Wychwood and the Hitman

Doves were playing at Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham last weekend, obviously it was lurking in my own diary until my year changed drastically which jostled some memories. Wychwood was the Earlies first proper festival in 2005 and it showed us how desperately unprepared we were. We’d done Tryptych a few months earlier in Scotland but that’d been more like doing a small venue tour, we’d had set up time and soundchecks. This was the first time we were subjected to festival changeover times and it was still taking us hours to setup and line-check. I think we had half an hour changeover at Wychwood and it took us an hour. It didn’t matter as we were headlining that day but there was a full tent watching us set up, particularly me wiring up the ludicrous keyboard setup. We were preposterously late to start our set and whilst it didn’t matter as it was a relatively small and forgiving festival we knew we’d have to get our act together before tackling Glastonbury in less that a month’s time. The gig was also significant in that we had to do it without Sara, she was at a wedding. Our natural choice for a stand-in would’ve been Kate but she was at the same wedding. We got our good friend Seaming To to stand in and she obviously nailed it. If you’ve never listened to Seaming I strongly suggest you do, she’s a phenomenal musician of otherworldly abilities. If I could somehow elevate her to international superstar I would but all I can do is offer a link to her last EP here in the humble hope that seeds grow.

The thing is, for Nicky and me that weekend was all about one thing and it wasn’t the Earlies at Wychwood festival, it was the contest for the undisputed light-welterweight crown at the MEN arena in Manchester on the Saturday. We’d become fans early on and we’d become fairly committed fans after we saw him win a grueling twelve rounder over Jon Thaxton where he’d sustained a grisly cut above the left eye in the first round. He was the absolute best of British sportsmanship, he was polite and self deprecating out of the ring and a hurricane of excitement when in it. We started following him everywhere and spending whatever money we could squeeze out of our oddly stalled existences on fight tickets. We bought Ring magazine every month keeping an eye on the light welterweight undisputed listings, Hatton started edging into the top ten gradually but there was always one man at the top of that chart and it was Kosta Tsuyu.

Tsuyu was as serious as it gets, the mountain that Ricky Hatton had to climb and the absolute crowning achievement of his career. It’s all been weirdly overshadowed because of the heartbreaking, high profile losses that closed his career but in 2004 nobody believed he’d get to fight Tsuyu let alone beat him. Tsuyu had been considered the undisputed champion since 2001 and was holding the IBF title, he’d been stripped of the WBC and WBA titles for failing to fight their mandatory challenges but he hadn’t lost them. People were starting to accuse Hatton of fighting has-beens and nobodies and he needed a credible shot at the big titles. Kosta Tsuyu was way beyond credible, he was true world class of the sort that Ricky Hatton had never faced.

There was something that Kosta Tsuyu had never faced though and that was a glaringly partisan Manchester arena on a hot summer night. I’ve experience live football hundreds of times, live rugby, American football, boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts. And of course I’ve watched and been part of live music at all sorts of levels, I still am. Nothing will ever quite compare to the atmosphere of a Ricky Hatton fight at the arena in Manchester ever again. All of 22,000 people pouring every bit of their love, passion and hope into one person and all their hatred and vitriol into another, with a volume and constant intensity that you never see in any other sports setting. It gave Ricky extra muscles for every body shot he threw and legs that held him up for longer when his own head was swimming. To sit on top of that mountain of human energy must have been utterly intoxicating and in the end almost impossibly painful to leave behind. Boxers come down harder than anyone when their career finishes. I think we need to take better care of them.

I’m always telling you to listen to albums aren’t I? Why not watch a fight this week? If you’re dead against it I’ll understand. If you think boxing is barbaric you’re right and I’m wrong but this 48 old version of Christian Madden sat 20 years in the future is going to sit down and watch the whole thing again. I’m going to forget how it goes and live the whole glorious, ugly spectacle one more time.

Spoiler…

It got to the end of the 11th round, a grueling ugly fight. Dirty even. Ricky had nothing left, he couldn’t imagine how he could possibly stand up and do that for three more minutes. On the video you can hear Billy Graham saying “I don’t care how fucking tired you are…” It turned out all he had to do was stand up to walk to the middle of the ring, Kosta Tsuyu could not do the same.

That’s Rocky II level shit right there.

Forget about the fact that he went on to lose to two of the best boxers on the face of the planet, there’s no shame in that and he had nothing that he needed to prove. Ricky Hatton was the best of us and we should never have let him feel like we’d forgotten that.

Did You Know?

Billy asked us this week, did we know this fact about the cover of These Were The Earlies?

The front and back were meant to be one image, which would like this if lined up…

Well I fucking didn’t! Then again I’ve never met Rina or talked to her. I couldn’t pick her out of a police lineup. I hope she’s never in one.

It would only work if the flower was put sideways on the cover so the idea was a non starter.

But still, 2025 and I’m learning facts about the output of a band I was in!

1969

Listen to enough Brian Auger and the Trinity and sooner or later the algorithm will steer you and you’ll end up listening to Julie Driscoll’s 1971 solo effort 1969. How confusing! It was released in 1971 but recorded in 1969, nowadays that’s neither here nor there but I imagine there was some frustration when she went into the label to be told that the release of 1969 had to unfortunately postponed to 1970. And then 1971. “Sorry Julie, the pressing plant are mowed out…” “Sorry Julie, there’s been a printers’ strike…”

It’s brilliant though and absolutely worth a listen. She started working with Keith Tippet around this point, he later joined King Crimson and later still the two of them were married. Tippet brings an army of A-list session players with him featuring the fantastic Chris Spedding, a session player who has such an illustrious career that it’s almost unfair that I repeatedly reduce it the following: he played on War Of The Worlds.

Tim Burton

We had a trip to the Design Museum last week to see The World Of Tim Burton, an exhibition featuring sketches, models, painting, photography and more by the acclaimed director. It’s wonderful, if I could change anything I’d take all the other visitors out but then they probably felt the same way about me. He’s gifted across so many different disciplines and I’d forgotten how many of his films I’ve loved. We are big stop motion animation fans in our house so probably seeing his armatures in various states would be a highlight.

And of course I’d forgotten about these little fellows who really did tickle me back in the day.

Check this out though. I found out that Tim Burton worked as a puppeteer on the Muppet Movie, that was worth the admission price alone. I tried to look up who his hand was stuck in but I haven’t gotten anywhere yet. I have found out that John Landis was a puppeteer too though. His hand was inside Grover.

So Much In Love

Thank you dearest internet for allowing me to stumble into this joyous clip of Huey Lewis and the News singing So Much In Love. What a band! Ignore the fact that they all look a bit like Wall Street Paul from the Goodnight Club and probably drive white BMWs, listen to them! (I take that back for Huey who has film star good looks). Maybe you’re not a huge fan of Huey Lewis and the News but I think you’d accept sitting for a few pints in a room where this was taking place, it looks like heaven to me.