Were we the ‘lunatics on the grass’ – or was our experimental evening with the music of Pink Floyd anything like a template for a new breed of Moleside event? This was real DIY stuff and Paul Walker, our event corodinator, could only guess who’d join in on the night.
Blessed with the warmest evening of the summer so far the 18 of us from Moleside – we’d booked our own tickets, brought our refreshments, our rugs and our chairs – thoroughly enjoyed the chance to get together in Cobham’s 18th century Landscape Garden at Painshill.
Some of us must have suspected that revisiting the subversive and rebellious 20th century masterpieces that helped launch the age of psychedelia would challenge us again. But, on the day when our country’s current leader finally threw in the towel, the 9 enthusiastic musicians of tribute band Zinc Floyd produced sounds that felt both nostalgic and entirely appropriate.
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Your reporter had to turn his hearing aids off and if we ever did this again we might start a little further back from the action. Some of us did prudently move in the interval – but to those who have ever felt sad that we are now too old for Glastonbury this was a treat of an experience.
Reliable sources reported that the real Floyd’s long lasting drummer Nick Mason was with us amongst the 400 strong audience for the Painshill evening. We hope he had as a good a time as we did – some of our party even took to the floor before the evening was out.
And for our club it did feel that we might have pioneered an idea that we could occasionally repeat. All Paul had done was spot a convenient local activity where we might be able to create an extra Moleside event in our programme. One which we could book and then travel independently, knowing that there would likely be familiar faces to share it with when we got there.
It certainly all came together for those of us at Painshill – and the omens must be good.
As we left the park with dusk settling we could see that there really is a Dark Side Of The Moon.
For reports on other recent Moleside Visits – click the Visits Tag below.