My friend Hannah and I scored a job working in the “artist liaison” team at a music festival in 2004. We were both Australians, living in a share house in London, and our role was to manage backstage dressing rooms and keep the artists both happy and under control.
I was 22, with a walkie-talkie in one hand and the keys to a sea container full of alcohol in the other, and I’ve never felt more powerful.
As a mix of party host and bouncer, charm was a key technique for keeping order backstage. It was a form of weaponised cheer, a work ethic that saw us smiling through 14-hour shifts on low pay.
Our job was to interpret the spreadsheet of “rider requests” and prepare the dressing rooms with the bands’ alcohol. I looked at the spreadsheet and said, “Oh wow, look at all the alcohol the band Contingency has requested!” We realised later that contingency wasn’t a band but the booze allocated for staff consumption.
Band members tended to be gentle and kooky but their managers were pushy. One manager insisted that the lead singer of a pop group due to headline the stage couldn’t walk the short distance from her tent to the backstage area. Could I get her a golf buggy, he asked? When I said no, her manager said: “But she’s done mushrooms and doesn’t think she can walk.”
Some festival crew were professional roadies all year round, whereas others would take annual leave from their day jobs to work the summer festival season. Hannah and I were working hard in graduate jobs and trying to build our careers, so for us, summer festivals were a cost-neutral way to have fun and meet new people. The camaraderie was addictive. We kept it up for years, building our own annual tradition.
At midnight we would knock off and prowl the festival for a couple of hours, before crawling through the flap of our tiny tent for a short, cold sleep. The first acts of the day were usually quirky or local, so we’d wake up, mask our hangovers and warmly greet the members of the district kazoo orchestra, due to play a 10am slot.
The bands got bigger as the day wore on and it was exciting when the festival was buzzing about an artist due on “your” stage later that day. I have fond memories of mingling with the kind, polite members of Bonobo, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Hot Chip and Four Tet. By sundown, anticipation, exhausted delirium and golden light would combine to render their sets unforgettable.
The backstage area is the festival’s hypocentre and it was a privilege to see geeky musicians transform into stars as they walked on stage. The country’s hottest electronic musician might be unrecognisable eating a chocolate bar in the corner of their dressing room. Famous artists would bring their families and their children would muck around nonchalantly backstage.
Sia performed on my stage when she was “just” a jazz singer. She went on to become a multimillionaire by writing songs for Rihanna, Beyoncé and Katy Perry. Whenever I see her name, I remember the relaxed chats we had backstage about being two Australian women in the UK.
I tried flirting with the artists but they were never interested in me. I had more success with the crew. Over 20 years later, I’m still with the production manager I met backstage, a relationship forged by our mutual love of walkie-talkies and live music.
These days, Hannah and I are mothers with busy lives and careers. But last year, we found babysitters for our kids and went to a music festival together. We no longer share a tent but we share memories and a capacity to smile our way through life’s longer shifts.
