I must have been about 11. Mum said that we were going out for a special Sunday treat - we were going to Trincas for the jam session. I think I probably thought she meant we were going to get some jam - anyway I was underwhelmed. But - it was with Desmond and the Tibetan boys and I was promised a banana split so I acquiesced and at three o'clock we went.
How can I make you see that scene? It even now defies description. Several hundred young people on the dance floor - jammed on the dance floor. People on tables twisting - for yes, this was the time of the Twist. I think I knew in the first thirty seconds or arrival that I would never be one of the 'cool' people. This was on a whole new level. This was not my sheltered small baba life and I LOVED it!
My sister, meaning well, told everyone how good I was at doing the Twist. NO! Not here in this place. I was never going to dance in front of these people. I think buoyed up by love I ventured onto the dance floor and weakly twisted my hips in a parody of the real thing. I knew and they knew it but all oohed and aahed at my 'talent'. Then the band played Let's Twist Again and the real dancing started all over again. It was incredible, unbelievable and I lost my soul to Rock and Roll.
I had to wait nearly three years before I got back there. Going to a jam session in my own right as a person not an appendage. The same fevered atmosphere still existed although the Twist was long gone. We had to queue for an hour to get in and once in stake a claim to a table and guard it with our lives. The session ran from 3 'til 7 every Sunday afternoon. Always with live music and always the bands that we all wanted to follow. In those early days that was the Flintstones with 'my' Peter Yeti singing Mustang Sally. It was four hours of hedonistic pleasure - we danced, we talked, we cried and we laughed. For those four hours Trincas became a microcosm of the real world - all human life was there. Jealousy and anger and love all simmered and stirred in the melting pot.
I don't know when it stopped being fun - I just know that Trincas in the evening became a place to go to and Sunday afternoons belonged to off course betting on the Bombay races at the RCTC. We all needed a different stage for our dramas and, to an extent, needed to not play them out quite so publicly. We outgrew the jam session - bands like the Great Bear needed a bigger stage and being listened to not gyrated to. I still shiver when I hear Mustang Sally though.
How can I make you see that scene? It even now defies description. Several hundred young people on the dance floor - jammed on the dance floor. People on tables twisting - for yes, this was the time of the Twist. I think I knew in the first thirty seconds or arrival that I would never be one of the 'cool' people. This was on a whole new level. This was not my sheltered small baba life and I LOVED it!
My sister, meaning well, told everyone how good I was at doing the Twist. NO! Not here in this place. I was never going to dance in front of these people. I think buoyed up by love I ventured onto the dance floor and weakly twisted my hips in a parody of the real thing. I knew and they knew it but all oohed and aahed at my 'talent'. Then the band played Let's Twist Again and the real dancing started all over again. It was incredible, unbelievable and I lost my soul to Rock and Roll.
I had to wait nearly three years before I got back there. Going to a jam session in my own right as a person not an appendage. The same fevered atmosphere still existed although the Twist was long gone. We had to queue for an hour to get in and once in stake a claim to a table and guard it with our lives. The session ran from 3 'til 7 every Sunday afternoon. Always with live music and always the bands that we all wanted to follow. In those early days that was the Flintstones with 'my' Peter Yeti singing Mustang Sally. It was four hours of hedonistic pleasure - we danced, we talked, we cried and we laughed. For those four hours Trincas became a microcosm of the real world - all human life was there. Jealousy and anger and love all simmered and stirred in the melting pot.
I don't know when it stopped being fun - I just know that Trincas in the evening became a place to go to and Sunday afternoons belonged to off course betting on the Bombay races at the RCTC. We all needed a different stage for our dramas and, to an extent, needed to not play them out quite so publicly. We outgrew the jam session - bands like the Great Bear needed a bigger stage and being listened to not gyrated to. I still shiver when I hear Mustang Sally though.
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