It has been a manic and I mean manic last few weeks. What with organising the 20th Year celebration at 'Dingwalls', set for Sunday 26th September.
The aftermath of Leicester Carnival resulting in the repair of 9 speakers. The release of Emmanuel Joseph's new album,
'Psalms From The Heart'. The designing and printing of T shirts. The design and manufacture of the metalised stickers.
Need I go on?

Due to the problems we had with the generator last year not being the 40Kw we had ordered and ending up with a 20Kw, I had been pestering Aba for the last 6 months to make sure all was in order for this years carnival. He assured me all was in hand and that he had ordered one from the same bredda as last year and was guaranteed by the bredda that it would be a 40Kw. For the sake of argument we shall call the bredda 'One Man'.
All seemed to be going well with the preparations until I got a phone call from Blood on Wednesday afternoon 25th August, which went something like this;

Blood: "Do you know anywhere we can get a jenny from?"

Me: "Why, who needs a jenny?"

Blood: "We do!"

Me: "What do you mean we need a jenny. What happened to the one we ordered and paid for from 'One Man, months ago?"

Blood: "He has just called Aba and says that he can't get one. They are all booked out."

Me: "Well he had better unbook one then and supply the one we have paid for."

Blood: "He says that he has tried, but all the other shops have all their jennies booked out."

Me: "Well he isn't trying hard enough. How the f**k can 'One Man' do that? We booked a jenny from last year and it is only now, 5 days before carnival him come call us up to tell us that there is not one available. What happened to telling us weeks ago? I specifically asked Aba at Leicester Carnival which was 3 weeks ago, if everything with the jenny was set and he told me that 'One Man' would also be supplying us with barriers and the protector we needed to run the cables across the road. Weh di ras!"

Blood: "I know Blood. But we need to get on this quick time. We'll sort out the 'One Man' situation later."

Me: "I will phone around some people, but I don't hold out much hope!"

Blood: "If you could and the quicker the better as we need to get this sorted or we can't do carnival!"

The phone call terminated I let out one almighty expletive. Internally of course, because I did not want to alarm the people on the street.
I phoned a few people I know but everywhere I got the same or similar response;
"Bit late in the day mate to try and get a generator, seeing this is Reading Music Festival and Notting Hill Carnival weekend!"
Tell me something I didn't know?

My one saving light was a friend of mine Danny, that does power for large festivals. So I gave him a call and it went something like this:

Me: "Danny Boy, it's Mick. I need to get hold of a mobile generator."

Danny: "All our stuff is out and apart from 'borrowing' one from a building site Mick I can't see that happening. You know what weekend this is?"

Me: "You are doing the power for Reading aren't you?"

Danny: "Yes Mick. But all our rigs are out, mate."

Me: "Do you know where I can get hold of one, I'm desperate?"

Danny: "All the lads I know are out with their rigs doing either Reading or Carnival. What size of rig are you looking at?"

Me: "40kw."

Danny: " 40kw! You are having a laugh Mick. That is hire shop power.You know that we only do big mobile power?"

Me: "Told you I was desperate."

Danny:"Ok Mick tell you what I can do. I have one mobile rig on standby for Reading in case of any problems. But it means that you will have to collect it from Reading. I hope to God there is no power problems during Reading or the BBC will have my knackers. Do you have someone with a Class 1 driving licence?"

Me: "Why?"

Danny: "Its on a 40 foot trailer!"

Me: "Jeez! How much power is that?"

Danny: " Way more than you will need. You still up on the electronics thing Mick, because it has 5 stage regulation and the lowest output is 200Kw. So you will have to tightly monitor the controls or you could end up not only blowing yer stuff, but blowing up the rig and possibly killing few people in the vicinity. When these things go it's like an incendiary bomb. Only taking 40Kw from one of these babies is like a fart in the wind. They should only be run at not less than 60-70% of the rated value. You couldn't power up a few other sound rigs just to be on the safe side?"

There was a protracted silence as I weighted up the options. Take Danny up on his kind and generous offer and have the problem of finding a driver to pick it up and do the driving about with it, what with us playing 2 days? Looking at the implication of having a possible 40 foot trailer bomb to worry all carnival about? What will the Health & Safety people make of it? Will we have space to park it?

Danny:: "You still there Mick?"

Me: "Yes Danny, just thinking."

Danny: "You will have to let me know by the latest this evening as I will have to arrange the hire & insurance."

Me: "How much is the hire & insurance?"

Danny: "I can get you a special mates rate, but it has to be parked securely overnight. So it will have to come back to the yard. The cost will be £2500."

Me: "How Much!"

Danny:"£2500."

Me: "£2500 for the weekend. That is a lot?"

Danny: "No Mick. It's per day! It is normally 10% per day of the total value of the rig and that includes the trailer and the tractor. I'm charging you 1%."

Me: "Thanks Danny, I will let you know."

Danny: "Remember Mick I need to know by this evening."

From having no power I am now faced with having way, way too much power and at a colossal cost. But if this is the only way we can get the power, then this it what it will have to be.

You know dem times when you feel like you could just take the person that is causing you nuff pain and headache and slap them up with a wet fish. Well this was one of dem times.Thoughts of the dark and moody kind going through my mind right now. I had to speak to Blood.

I called Blood to be greeted by the best news I had heard all week. It transpires that Aba had contact the people supplying the static generators for Carnival and they said that they could supply one for us, but we had to pay for it today!
Blood was now winging his way down to West London to hand over lots of hard earned cash. Every ting nice.
With that headache out of the way I called back Danny and declined his generous offer.

One Love
                The Humble Lion  

NH 2010 Report Page I / NH Report 2010 Page III

ALL IMAGES AND TEXT COPYRIGHT © Falasha recordings