A Gazebo Incident...

On the 21st of May, my band were playing at a Gala Day in Bargeddie. In case someone's not clear, that's a village festival where the local folk come out and pretend to have some sort of community spirit. For a pipe band, it involves playing for a parade of a mile or two, and then playing again at the location of the celebration itself.

Anyway, it being a nice day, we elected to march the parade without our nice, warm and waterproof capes. This proved to be a good idea - the sun really was beating down on us. Anyway, we got to the primary school, where the festival was taking place, and the parade was over. Shortly thereafter, it was our turn to play on the stage.

Now, last year, the Bargeddie gala had suffered a great deal of rain, so this year some smart soul had thought to put up a covering on the stage, in the form of one of those cheap plastic gazebos you can buy in B&Q and similar stores (actually, I don't think they market them as such, but they're close enough to be funny). Since it was being placed there as a temporary measure, it was only held in place with some ropes...

(Oh, I should also mention that it was only big enough to cover half the stage. I was on the other half, of course.)

We climbed the stage, and started to play, and immediately the weather turned. Clouds quickly blotted out the sun, and the winds came up quickly. One would have thought we were harbingers of doom or something. I didn't think we were that bad.

Anyway, by the time we were finished our first set, the gazebo was stuggling against its ropes as if animate. The wind was making a terrible shrieking noise, and the creatures clawed front legs were struggling towards me. Only a few weak ropes protected me from evisceration at the claws of the beast.

We sought to placate the dread Gazebo with a sacrifice. We have a dancer who accompanies the band. I play, she dances, in the traditional manner. So, she bravely took the stage, standing under the terrible claws of the gazebo, laid down her swords, and danced.

The gazebo was not impressed. Instead, it howled once more, and unleashed its breath weapon upon us. As the band played once more, I found myself being pelted with hailstones. In May. With my wonderful, waterproof cape some mile away, in the back of my car.

Defeated, we slunk away, and the gazebo ruled the day.