All through June and July and August, every Sunday afternoon that we weren’t doing anything else, we’ve gone down to the riverside to hear the brass band playing at the bandstand. Brass bands plural, rather; it’s a different group every week, coming in from the towns and villages all around. One thinks of brass as a Northern, industrial thing, but the council or whoever organises this doesn’t seem to have any trouble filling the schedule. Round here I suspect it’s more of a military, or legacy-military thing, or simply an enjoying-making-music thing.
It’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon, lazing under the trees, listening to live music, with the toddler running between our spot and the play area. In fact, it’s the one sort of concert where I feel really confident bringing a toddler. Maybe we send someone along the riverbank to the ice cream van.
It’s a brilliant community thing. The audience is always a mixture of friends of the band, regulars (their numbers growing through the summer as more and more people catch on) and passers-by. Last week we got there slightly late and found that our next door neighbours, plus extended family, had set up just in front of our usual spot. Yesterday there was one of the nursery families, who’d really just come for the slide and been pleasantly surprised by the music.
I say brass bands. Most of them were: some called themselves jazz orchestras or swing orchestras, but either way, there was a lot of brass involved. There has to be, really, if you want to make yourself heard outdoors with minimal amplification (any singers will get a mic, likewise the bass guitar if there is one, obviously, but that’s about as far as it goes).
Anyway, there’s a wide, if predictable, repertoire. There’s the jazz and the swing, obviously, and when it was one of the less specialist groups you could generally bet on the programme including: some show tunes, probably in medley form, a military march or two, some film music, TV themes (I know I’ve played that Star Trek compilation at some Saturday morning youth music scheme, a decade and a half before I saw any Trek, and I played cello; there must have been a version for full orchestra), a hymn, and some classic rock. It is extremely accessible, and that is entirely appropriate for the time and place. On Sunday I was standing next the climbing frame, alternately offering encouragement and singing along with The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (and getting a little thrown by the repeats not coming where I expected them).
It’s been hot, and dry (you may have noticed). Most weeks, the audience must have been hard to spot from the bandstand, hiding under trees or any other patch of shade. The grass got progressively more parched. The musicians generally took their jackets off. The willow trees stayed green, but there was a depressing expanse of yellow between us and them, and the sky was aggressively blue. This was about the only bearable outdoor activity. Abide with me, the band played a couple of weeks ago, fast falls the eventide, in glaring sunshine. Mind you, up the hill at the cathedral Evensong would just have started.
As the summer wore on, we evolved more and more elaborate seating arrangements (we are, I should say, by no means the only people with folding chairs and a festival trolley). Sometimes I brought a flask of tea; occasionally, a cake from the market; often, a punnet of strawberries. Somebody always has a better-looking picnic: full marks to the people the other week who’d fixed themselves up with a cream tea complete with fizz. My own Glyndebourne-level aspirations will have to wait another year.
Because it’s over. This Sunday was the last concert of the year. It was a bit of a toss-up whether we’d make it, having been away the night before. I’m glad we did. It was the right way to round out August. One last trip to the ice cream van. Some absolute bangers (technical term). A late, blessed, prolonged soaking has turned the grass green again. Towering grey clouds hint at more if we’re lucky. The folding chairs are back in the garage. The Lord’s My Shepherd (tune: Crimond), always imbued for me with a slightly beery, teary nostalgia, is lingering in my head, but the last tuba player has packed up and gone home.
Kathleen Jowitt 