Notting Hill Diary

I knew this was going to be a special day because for the first time in nearly 30 years (yes I was a kid then!) I actually felt mildly nervous before we played.

  

The view from the stage about 45 mins before we went on. Even the Powis Mews (opposite) was packed and there were thousands more to the left and right out of shot. It filled up a lot more than this by the time we played

Who’s your drummer?

  

The balloon, made by our near neighbour Rosie. Looking owards stage right

We woke up on Monday morning not quite knowing which drummer we were going to play with. Dominic, who plays with Mick’s band Carbon Silicon, was scheduled to play, but we hadn’t heard from him, so I picked up Arran, who’d done such a brilliant job of playing with us on Friday at Cobdens. In the event Dom turned up, so I felt sorry for Arran, but he had a good time and we’ll definitely be working with him again.

We took our guitars over to the stage at around 1pm and already the crowds were building up. By the time we returned at about 2:45 we were seriously having to push our way through and by the time we were due to play, my advice to avoid the crush by standing at the end of Powis Mews was a piece of history as people stood up to 25 yards back into that tiny side street trying to get a view.

  

Your host, the ever ebullient Gaz Mayall

Gotta love them Trojans
The Trojans very kindly let us use their backline and lent us a guitar lead and Gary, Mick and I sat under the stage tuning up.

They cleared the stage of dancers about 5 minutes before we were due to go on and we got up there and plugged in. As we launched into our first song “Londoner” we knew it was going to work out just fine and as the last notes of our final song proper “Pick a Pocket” died away some 20 minutes later the crowd packed into Talbot Road was still dancing.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Then Mick launched into the opening chords of Should I Stay or Should I Go and a mass sing-along followed. That song has pretty much reached folk status and it’s a heck of a lot of fun to play as well.

Even Prince Buster gets nervous
We left the stage feeling good and stayed around to watch the Trojans from the DJ booth yet another 8 feet above the stage because there was nowhere to go. I chatted a bit with Prince Buster about being nervous and he said “Yes I once had that conversation with Sam Cooke and Mohamed Ali …”

  

The Gang

One last look
After Carnival was over, Gaz grabbed us, gave my phone to a cop and made us pose with the stage in the background.

Left to right, (?), Martin Muscat (my and Mick’s cousin), Gaz Mayall, Gary Stonadge, Jason Mayall, Ray Kolodny, Mick Jones, (?), me, Neil Apteka.

Just when you thought it was safe to walk up Ladbroke Grove
Once the crowds had started to disperse we took our gear back to Powis Terrace and moved on to the barbecue, where we stumbled into the rioting that had started further up Ladbroke Grove, but that’s another story …

The Rotten Hill Gang line up on August 25, 2008:
Dominic Greensmith - drums
Gary Stonadge - bass and vocals
Reds - rap
Krystin Cummins - vocals
Mick Jones - guitar and vocals
André Shapps - guitar and vocals