SOBER AT GLASTONBURY 

[DISCLAIMER: this post begins with a massive gig “clang”, which is a cardinal social media sin, if you’re a musician. Fellow musos might click “like” on your filtered panoramic picture of an enormous festival crowd taken from the stage during a televised headline slot and many of them will think “Ah. That’s nice. What a lovely gig! Good for you.” However, others will think and possibly say on a Whatsapp group, “What a boasty twat.” ESPECIALLY if the caption underneath is a breezy, “Today’s office….” So I apologise in advance for what I’m about to write. Sort of.]

Last weekend, I played at Glastonbury with a brilliant band who were headlining the Pyramid Stage. I had a blast, and by some miracle, given my history of raging alcoholism and addiction, I didn’t have to drink. When I was on stage, looking out at the thousands of people with the flags, singing and dancing, albeit in cagoules and thigh deep in mud, I had a lovely, glowy moment of gratitude, remembering the first few weeks of my sobriety, rattling with librium and trying not to drink one hour at a time whilst signing on at the Jobcentre in Birkenhead, sure I’d never be well enough to play the cello again. Even though I’ve been sober for a long time now, I still go to work and genuinely marvel at the fact that I’m paid to play the cello in public, and the water bottle in my handbag is filled with actual water, and not Aldi own brand vodka [other paint strippers are available].

However. Playing at festivals when you’re a recovering alcoholic addict is not easy. In my early sobriety, doing what I did last week would have been searingly painful. A few years in, I had a couple of moderately difficult moments and a few transcendentally wonderful ones. I don’t tell you this so you’ll think I’m marvellous. I take ZERO credit for my recovery. It sounds weird to lovely people who say to me on finding out I haven’t drank for a long time, “Well done!”, like it was some kind of strength on my part that has led to my not drinking. It actually has very little to do with me and everything to do with the legions of other recovering people who have helped me. I have managed somehow to stay sober in spite of me, not because of me. So if anyone out there is newly sober and reading this thinking, “How the hell am I going to work at a FESTIVAL and not drink and take drugs?” I’m here to tell you: if this panic stricken lush can do it, so can you.

HOW TO WORK AT A FESTIVAL AND STAY SOBER

1. Know your limits. 

In my first year of sobriety, I was booked to play at Glastonbury, and then unbooked, because the management of the band changed the number of string players they required.  As the rest of the quartet I was a member of headlined the Park Stage with a famous band, I was waitressing in a burger joint on the Kings Road, having just attended a 12 step meeting in a church basement. I was about 8 months sober. The sense of rejection, isolation and injustice was profound. I cleaned bottles of condiments and served burgers to the red trousered people of Chelsea, weeping on the inside. In desperation I rang my sponsor who said, “You’ll hate me for saying this. But rejection is protection. You’re not ready.” I wanted to lob the phone at the wall, but as usual, she was right. I could not have got on a tour bus full of free booze and not drank at that point. I was still suffering huge amounts of anxiety, which peaked when I had to perform. 

If you have a feeling that you’re putting yourself in danger, channel Nancy Reagan and Just Say No. We tend to struggle with that, particularly in the competitive freelance game we’re in. Contrary to what our heads can tell us, saying “no” does not herald the end of your career in music or mean that you will never be well enough in the future to work a festival again. There is a saying that you will lose anything that you prioritise over your recovery. Looking after yourself first is always the right thing, no matter how alien it feels. 

I try as much as I can to travel independently to festivals so I can leave when I like and I’m not trapped on a festival site. Sometimes that’s impossible, particularly if you are a member of the stage crew. Crew work longer hours, with bigger gaps of time off and it is their job to stay when all the turns have pranced off the stage. When it’s not possible to leave, I have hidden in my tour bus bunk with my kindle when the party atmosphere gets triggery. Ok fine, maybe I mean downloaded episodes of Call the Midwife. I love Sister Evangelina. Sue me. One of the reasons I enjoyed my Glasto experience last weekend is because I was there for a total of about 8 hours. I drove in on a tourbus, I played, I left soon afterwards. That’s about as much as I can deal with. 

