Diary of a Strumpette, Part Two: How the call came to Glasto

Well, folks, only 10 days to go til The Strumpettes hit Glastonbury and let me tell ya, we’re gettin’ a little hot under the collar. It turns out this ain’t some big practical joke that Velma cooked up to give us all a fit o' the vapours. We’re goin’. Next week. And this little Strumpette is quakin’ in her boots.

So how in hell did three no-good amateurs end up playin’ Glastonbury, huh? Well, I’ll tell ya now. All it took was a little initiative, a little persistence and a whole lotta luck. Now, ordinarily, the only chance an unsigned band has of gettin’ into Glasto these days is to enter the emerging talent contest. Now, that’s one way to do it, sure, but The Strumpettes ain't ordinary. We didn’t like those odds, so Miss Velma, being an enterprising kinda gal, she took it upon herself to tout our name, our photograph and our tunes round to all kindsa places – jazz venues, cabaret shows, festivals and all. They sure made us work for it, but after making several opportunistic phone calls, Miss Velma finally managed to sweet talk a swell dame from the Glastonbury team into spreading the word about The Strumpettes to some of the Glastonbury stage managers.

Then, after spending a couple of months trying not to bite down our perfectly polished nails in anticipation, we finally got the call in January from the fabulous Croissant Neuf Stage. Just like that! Without seein’ us play live or nothin’. Hey, we ain’t arguin’.

The news was greeted with amazement from Miss V, excitement from Miss Betty, and pure fear from Miss Kitty over here. Still, after several months of getting used to the idea, I reckon we’re almost ready to face those crowds at Glasto. Just hand me a shot of gin before I go on stage, and I’ll be just fine.

So over the last couple of weeks we’ve been crankin’ up our rehearsal time. Last night, aside from wranglin’ our way through a couple of our trickier numbers, we figured out our set list. On Sunday week we got 45 mins to fill with swingin’ jazz numbers (and of course our very own brand of teasin’ and storytellin' in between 'em) and just maybe another half-hour on the bandstand the day before.

All in all, we got about 22 songs to choose from. Now, some o' those are what we like to call our safe songs; songs we’ve been playin’ for a good long while that we think the crowd may just recognise. First up, we got our standard opener, “In the Mood”, based on The Andrews Sisters’ version of Glenn Miller's classic tune:

The Glenn Miller Orchestra performs the instrumental version of "In the Mood"