McFly in a Forest
Sherwood Pines Forest Park - 20th June 2009
We'd seen that The Forestry Commission were holding some more concerts at their, erm... forests this summer and that the mighty McFly were playing the Sherwood Pines Forest Park near Mansfield (North of Nottingham). I also noticed that children under the age of five were allowed into these gigs for no charge, so it seemed daft not to get a couple of tickets and take the lad to see his favourite band... And here's what happened!
Are We There Yet?
The weather on the Saturday morning of the gig was horrendous in Stockers. Me and the lad were out and about in the morning doing the shopping and it was lashing it down. This was not a good start for a day which would see us driving over the hills to stand outside and watch a gig. It started to tail off a little at dinner time, which was a relief, but it was still looking a little threatening in the sky, so when we got home, we packed up the stuff and threw the waterproofs into the gig bag. I'd made sure that Sam got a bit tired in the morning so he could have a rest in the afternoon ready for the evening's fun. We also hoped that he'd sleep on the journey too.
I was really looking forward to the night as it would be Sam's first gig of choice and we'd been building it up with him for a couple of months. The lad has a few DVDs and CDs of the band and has been looking forward to the night out since McFly would be there, it would be a "family day" and a reward for being good for a few months. I was also looking forward to it as it would be a band I've not seen before.
We got ready to go in view to leaving at 5pm-ish, which would give us plenty of time to get to Mansfield. I had the route to Mansfield, but the route from there to the actual park was a bit misty, but I thought it'd be fine as I could follow the traffic! We were actually all ready to go and setting off by about 5.25pm, which wasn't bad.
The journey was largely uneventful, but very pleasant as we were using A roads and the sun was coming out, leaving us with a beautiful and clear evening. The roads were pretty clear and we trundled across the countryside to our gig in plenty of time. There was no real fast-dashing in the car either since it was a nice drive and Sam was having a bit of a sleep in the back.
There was a bit of dodginess in finding the venue itself, but we got there with little trouble and drove through the forest gates and the trees into the car park. It took about 90 minutes to get there, but that was fine as the journey was pleasant enough. It was a big car park and looked a bit busy, but we were reasonably near the entrance of the area so getting out wouldn't be too horrendous at the end of the night. We got our stuff together and wandered to the arena.
Trees? What Trees?
The venue itself was very pleasant (I'm using that word a lot today) and just as you would think it would look. Sam was almost running to the arena and we were constantly shouting him back to us so he wouldn't get lost. At the turnstiles, the people on the gate didn't bother to check Sammo's age as he ran through, so we could have taken the piss and maybe will next year if there's another gig on like this! You could see the stage from the entrance and the sizable crowd that was in there. The stage was at one end of a field surrounded by tall trees and there were good views of the action from all round. We took a spot for our chair and blanket near the back and settled down.
I took Sammo off for an explore and we took a look at the stuff on sale at the Merch stand. Unfortunately, the T-Shirts that they had on offer only had tour dates up to the beginning of the month and I didn't want to buy the lad a shirt that didn't have the actual gig date he was at on. So he asked for a poster for his room and a glowing stick thing (more on that damn thing later) for him to wave around later on. It was a nice place to wander round and you could get everywhere easily. The audience was made up of the kids (well, lots of teen girls with mobile phones) at the front and all the parents near the back. It certainly was a family event, since mum or dad would have had to go so the kids could get to to and from the gig OK since it was miles from anywhere!
We went back to were Mum was and settled down for the first band. They were called Vagabond and had a nice line in pleasant pop. The guy had a good voice and they seemed to be appreciated well enough by the crowd. They had a thirty minute slot and seemed to go down well, apart from one song which seemed to go on a bit and was a bit slow. Sammo was dancing away from the first note of the first song and was having a whale of a time. I just hoped he wouldn't burn out too quick!
At this point, we got the food out and the lad was in seventh heaven. We had some grub and relaxed and took in the last bit of heat from the setting sun as it went down behind the trees.