2. Get to a meeting, before, after or during. Or all three. 

I try to bookend anything “big” with a 12 step meeting. One before the event, one after. I talk about the event in both meetings and possibly bore people to tears, but hey, as the saying goes, you can’t save your arse and your face at the same time. Some UK festivals have a 12 step tent where you can go and connect with other clean and sober people. Glastonbury’s Healing Fields has a 12 step dome for people in recovery. Most of the larger US festivals like Coachella have sober tents and daily meetings. If a meeting is not an option, you’d be surprised how many of us there are just milling about backstage. Recovering alcoholics and addicts tend to pop up like undercover angels when you’re in a bind. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been on the verge of a panic attack somewhere and a member of the 12 step community gets on the tube, or turns out to be on the PR team of the gig, or waves at me from a lighting rig. Just knowing I’m not alone by catching a glimpse of them, has kept me sober during difficult moments. 

3. What other people think of you is none of your business.

This kernel of 12 step wisdom has saved my life. Honestly. Assimilate this. Absorb it to your core. Vast swathes of my early recovery were spent worrying that people who knew me thought I was weak, for being an alcoholic panic mechanic, or worse still, BORING for being sober and never partying. I know people who have relapsed because it was so uncomfortable being the only person not drinking in any given situation. Years of not drinking and Irish goodbyes at after parties have taught me this slightly depressing but incredibly liberating truth: NO ONE CARES. I have this weird euphoric recall that when I was drinking I was the life and soul and in the thick of things, connecting with everyone and having fun. The reality was grim, and dark, and lonely, and lasted long after the party was over. In 8 years of not drinking, someone has been a bit of a bellend about me not drinking and talking openly about it, on maybe 3 occasions. At the time, it made me feel lonely and defective. Those people have always been big drinkers themselves, and a couple of them have since had to stop drinking. Painfully, I learnt that it was never really about me, and very much about them. On that note, try to resist comparing yourself to other people drinking at a festival or in your touring crew. It’s pointless and painful. I did so much of this at the beginning. I was obsessed with how people drank socially without incident and then went to work the next day with a bit of a hangover and not like they were on the edge of an emotional abyss. It doesn’t matter. All I know is, I can’t do it. 

4. Don’t worry if you have a hangover afterwards - even if you didn’t drink.

This sounds weird and unfair. But that’s only because it is. I felt wobbly for two days after my Glastonbury experience. This happens after every “big” gig I do. For a hyper sensitive person who feels too much, all the time, playing in front of thousands of people whilst coursing with adrenaline is no small thing. Even when it’s caused by excitement and not fear, adrenaline is powerful. When I come off stage, there’s no option of alcohol, drugs or letting off chemical steam. It’s just me, and my adrenaline, and if I’m feeling crazy, a slimline tonic water. Then put me on a tourbus where people are drinking the rider in a functional and good natured way, (ie not like a frenzied animal, like me) and it still just me, fizzing with flight or fight chemicals. Then I go home to my beautiful toddler who has decided lately that sleeping is for wimps, and the crash back down to earth is extreme. I have felt it for most of this week, in the form of extreme tiredness and low level doom in my solar plexus. On Tuesday, I went to a meeting, I said, “I have a hangover even though I didn’t drink.” Lots of heads nodded sympathetically. I felt less alone with it. 

5. Practise gratitude

When I was first sober I did a lot of angry grieving. Accepting I was an alcoholic and that I couldn’t drink safely was a process which was for quite a long time, acutely painful. Dealing with debilitating anxiety without my medicine, straight spirits in a water bottle (no you’re classy) was revolting. I felt angry and resentful and frightened a lot of the time. I found it hard to be grateful and easy to feel hard done by and sorry for myself. My loneliness was confounded when I went to work with people who drank and had what I thought looked like a great time. I had to go through that horrible stage to get to the far nicer place I’m in now. These days I’m grateful to know what’s wrong with me. I don’t mind that my colleagues can get pleasantly trollied without consequences after a gig. Sometimes I want to codependently remind everyone to line their stomachs, but that might be because I’m a mother now…..anyway, all I need to know is: I don’t drink like them. I never have, and I never will. Now I’m just glad that I get asked to work at all. I show up on time and avoid any potential dramas. Onstage, I try and play as well as I can on stage but to be honest I’m largely thinking about what my son’s eating for dinner or if my mum or husband are alright looking after him while I’m at work. It’s very different in my head now. Thank God. 

