Castle Donnington, Heavy Metal and the Rousing Fists When Molly Hatchet took the Stage.

Blag and Stig had already ripped open the case of Stella by the time I got there. Not to be outdone, they were halfway through the case and were harassing the punters, trying to shake down enough cash to spend on poorly-made tshirts.

Gary Newman had been on for two hours now, and the boys were raging. Being the sole diplomat of the group, I marched over to the oncoming fracass and attempted a vague intervention.

"Oi, was all this then?"

"Oh, Racks, we were havin' a bit of fun with this punter with the Skynard shirt."

"And wos wrong wit a bit o Skynard then, Ill pot on 'Sweet Home Alabama' from time to time."

"Oh ay, but dere not Molly Hatchet, now are they?"

"Nobody's as good as Molly Hatchet mate, they were the fookin originals weren't they? But you cant shake down the punter by the cut of his fookin tshirt now caen ya?"


"Racks mate, how de fook are we gonna get the scratch for de new Hatchet shirts? By taking them off of some cunt with a Skynard shirt, that's how."

"Boys, boys, lets calm de fook down and have a few bevvies, I got me packet from the Minister last night, lets have a go at it."

"Oi, punter, get that shirt off of yous then, its our fookin rag to wipe the lager from me chins"

"In your case Stig, there are multiple chins."

"Aren't you the brave bastard, Racks?"

And it went on this way for the rest of the afternoon. By half eleven we had seen Slipknot, MudVayne, Anthrax, Megadeath and ending with the fookin crescendo that was Molly Hatchet (Stig and Blag burrowed their way up front, bruising the skin of a few punters.)

I was late for my third shift, working the twelve hour shift on the pile driver. On me lunch break, I took out The Sun, and revisited the faces of Blag and Stig from the night before. They'd been arrested, booked and the writer had the fookin nerve to call them "Hooligans". Theyd bashed twelve punters by the end of the show, hospitializing seven of them.

They was always that way when I wasn't around. Still, Castle Donnington was still the best metal festival of the year, and well worth the rat in my brain the next day (night) at work.