ride, verging on the edge of self destruction on more than a few occasions as a result of their habit.
We declined JC's offer and cut short our stay in the back of the MC5's travelling hotel. I didn't ask but was under the impression that it was only Wayne and maybe one or two others of the party using smack. It was a pity our meeting ended like that because The Wizard idolised the band and with him being straight it must have cast a shadow over his illusion of them.
Leaving JC and Magdalen in the trailer we joined Carla, Mr Wha and Hornpipe at the end of Shagrat's set. Steve Tooks new band weren't as raucous as Legs Larry Smith who had just come off stage so Carla put her clothes back on as the lights went out the whole place seemed to die. Except in the woods where the tents were that is. We were still speeding big time so weren't hungry (speed or amphetamines are slimming tablets which give you an extra buzz if you take more than the prescribed amount) so the sensible thing seemed to be to relight the fire and talk shit until the effects of the amphetamine wore off. Of course, in no time at all the hungry and the penniless had accumulated in JC and Magdalen's garden and the endless supply of burgers were cooking again. Eventually Carla and I squashed into the next tent with Mr Wha and Hornpipe in the early hours of the morning despite the fact that JC and Magdalen still hadn't come back. We could have used the tent we were supposed to be in but what the hell. It wasn't as if we were about to have a romantic evening.
JC was in a very bad way. He'd obviously been physically sick but Magdalen seemed OK. He OD'd she said, nursing him and tending his needs in case he took a turn for the worse. We wanted to help but there was nothing we could do. So many times we'd been in that position of total helplessness, like the episode in Hyde Park when we lost Steve Jones but still we seemed to set ourselves up for it time and time again. Going back into the tent I told Mr Wha and Hornpipe what had happened while Carla went over and told The Wizard.
The rain started pissing down again and we'd had enough. It was the not so very nice icing on a nasty little cake. As soon as we knew JC was going to be OK, Carla, me, The Wizard, Hornpipe and Mr Wha packed our stuff and headed for the station. It was like the mass exodus as we weren't alone. I think it's fair to say that most of the audience were there to see the big names and most had played on the Saturday. Of the remaining names only Roger Chapman and the newly discovered Mungo Jerry were to play as the word was out that Matthews Southern Comfort weren't staying to do their set due to there being no money to pay the bands. All the musicians who played that weekend seemed somewhat pissed off except for one kid who lived in the neighborhood and was employed to help set up the stage. With no money to pay him the organisers said "if we let you sing a few songs with your guitar between sets will you shut up with your whining about the money"? And that was Leo Sayer's first gig.
Mungo Jerry had got famous shortly before Phun City at The Hollywood Festival in Lincoln. Most of the usual contenders played there plus a host of new acts like Ginger Baker's Air force which he'd formed after the split of Cream. The Faces played as did The Radna Krishna Temple lot or whatever they were called. The Hare Krishna band who had the big Hare Krishna hit with it's repetitious lyrics and tinkling bells. Damn George Harrison for discovering them. As with the Isle of Wight Festival the security was a lot more organized at The Hollywood Festival but it didn't stop us getting to talk to Lord Sutch who also performed. God bless his cotton picking socks, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, we loved David (Lord) Sutch to bits but he was as mad as a hatter.
Anyway, back at Phun City the fact that the whole weekend was advertised as a free festival should have been a pointer for all concerned but there you go. Instead of returning home with us, JC and Magdalen were invited to to The Roundhouse in London by Matthews Southern Comfort who were to join the bill with MC5 and another unannounced act, Humble Pie. We loved Steve Marriott and Humble Pie and were really pissed off at the loss of opportunity to see and meet him. Apparently, JC and Magdalen had been offered the full star treatment if they could find their way to the gig and were even offered a lift in Matthews Southern Comfort's tour van but JC's state had put the kibosh on that. Of course, there's a lot of assumption on my part here. Maybe we wouldn't have been welcome back stage. Maybe the invite was just to JC and Magdalen. Besides, nobody was in the mood to do anything except stay put or go home.
In general it was the freaks, the stoners, the lost causes and head cases who stayed at Phun City, and god bless his cotton picking socks JC fitted every description. Of course Magdalen had gone along with his wishes answering "probably longer than that" when JC asked "how long do you want to stay". It's more likely that she wanted to leave with the rest of us but JC was a very hard man to say no to. So many times I'd fallen under his spell as he'd invited me to do something I would never dream of doing normally but he invariably finished the question with a big stupid smile. I'd break into a laugh, he'd follow and I'd think what the hell and I'd be in the deep end again. On that occasion though Magdalen probably stuck around to keep him happy or maybe just to see that he'd be OK, but for the rest of us Phun City was different. The whole thing from the last twenty four hours had made me look at JC in a different light. In a way it was the beginning of the end as we never really spoke about the weekend after that. And he knew we weren't going to follow him on that one. There's something about needles that makes it too real. Snorting, sniffing, smoking, inhaling, licking and swallowing were all acceptable but needles nooo.