Vagabond left the stage half an hour later and we had to wait for the big lads to arrive on stage. Me and Sam spent the time playing around and rolling about on the picnic blanket playing tickle monsters and all that sort of thing. We were having a lovley old time and the lad kept asking if the band were coming on yet. After another thirty minutes, it was showtime.
The Main Event
The band were introduced and strode out onto the stage to a barrage of screaming from all the girls at the front. They then launched into the first song. I can't tell you all the songs that they played or remember the song they opened with, but I think it may have been the one along the lines of "Song for the Radio". I also know that they played "Transalvania", "All About You", "Five Colours in Her Hair" and "Star Girl". I did recognise some of the other songs that they played from CDs we've got at home, but I'd need to see the covers and track lists to tell you what was played.
The sound was pretty good though and the band attacked the songs with a lot of energy. As a live band, they are not half bad, although they didn't half waffle on sometimes during the song breaks. I reckon that they could have fit another song in in the time they spent talking about nothing!
I put Sammo up on my shoulders and took him off for a walk to the front so he could see the action close-up. He had his big green ear defenders on to protect his lug'oles, so I thought it'd be great fun to get a bit of pogoing in! We got a good view off to stage right and watched the action. The lad was clapping and screaming when the girles screamed and he was having a great old time up there. It's a shame we were off to the side since he couldn't see Harry on the drums, but he could see the rest of them well. It was great to be down the front with the boy on my shoulders and (at the risk of sounding totally wet) it was a nice dad-and-lad time. We ended up going to the front a couple of times to see what was going on and Sam got quite a few girlies looking at him and "awwwwwww-ing".
It was here that the stupid and very expensive flashing light thing that we bought for Sam revealed itself to be a big waste of money and broke. So I sprinted back to the merch stand and asked them to swap it for a working one. They looked at the thing like it had just taken a leak on them and showed that they'd had too many of those damn things returned that day. Needless to say, Sam was VERY happy when I returned with a working one, although it didn't take long to see that the button on that one was dodgy too!
About half way through, the lad did seem to show signs of flagging and lay down a couple of times for a break. But as soon as we thought that he was going to conk out, he'd be back up and rocking, bless him! He lasted right through to the encores before the first signs of potential trouble showed. There was no rendition of "Heart Never Lies", which is his absolute favourite McFly song. During the encore break, he asked whether they would play it or not and both me and his Mum hoped that they would get to it. Unfortunately, they didn't, so when the gig ended after a rousing "Five Colours in Her Hair", there were tears. We had to tell him that that's the way gigs go sometimes and you don't always get the songs you want. Luckily, he settled down and he did get some of the songs he liked during the show, so it was all smoothed over as we picked up our blanket and chair and set off to the exit.
Home Time
Since it was a warm evening and the traffic was it's usual crappy self getting out of the car park, we sat and relaxed for a while. Kez was not feeling too good and Sammo was tired, so we sat for a while and had a drink whilst we sat out the wait for the cars to get out of the way. In the end, we got bored of waiting, so I decided to just go for it and leave. I managed to push into the out queue pretty easily and we were in the queue to get out of the park. We found the route we should have used to get us to the gig and jumped on it, avoiding a lot of the traffic that was building up trying to get home. The rest of the drive was fine and we got home about 90 minutes later with Sam asleep and us both ready for our bed too.
It was a great night out and I thoroughly enjoyed taking my boy to his gig and hope that we can do it again soon. The event itself was extremely family friendly with a lovely atmosphere and a good band to entertain us all. The band were great fun and if they came around again, I'd go if Sam faniced it. I'd even think about it if he didn't and the band promised to stop nattering and get rocking!
I love looking at all the photos from the day since we're all smiling and having a great time. I saw the evening as a great night-before-Father's-Day trip out and I'll always have fond memories of it.
Awwwwwwwwwww!
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© 2006 Graham T. Ebbrell