A Mouse in the Dark

A Mouse in the Dark

There’s a clip, where Robert Plant appears,

In polka-dot shirt and trousers tight;

Saying, “Thanks for eleven years”,

Thus ending Led Zeppelin’s second night,

At Knebworth; August, nineteen seventy

Nine; a gig which wasn’t meant to be

John Bonham’s swan song in the UK,

(In less than a year, he passed away),

And though I attended that one, of two

Concerts, the story I here relate,

Concerns not the band, so much as a mate,

Along with other people I once knew,

All given aliases, as their real

Names are best left anonymous, I feel.

It wasn’t my first all-day festival

Attendance; I’d been to a few before,

(Though Knebworth, I remember, best of all),

And I’ve since been to one or two more,

But farther from the stage I’ve never been,

The crowd was the largest I’ve ever seen;

I hoped we were near a portaloo;

The night before, having been resigned to

Taking a dump in the open air,

Crouched by a bush, and exposed by torchlight;

Shone by the steward’s with mirthful delight,

As I wiped in resignation and despair:

And of that anecdote I’ve more to tell,

Along with a few others as well...

“What’s the time Graham?”, “Quarter to ten;

When’s the first band on?”, “I dunno; three?

At least five hours; I’ll skin up again;

Can I nick a fag Graham? Cheers G”.

Graham, Troy, Jim, and yours truly,

The previous day, had duly

Arrived by train, late afternoon,

And, seeing as it would be dusky soon,

We pitched up the tent in the nearest spot,

Or I should say: Graham pitched up his

Small tent, whilst we, basically took the piss,

Drinking warm larger and smoking pot,

Using tobacco from Graham’s cigs;

The same as we’d done at previous gigs.

Jim toked on my badly rolled joint,

Sucking, frowning and sucking, once more;

“It’s too tight”, he said, “There’s no fucking point”,

Adding, in a tone I tried to ignore:

“As usual”, upon handing it back,

To me, and I, achieving the same lack

Of success, winced involuntarily.

(Even now I wince occasionally,

Recalling dwelling painfully,

On the barbed remarks, he often dealt,

Impervious to how I felt,

Upon being addressed, disdainfully,

And though I never once heard him say

“You cunt”, I felt like one anyway).

The two man tent being pitched, Graham stood

Surveying his work: “It’s a bit small,

But I reckon it’s probably good

Enough; none of us are all that tall”.

Jim, needing a pee, walked hurriedly,

To a dome marquee, which supposedly

Contained toilets, and as the night drew,

There was a breeze; it was chilly too;

I tried to catch eyes with good looking

Girls, as Graham, Troy and I made our way

To a party of sorts where, hippies lay

Stoned, spuds on a bonfire were cooking,

As Jim showed with Clare; a girl he’d met

In the dome, where they’d had a tête-à-tête.

August nineteen seventy nine:

New wave was king of the music scene;

Punk had been, for a while, in decline;

Debbie Harry was a post-punk queen;

Tunes by the likes of The Boomtown Rats,

And Squeeze (Remember Cool for Cats?)

Were repeatedly played in night clubs,

And on juke boxes in cafés and pubs;

But: "Hold up," you say, "New wave? Squeeze
And The Boomtown Rats were not so!"

My dear pedantic reader; I know;

Allow me some poetic license please;

They charted well, not least the top ten,

Though both were indeed, “Pub rock” back then.

In any case; that night in Hertfordshire,

I travelled back in time, to a decade

Prior to that long-ago year,

Whilst smoking a joint, expertly made;

Passed to me, by an aged hippy,

Whose ramblings, exceedingly trippy,

Filled the vacuum left by the cease

Of guitar and bongos. Here follows a piece;

A fragment, of wisdom, he shared:

“A mouse in the dark is deadlier than

A tiger, and that’s the truth, man”,

I nodded sagely, and he declared,

As a large log on the bonfire caught flame:

“Your Genesis top; I’ve got one the same”.

Suddenly, it seemed the gathering

Entire had focused attention on me

In anticipation of how blathering

My reply to the hippy might be;

And when he, with an inquisitive frown,

Asked, “Did you buy it at The Lamb Lies Down

Tour, Earls Court, in seventy five?” I

Responded with a face saving lie:

“Yeah, what a gig, Peter Gabriel was great;

What do you think of his solo stuff?”

But he had evidently had enough;

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard it mate” .

And with that he wrapped himself up tight

In a blanket, and went out like a light.

Grateful for this reprieve, I turned

With a smile, as I passed the joint

To Clare, and wasn’t at all concerned

When Jim, re lavvies, touched on a point,

Which later touched me, considerably:

“There’s no toilet in the marquee,

But I only needed a piss”, he said,

“So I had one in a bush instead”.

It was quite cold, and the fire was dying;

But Graham and Troy seemed cosy enough,

Albeit, crashed out, sleeping rough

On the grass, and there’s no denying,

When Clare said, “Leave them, let’s go to your tent”;

Jim and I nodded, in mutual assent.

Earlier on I’d chatted with Clare (who

Incidentally was my age, i.e.

Eighteen, and very pretty too)

About things rock related, namely

Led Zeppelin; she being of the view,

Their best album was Zeppelin Two.

I asked if she was here alone,

And she said yes, she was on her own,

But was meeting her friend by the main gate

Tomorrow; and now, she needed somewhere

To sleep, which Jim offered, with room to spare:

A large tent that could sleep at least eight!

Yes, he was devious, through and through,

(And Clare in retrospect probably knew).

