Greenbelt and all that...

Mark 2 at Greenbelt 1983: Pictures by Denise Hockey
By 1983 Mark 2 had been on the road for four years. Our sound was tight, we were well rehearsed and experienced, had written a lot of material, and our sound and lighting crew knew exactly what they were doing. We regularly mailed out a free fanzine to supporters, and had a merchandising stand that sold badges, T-shirts and our records. All the proceeds were plugged straight back into funding the band.

By now we had travelled the country, playing alongside well-known Christian artists including Sheila Walsh, Amaziah, Chris Eaton, Mark Williamson Band, Garth Hewitt, Nutshell, Steve Turner, Barry Crompton and The Predators. In August 1983, Mark 2 worked as resident band for a few days at the Falmouth Arts Centre in Cornwall. We came off stage one night to hear the terrific news that we had been invited to play at the Greenbelt Arts Festival later that month - in the venue known as the 'Big Top.'

We travelled up to Knebworth and collected our back stage passes. We were scheduled to appear on the final day - August bank holiday Monday, on the Big Top stage, and we arrived early to hear the other bands in the lineup. It was a swelteringly hot day, and inside the marquee it was even hotter, with all the stage lights constantly on and the amplifiers and sound systems cooking away. The band who were on just before us were decidedly average, bless them, but they lost a lot of the audience in the tent, who wandered off to see what else was on show.

Theatrical stuff - Mark 2 in Plymouth 1983
We set up quickly in the gap we were allocated, and then did a sound check. All of the instruments, including our keyboards were out of tune because of the extreme heat inside the tent, so we quickly tuned up the guitars. The piano was a concern though, until the brilliant sound engineer said to us - "don't worry, I have an Eventide Harmonizer at the back." From my studio work I knew that this was a magical piece of kit that could make any out of tune instrument sound spot-on. It all went well. We came on stage with just a few dozen people in our audience, but by the time we had finished our 40 minute set, the marquee was completely full and we got a great ovation as we left the stage. After the gig, we received more invitations to play, from all over the country.

Photos by Ian Dent
Below is another track that reflects the music we were playing at the time. It is the A side from the On Target EP and is entitled Wrong Sida Life. It's a fun track with plenty of synth and Buzz magazine, the premier Christian Music magazine of the time did a review:

'Better is a three track EP from Plymouth band Mark 2. Entitled On Target, the standout track is Wrong Sida Life, which manages to echo half a dozen Top 20 influences without slavishly copying any of them. Steve Wheeler has a good rock 'n' roll voice, the synths work well and this is a band we'll be hearing more of.' (Buzz Magazine August 1983).



Previous posts in this series:

My first gig
Onwards and upwards
Dartmoor prison blues
Mark 2
On Target

Creative Commons License
Greenbelt and all that... by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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