48) Where it’s at/where I am. Same difference.

I think it is widely known that I am the epitome of grooviness.  I am the ultimate IT guy – the IT that is bang in the middle of the zeITgeist.

It’s more than having my finger on the pulse. For more years than I care to remember – or, indeed, I can remember - I have had both hands around the neck of  happeningosity and been throttling it.

Of course, there are naysayers. My daughter for one, who insists that my  super trendy orange Nike’s – marvellous for bunion relief -  are a hideously embarrassing mis-step. But what does she know? Like all under 65s she is soaking wet behind the ears of fashion.

You have to have been there and done it, and done it again and again, before you can even begin to understand the true meaning of trendiness. Beatle jackets, flares, platforms, flowery shirts, kipper ties, dungarees,  Ben Sherman, skinny ties, lapels wider than the Mersey, drainpipes, Tommy Nutter, winklepickers, chisel toes, Oxford bags, tank tops, Oswald Boateng, no ties, two ties, shirts in, shirts out – it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that I have been the Lewis Hamilton of  fashion through every twist and turn  since they first put the boot into Chelsea.

And it’s not just fashion. I have jived, twisted, hitch-hiked, locomotioned, pogo’d, disco’d and yes, danced as a dad, but never dad danced. From Qatermass to Narcos,  from the Hippy Hippy Shake  to Alabama Shakes – going to see them gig – love that word!!!-  in Paris next week! - from telegram to Twitter, I’ve been out there in front, in the very V of the vanguard, adopting so early the baby had often barely been conceived.

And fuck,  yes, it has been exhausting. Do you think  there weren’t times when it would have been easier, to put my slippers on without first checking to see if  they were from Prada or Todt and let the world pass me by. But no, my colours have remained firmly pinned to the mast of the new and the now. I may be mutton dressed as lamb,  possibly even old goat got up as young kid but as Shirley Bassey likes to warble, ‘I am what I am’ and what I am and what I will always be is  a trendsetter to the tip of my arthritic toes. As Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders very nearly sang long before Phil Collins got in on the act, ‘Wouldn’t you agree, baby look at me, I’m a groovy kind of guy.’

And yet, trendy as I am, hip as I have been ever since daddio was cool, I still believe I can raise the bar. “Why” KIrsty Young asked Keith Richards on Desert Island Discs last week, “do you keep on performing?” “Because” he answered, “I think we can get better.”

And I, in my own chosen field of where-it’s-atness, feel just as Keef does. What’s more, a couple of weeks week ago,  I proved that this wasn’t the deluded dream of a washed up sexagenarian. I hit new heights of near cryogenic cool. On successive nights, I saw Bob Dylan at the Albert Hall and then Five of One at the Hurstpierpoint Community Centre. Not kidding. I really did. First, Robert Zimmerman, and then F.o.O!

Wait a minute, just realised it’s possible that some of you reading this may be so Untrendy that you don’t know who Five of One are. That’s forgivable in mere mortals like yourselves – people, so to speak, forever doomed to ride in the peloton of the race  to be cool – spearcarriers, if you will, in the war on so-last-year!  So I will explain: Five of One are the band who for more than a half a century have succeeded in remaining the best kept secret in rock. Only the mega-uber-hyper-groovy such as myself know anything about them.

So the Hurstpierpoint Community Centre was the perfect place to see them. Hurstpierpoint is a little village in Sussex,  so far off the beaten track that the hurly burly of so called civilisation has passed it by. Its inhabitants (ave.age: 104) still cleave to the old ways – Jeremy Kyle in the mornings, ten pints of Carling and a packet of pork scratchings at night.

If they ever remake ‘Deliverance’ in a British setting, Hurstpierpoint will be  the place they do it in.

I stood admiringly at the back while the Hurpies (as they are lovingly known) dragged their Zimmer frames on to the dance floor and threw their shapes (rather large ones), as the six members of Five of One (yes six, not for them the creative limitations of logic or arithmetic) took us through the history of rock and roll.  

So many great songs, but for me the stand-out was ‘High Heel Sneakers’ and it’s unforgettable line, ‘wear your wig hat on your head’. The breathless crowd – luckily one or two had mobile oxygen cylinders – took F.o.O at their word. They did wear their wig hats on their heads’ and despite all their hyper-energetic mash-potato-ing and wah watoosi-ing, I didn’t see any fall off. All six members of the band performed heroically but the two stand out performers were Alan Taylor on guitar – a man who could teach Bill Wyman a thing or two about understated  stage presence - and Allan Gold on drums who didn’t just hit us with his rhythm sticks, he pulverised us!

I will admit that a small part of my enthusiasm for Five of One, and the musicianship of Messrs. Gold and Taylor in particular, may owe something to the fact that we three all once  attended Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School. Well do I remember  the young Gold paradiddlying his way through Mr.James’ aka Dim Jim’s fourth year Maths class – desk lid  doubling up as snare. Dim Jim was a bit mutton jeff as I recall, so missed the finer points of his performance.

I am not at all sure F.o.O will thank me for shining the glare of publicity on them in this blog.  They have been under the radar since before radar was invented, since small children were forced to recite that four pecks added up to the bushel under which they’ve been hiding their light. And now, thanks to me, it’s a racing certainty that they will be booked for the legends’ spot at Glastonbury next year. And look out soon for ‘Later with Jules Holland live from the Hurstpierpoint Community Centre.’ You know its only a matter of time.

So, two more notches on my groovy-stick. On one night, paying my respects to the bard of the sixties. On the next, to the band of the sixties. (That is to say the band are all in their sixties.) For the connoisseur of the cutting-edge, a stunning win double.

But it  has just occurred to me that I am not the only one to have been harbouring the secret of Five of One. Others have obviously spotted them – the clue is in the acronym. Take out the full stops from F.o.O. and what do you get? Exactly.

Wikipedia says  the name of one of the world’s biggest bands  is based on a World War II name for UFOs, but clearly  the choice of ‘Foo Fighters[ was  a secret homage to Five Of One.