Well, we did it! Last weekend we held our 3rd ‘Goes To Hell’ rally.

The first indication that we were going to be OK was on the Wednesday before, when the weather took a turn for the better and the big fiery thing in the sky actually appeared and we were told that it was gonna stay for the next few days. ’Hooray’ we shouted and went straight into ‘smug mode’. Then at nearly midnight on Wednesday - I get a text from one of the bands we had booked telling me that due to transport problems, they were going to have to pull out. Fido sits back, calmly scratches ear and slides effortlessly into extreme panic !!! ‘Storm Theory ‘ were contacted and, although one of their guitarists was on holiday, they agreed to come along and help out. I then managed to get ‘Deadend Dolls’ released from their Care In The Community order and they agreed to get on board as well. We were off...

Friday on site was absolutely heaving, and at one point I had to go and check in case some bugger had put a ‘Free Beer’ sign on the road outside.Everyone was stood around outside The Watchfield, catching up with lost friends, making new ones and doing a damn fine job of trying to keep the alcohol content of Somerset safe by drinking it as fast as possible ! First band on was ‘Ye Gods!’ a veritable cavalcade of toga wearing twattery. Although we had some problems with the PA system, they soldiered on, including such favourites as ‘I Buys You Chips...’, ‘Ulysses 51’ and a cracking version of Iron Maiden’s ‘ Phantom Of The Opera’. They were followed by ‘Powder Monkey’ an eight-legged rock machine that play covers as if the songs belonged to them all along. Notable moments of their set were ‘Back in Black’, ‘Vertigo’ and poor Fido getting told off by Gemma while adjusting the PA as she thought I was inspecting her bum! Not me Guv, honest !

After much alcohol-fuelled nonsense after the bands we all turned in for the night - well most of us did... I would like to apologize to anyone that thought that someone was trying to stuff a goose through a mangle at about 4 in the morning. Apparently this was our Stella, and George (one of the Ye Gods! posse), plus Mitch and a few other sods that decided to hold an impromptu karaoke session without either backing music or any idea what they were supposed to be singing. Oh the joys of rallies! I’m just glad that Pitbull managed to stop them doing ‘Agadoo’ - nice one Lise!!

Saturday started off pretty cold, but soon the sun poked it’s little head out from behind the clouds and all was good at The Watchfield. People still kept arriving as by mid afternoon we had a mighty fine collection of bikes and trikes gathered in both the car park and on the site itself. Everyone seemed only too happy to wander amongst them, looking intelligent whilst loudly asking ‘if this was the model with the reverse threaded wim-woms or was it the Hungarian copy with the steam - driven flugle binders?’

Everyone knew that ‘Storm Theory’ had arrived when the lovely Zoey appeared in the car park and caused a higher than usual number of raised pulses, raised blood pressure and other things that can’t be mentioned here! (remember - we are a family club.) The band then proceeded to go on and - even though they were one guitarist down ( I did mention that earlier on - pay attention!) they managed to deliver a wicked set that certainly woke up some of the people trying to snooze in the back room. That’ll teach ‘em... no one sleeps when ‘Storm Theory’ are on !!!

Next up Deadend Dolls delivered a steaming portion of their infectious groove thang that had people dancing about - either that or half the room was suddenly stricken by a major flea infestation and was trying to have a good scratch. Guess who’ll get the blame for that one!! After doing a few new tracks and giving us some old favourites, ’Hold Fire’ still seems to make people jump about like fools! A rather sweaty set of ‘Deadend Dolls’ made way for the last act of the night - ‘Bristol Breakout’.

They play both sorts of music - ‘punk’ and ‘rock’ and they managed to cause a few of the punters to venture on to dance floor to partake in a few minutes of musical epilepsy before finishing the night, and indeed the rally off with some excellent punk classics.

All that remained that night was for us all to creep back quietly to our tents and go beddy-byes. Yeah right!!

We decided to have our traditional ‘post rally’ gathering in the control tent and somehow managed to drink far more than was actually necessary. By the way - I’ve still not found my bag of peanuts!

The last thing to say this month ( ‘Hooray, he’s nearly finished’, I hear you all shout.) Cheeky!, is we would all like to thank everybody that made the rally what it was ...bloody good fun! I’m not gonna even start to try and do a ‘thanks to’ list here as there are so many of you, I’m bound to leave someone out and offend you. Basically - if you were there in any way, shape or form then it was you that helped to make it all go as it did.

WYSIWYG would like to thank you all from the heart of our bottoms and look forward to seeing you again.

I’m off for a Paracetamol and a sneaky Bonio - see y’all soon.