In my zombie like state the day after I got home from Glastonbury, my son and I watched the set I played in with the on demand gogglebox. Well I watched, he toddled around shouting and periodically ricocheting off the furniture. About halfway through there was a close up of me playing and smiling because I was actually enjoying myself. (My resting face for a long time whilst playing the cello looked like rigor mortis, such was the fear and mental effort.) My boy pointed at the screen and said “MAMA!” like it was the best thing ever and it may have been the tiredness, but a little bit of gratitude did spill out of my eyeballs. Eight years ago this scenario was simply not on the cards. It’s all possible when you put the substances down.

MR A CELLO

The only drawback about being a cellist, is the requirement to carry a cello about your person in order to go to work. Cellos aren’t heavy, exactly, but they are unwieldy. Cases with wheels, unless they are heavy duty ones designed for flights, aren’t brilliant for the cello, which in my case, is old. 200 years old, to be precise. You only have to fart in its general direction for one of the seams to come unglued and start rattling ominously, so I have a lightweight case which I  carry like a rucksack. If you are a cellist, minding your own business, on your way to or from a rehearsal or gig, whether you like it or not, you attract a bit of attention. People stare, not at my radiant beauty, but at the enormous cello shaped protrusion on my back, giving me the appearance of a turtle. I am tall, and the neck of the cello juts past my head like a shiny white tumour, which confuses onlookers, and necessitates stooping awkwardly to avoid smacking it into door frames, or indeed my fellow commuters. I cut an ungainly figure, going up tube escalators, getting on and off buses. Some people have a good gawp. I am unfazed. Unfortunately, many of the general public don’t stop at gawping. Carrying a cello on London’s public transport is like having a sign on your head saying  “Please, by all means, stop and chat. The odder the opening gambit, the better.”  Like many women, even in this day and age, I dread walking past building sites, but the cello on my back means that the usual “Cheer up love, it might ever ‘appen” is converted to, ‘’Ow’ d’you get that under your chin?’  ‘What’ve you got in there love, a machine gun?’ ‘I bet you wish you’d played the trumpet’  Or, if you’re really unlucky, ‘What’s it like having a piece of wood between your legs all day darlin’?’” They all think they’re the very first person to say it and are visibly disappointed when I don’t react by convulsing with mirth. 

I’m not proud to say this, as I am close friends with a number of stoic double bassists who unflinchingly use public transport all the time, but carrying a cello to work sometimes means that I am horribly grumpy. It may just be because I’m a curmudgeon, but I like to think it’s more to do with the fact that my back is sweating under a fibreglass turtle shell, my shoulders hurt, and by the time I reach my destination, I have had all manner of discourse with my fellow passengers, who either sigh loudly at the almighty inconvenience of having to make space for me and my cello, or quiz me about my big guitar. I had an altercation with a man on the Jubilee line recently who was convinced I was carrying a bassoon. “What is it then?” he demanded suspiciously, when I dared to correct him. If I so much as make eye contact with a middle aged posh person, (usually en route to Cadogan Hall in Chelsea)  they ask me if I’m in the London Symphony Orchestra and when I say no, are clearly unimpressed. People fall over themselves to tell me about their niece who plays the trumpet, or their late father who owned a banjo.....honestly,  the links are tenuous. “Are you aware of John Smith? He taught me the violin during the war.” “Hmm, I don’t think I am, no….’

On a good day, I’ll be gracious. I’ll smile gamely, make encouraging noises about the trumpet playing niece, say, “No I’m not in the London Symphony Orchestra, talented bunch though aren’t they?” and politely ignore cheeky builders. I don’t relish being rude. Actually that’s not true; I don’t relish the feeling of burning shame and regret after I have been rude. On tough days, which FYI are days 21-26 of my menstrual cycle (you’re welcome), I’ve started to pretend I speak no English to avoid the dreaded cello chat.

