London to Bridgend: Our Journey to Bullet For My Valentine’s House
This was our first live video webchat outside of the MySpace London office. And we didn’t just go to a studio down the road in Soho, we went out of the office with a trip to a remote hill lodge in rural South Wales. Read the full story below…
We set off at 10am from Oxford Street in London in a rented VW minibus, within less than 50 yards of the office we hit a solid steel bollard. The bollard was the square, ribbed kind, and the corners scored parallel lines deep into the steel of the vehicle as we crunched through, messing up the left rear door so it wouldn’t open.
We had no time to spare so battle-scarred we followed the car-rental-supplied Garmin SatNav’s directions which, it soon became apparent, were sending us in circles around the block next the the office. Tom, who had gallantly offered to be driver, took control from the SatNav and freestyled his way out of London onto the open motorway. We turned on the Garmin again and followed its suggested route down A-roads and through the pretty towns and villages of Southern England. About half-way through the journey it became apparent that HAL 9000’s little sister was messing with us. Having sent us on the decidedly scenic route thus far the terse voice in the little black box uttered her last directive and died. Sadface.
So with our iPhones we ‘Google Mapsed’ it for a little while on the more expedient M4 motorway until we hit a closure due to what turned out to be a really bad crash. The crash scene left us in gridlock followed by messy small-road driving for most of the remaining journey from Cardiff to Port Talbot and we were forced to push the time of the webchat half an hour later to 5:30pm. It never feels good to admit defeat and re-schedule something like that but despite our best efforts to get there with plenty of time we had lost our battle with time and space.
At 5pm we finally hit Port Talbot near Bridgend where the band originate from. Flanked by sea and hills it should in theory be an idyllic place but like many towns where the forests, mountains and hills loom in every view, it has a palpable undertone of darkness. Down in the town the house fronts have the complexion of ill people and they are overshadowed on one side by ominous dark pinewood hills and on the other side by a vast, sprawling steel plant which spews out flames and smoke all day and night (apparently air pollution levels regularly exceed legal limits). Driving up to the hills we arrived at Matt Tuck’s newly built lodge in an exclusive development. We knew which was his place because there were fancy cars outside, exactly the type that a rock star would buy. We parked up and met the mild-mannered Matt who was there with his wife and fortnight-old baby boy as well as the other three members of BFMV (from left to right in the video below they are Matt, J, Moose and Padge).
The two-hand production team set up in the half hour they were afforded, struggling with home broadband, a baby monitor that shared frequencies with our mics and the rush to go live. At a little after 5:30pm we pushed the button and were live to the world. That in itself felt like an achievement.
Having spent little more than an hour at his house we said our farewells to Matt, his family and his band, shackled ourselves back into the minibus and set off home.
Before crossing the border back into England we stopped at a motorway service station, having already skipped the previous three based on the food brands present. Every second service station on the M4 it seems is a ‘Welcome Break’ with a ‘Coffee Pronto’ cafe. We agreed that without the pressure of being part of a large well-known chain it was likely that their standards were biohazard-level. We settled for one based around a Travelodge with a Burger King and a Coffee Republic. On arrival in the car park we were faced with a group of around ten men all of a similar body type (short, stocky, big belly) stood chatting in front of a row of around ten identical Vauxhall cars (note for non-Brits: Vauxhalls are pretty much the most average, uninteresting cars you can buy in the UK). As we walked into the station we passed a second meetup but couldn’t discern what these men were meeting about. Is that normal at service stations?
Service stations have always fascinated me. They’re a bit like airports in that they aren’t really anywhere. They’re non-places bereft of soul or heritage. With their dated furniture and decor from a time of optimism around travel (before environmentalism or 9/11) they feel like a glimpse into another world. They always seem to comprise of motel, fast food joint, coffee outlet, idiosyncratically stocked convenience store and finally an amusement arcade with fruit machines and video games. The little arcade always seems to include a driving game. I can’t decide if that’s bad because the last thing people should be doing when taking a break from driving is driving or because the last thing you want your fellow motorway drivers to have just spent 15 minutes doing is driving like a maniac in a virtual, no-risk environment.
Anyway, we finished our lazily put together Burger King meals and made our way back into England and home. M4 all the way. I guess the lesson here is never trust SatNav alone and always take the motorway!