There in the tent, the three of us lay with

Clare in the middle; I tried to prepare,

In the dark, a half decent spliff,

Which I was hoping to share with Clare,

Who, I suppose, I may as well admit,

I’d fallen in love with a little bit;

Please, don’t laugh, this story’s impact

Would lesson in wanting of the fact

That I was green in actuality,

And Clare’s age, along with her prettiness,

(Already mentioned in parenthesis),

Combined with our commonality

In music; formulating, in my mind,

A potion, making us two of a kind.

I nudged her gently, but she gave no

Response; Jim was dozing snoring;

I tried sleeping too, but couldn’t let go;

Was Clare asleep or simply ignoring

Me? After what seemed like an age,

I could feel the beginnings of a rage

Inside, and as time dragged, it got worse

And worse and I uttered a curse

And the rage grew into a thundering

Wind and I knew, from experience,

This wind was a prologue to an immense

Tempest; oh God! An intense sundering

Bowel breaking pain; I couldn’t stand it!

……In short; I was dying for a shit.

“For fucks sake what are you trying

To do?” Asked Jim, as I clambered over

Him; I couldn’t say I was dying

For a shit, else my Casanova

Credentials be obliterated

In Clare’s eyes, (though she was irritated

As well, going by the gasp she gave),

So, in a futile attempt to save

Face, I said, “I think I might have dropped

My Zippo somewhere by the bonfire,

And I’m sure Jim muttered “You liar”,

But a tortoise can rarely be stopped,

Once it’s decided to rear its head,

So I ignored Jim and from the tent, fled.

I headed for the dome marquee in haste,

And, on recalling what I'd been told

About about the lack of bodily waste

Provisions, I put the tortoise on hold,

And approached a few stewards, standing

In front of the main gate, disbanding

Gate crashers, bidding no doubt, to get close

To the stage, hence receiving a dose

Of verbal abuse, (and maybe a touch

Of physical); there was some hedgerow

Behind which, the stewards I begged to go,

As I needed a dump so very much;

“Yeah, but don’t take forever”, said one;

I was there in a flash with flies undone.

"Don’t worry; I won’t leave a mess,

I’ve got a bag; I’ll throw it in the bin”.

Said I, in a state of half-undress

From behind a bush, having shat in

A discarded crisp bag (no mean feat)

And presently, wiping clean with an old sheet

Of newsprint, ripped from The Daily Mail

By a kindly steward; “You done yet pal?”

Came a gruff call, and suddenly beams

Of powerful Torchlight were shining

On me; very clearly defining

My arse, and accompanied by the screams

And laugher of girls, their attention

Drawn by stewards with comic intention.

“Here have a look at this, girls” I heard,

As the audience and laughter increased;

I was quite panicked and hurriedly spurred

As well as embarrassed, but at least

The stewards had let me shit, in the dark

Before shining their torches for a lark,

(Although on later contemplation

It wasn’t much of a consolation);

I vacated the spot and tried to find

My way back to our tent and (hopefully)

Clare, but was very soon hopelessly

Lost midst tents identically designed;

I’d have more chance, in a dark house,

Blindfolded, in search of a mouse.

But there was a reference point: the crown

Of the marquee dome, its silhouette

Stark against the moonlit sky, since sundown,

And I figured out a very safe bet:

Judging our tent to be a hundred

Or so yards, give or take, I wandered

A radius of that distance and after a mile

Or ten, found Troy and Graham, by a pile

Of dead bonfire debris, and still asleep!

From there, my mission was easy as pie;

I left them to oblivious shuteye;

Found the tent, unzipped the front, had a peep,

Saw…Clare, naked; Jim lying beneath,

And stared, frozen in shocked disbelief.

Jim evidently cared not a jot

I pulled myself away from the spot,

And heard cries, of abandonment and joy;

I spent the next hours, tired and worn,

In the marquee dome till eight in the morn

And upon my return, found Clare had gone,

Jim looking smug, with all his clothes on

And there was Troy and Graham as well;

Friends reunited, outsiders might say:

Looking back now, things were never that way.

We walked to the main gate, queued for a spell,

And when we got in, Jim and Troy found

No reason to stay, and left homeward-bound.

I took a drag on the not too tightly

Rolled joint, replayed last night’s events,

In my head, then, if I remember rightly,

I fell asleep, and dreamed of tents,

Hippies, Clare, a mouse, Jim, Troy and a bag

Of shit; I awoke, scrounged another fag

From Graham, watched Chas and Dave (the first

And, I’m sorry to say, by far the worst),

Support act; followed by Keith Richard’s band,

And Todd Rundgren, and if either were good

I can’t recall, but from where we stood

They appeared as small as ants, and

Any further details can be perused

On Google, (which, indeed, I’ve used).

Led Zeppelin, were kind of okay;

They sounded a bit tired, but my main

Gripe was they were too far away;

I'd rather have seen them again,

In a smaller venue, but as I’ve said;

John Bonham, next year, would be, sadly, dead;

And, in spite of my griping memory,

I can still say I saw the legendary

Band’s very last, UK performance,

Before they changed their original line

Up; and to end this story of mine,

Here’s a verse, typed in accordance

With Wiki; and in dedication to John;

A great drummer, too prematurely gone:

The Song Remains The Same, Celebration

Day, Black Dog, Nobody’s Fault But Mine….

Led Zeppelin played a compilation

At Knebworth, in nineteen seventy nine,

Of classics, opening with the above,

And closing with, A Whole Lotta Love;

A heartfelt, “Thanks for eleven years”,

Was drowned by two hundred thousand cheers;

And on the way home, in the morning train;

I fancy my ears were deafened, ringing;

Most likely I was silently singing,

Songs, indelibly stamped on my brain;

And forty years later, they’re still there,

As are, it would seem, Roy, Graham, Jim, Clare.