When I was young, I carried my cello on the school bus every day. I went to an all girls school, but the bus was shared with the local boys school. It was perfectly possible to commit social suicide by sitting on the wrong seat, let alone hauling on a big cello and then sitting with it, in case someone twatted it with a rucksack. I tried to compensate for my blatant geekery by wearing short skirts, biker boots and an unhealthy amount of eyeliner (all of which I do to this day), but when push came to shove, it was my reputation or the cello, and I chose the cello. 

Air travel is when I start to rue my decision to be a cellist, and not say, a piccolo player. Or accountant. When cellists travel by plane, they don’t put their cellos in the hold, as the pressure, temperature and the occasional unscrupulous baggage handler can render their antique instruments cracked, broken, or as in one absolute horror story, the consistency of soggy cardboard. Whoever books the cellist pays for an extra seat for said cellist. It’s expensive, but it’s standard practice, and with the sheer number of performances and recording sessions happening the world over, cellists must travel by plane with their cellos, every day. Yet inexplicably, when I arrive at the airport, the expression on the faces of the airline personnel would suggest I am travelling with a pterodactyl, not a musical instrument.

It begins at the check-in desk. Confusion abounds as the cello has a seat booked but is not a human person. It has no passport. There is a kerfuffle concerning whether or not the cello should have a boarding pass. And if it should, what should it say? Invariably, the flummoxed airline employees behind the desk have to radio their superiors, before confusedly printing off a boarding pass bearing the name “Mr A Cello”,  “Mrs Cello Cello” or in one freak incident where the check- in lady had a sense of humour, “Miss Limon Cello”. Oh, how we laughed. Then there’s getting it through security. As poor Mr A Cello is slid, undignified on his back down the conveyor belt with hastily removed belts, shoes and laptops, I start praying that the security people don’t realise that with four metal strings that could strangle someone and a titanium endpin that would rupture a spleen, I am taking potentially lethal items on board the aircraft. Luckily they are usually preoccupied with the half drunk bottle of Highland Spring in my handbag.

The madness doesn’t end there. Boarding the aircraft is often a rigmarole because as “the passenger with a cello”, I am supposed to board first. The contempt from the other passengers is palpable, as I progress, able bodied, up to the front of the queue to stand with women carrying newborn babies, or people wheeling elderly grandparents. I’m usually seated right at the back of the plane, so Mr A Cello and I can sit together, like honeymooners, out of the way of the other passengers. I hate this as I am a nervous flyer (actually, I am a nervous person, in a tin can rocketing through the sky. I’m suspicious of people who are not a bit scared of flying. What are you? Immortal?) and I have had to do long haul flights next to Mr A cello. He’s nice and everything, but he’s not the best conversationalist.  Most airlines insist that the cello be put upside down in a window seat, which is a bit of a ballache. A few go to the extent of bringing on board an actual engineer, who strides down the aisle in a hi-vis jacket bearing long blue ropes, ready to heroically tie the cello into its seat. Presumably in case the cello decides to get up and wander off, chat up the cabin crew or disturb the pilot. On one occasion, despite my insistence that I could manage it myself, the engineer enlisted to tie down Mr A Cello was delayed, no doubt sedating someone’s pet hamster, lest it bite the face off a member of the cabin crew. The entire packed plane was held up until he made his way down the aisle and the interminable knotting procedure was completed. Just as my mortification was subsiding and we were taxiing down the runway, the pilot’s voice came through the tannoy: “Sorry for the delay everyone, but we have a passenger with a...” he hesitated, “cheeeello? And it needed to be properly secured.” Heads craned over seats to glare back at me and poor old Mr A Cello, grudgingly upside down and covered in reef knots.  

I grumble, but I don’t have any desire to play any other instrument. Apart from the harp. And there’s no way I’m carrying one of those. The cello is cool. Ask Apocalyptica, they’ll tell you. Also, I’m such a long limbed person that when I wear black, I’ve been told I look like a spider. I’d look all wrong playing something else. For now, it’s me and Mr A Cello. If you see us on the tube, just don’t ask me how I get it under my chin.