Rock ’n Blues
Custom Show, 2002
Words and pics: Rich

Pentrich Showground, Derbyshire.
25th - 28th July 2002

The jury is still out with regards to who, if anyone, was to blame for the Foot and Mouth outbreak despite the best efforts of the tabloids to find someone or something to blame, but because of it, the Outlaws were forced to hold their justifiably famous rally at Donington Park in 2001. Nobody was happy with the situation - except perhaps the owners of Donington Park - but this year the rally was back home at its normal site, the Pentrich show ground, and expectations were high that the event should be a cracker. I don't think anyone was disappointed!

I arrived late on Friday evening. The weather was so invitingly hot and perfect that even though I'd said I'd be arriving on the Saturday, I packed quickly after work and took off, arriving on site as the sun set and, stone cold sober of course, was amazed and delighted to be suddenly surrounded by hordes of happily hammered brothers and sisters. I knew already this was going to be a good one.

Finding the guys I was meeting up with, I got the tent up just as they all ran off to see the Levellers, headlining the Friday's entertainment on the Main Stage, at the bottom of its natural amphitheatre. I'd naturally missed most of Friday's other bands on stage, but the Levellers have a knack for making up for the loss.

Much more than any other bike show, the Rock & Blues is promoted as a rock festival too, attracting a special mix of people. Hard core bikers party alongside dead straight people and festival regulars. Rather than causing any friction, the 'Bombay Mix' of piquant people seems to work extremely well indeed - nothing like a bit of the old cross-fertilisation to strengthen a bloodline. Look who's in the Rock tent now, look who's gone bonkers in the Rave tent and lovin' it, look who's found a bunch of cool people and is belly laughing in the sunshine. It's got to be good for everybody.

What freaks the straights and the festival crowd more than anything is how absolutely safe and secure they feel. Under the relaxed but watchful eyes of the Outlaws security, they can finally really let their hair down safe in the knowledge that their kids are going to be safe or their tents aren't going to emptied. As bikers we're pretty well used to looking after ourselves while being looked after from a distance. But it is a very special thing we have amongst ourselves, and people who are not at all used to it, appreciate it perhaps a lot more than we think. Again this has got to be a good thing, but perhaps we as bikers should not take what we've made for granted either, the vibe we create is a very special thing to be cherished and protected.

Saturday morning with 2 aspirin and a fantastic cup of real coffee from a real coffee stand a few 'doors' down, I was ready to explore the Rock & Blues' in-marquee custom show. The show is now easily one of the most important custom shows in Britain, if not Europe and the staggering standard of entries reflected that. Winning a trophy here is beginning to take on the same kudos as used to be the case with a Kent Show trophy, and customisers know it. Multiple-show-winning Harleys jostled alongside bizarre multi-cylindered car trikes and bonkers sub-125cc choppers. Before I'd known it I'd spent the rest of the morning in there.

However there's a lot more than that to the Rock & Blues. The aforementioned Rock Tent, right next door to the beer tent was bouncing as I passed at about 1.30pm, so I popped my head around the flaps to witness a storming set by a fantastic covers band called Tin Rat. I wasn't the only person to think they were great either. The place was absolutely packed with grinning, bopping people with more crowds ten deep, straining to watch from outside.

Nearby was a giant fairground for people who needed to bounce their beer and baguettes about a bit. I didn't, never do to be honest, but 'vive la difference' as they say down Canal Street.

Elsewhere you could choose to be twanged into space, or even pay a fiver and get your own private striptease, and hearing 'The Stripper' coming from the rave tent late on Saturday afternoon seemed a bit odd until I discovered that during the day it hosted male strippers for any ladies that could stump up the paltry £3 to get in ... which obviously made it perfectly normal. Later in the evening the Rave tent kicked in properly and didn't stop 'til dawn.

Saturday night saw Girlschool, Rose Tattoo and the Blockheads on the Main Stage. All were great. An enduring memory for me will be hearing the Blockheads finishing their set rather naturally with 'Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll'. The watching crowd took up the chorus - again rather naturally - but a quite magical moment in time saw the singing taken up by people further and further away: a rolling wave of joyful voices reaching the very edges of the site, where the chant was taken up by bemused but game people who probably couldn't even hear the Main Stage. Everybody I could see by the light of the stall I was at was singing - the whole site was singing - thousands and thousands of people.

One party.

The Rock & Blues is deliberately different and isn't like any other event in the biker calendar: it ploughs its own furrow and weaves its own magic. I'd would heartily recommend the Rock & Blues to anyone - whether or not they own a motorcycle - they are guaranteed to have an experience they will not forget in a hurry.