I Want Candi

Nice day on Saturday so I thought I’d set off for a day of relaxing with the gayers at Milk in the Park in Spring Gardens, Vauxhall.

I bought my ticket the night before because it gave me an excuse to go into Master U, the pervy leather shop on Kennington Lane where you have to ring the bell to gain entry. I was hoping for mannequins with studded leather masks, ball-gags and perhaps a horse’s tail or two, but it’s actually rather sparse inside and more like a workshop than a torture chamber. No one glared at me coldly or made me feel like I might not get out alive, in fact the staff were very friendly and welcoming. I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Come the glorious day, I found that I had been abandoned by my ‘date’ for the afternoon, and having been frisked, had body cavities searched and my over-the-counter pain killers confiscated as suspicious contraband at the entrance, I didn’t start the event in the best of moods.

I stomped across the grass towards Horse Meat Disco’s jolly red and yellow marquee to catch a bit of Candi Staton and suddenly I was stopped dead in my tracks. OH MY GOD! How good is Candi Staton?? I LOVE HER!!

She’s 66 years old, approximately 2 feet tall, but AARRGGHH ... the VOICE and the ENERGY and the SINCERITY. She was fucking amazing! I’m gutted that I didn’t see all of her set. I’ve heard she did seven songs and I saw precisely three-and-a-half of them, but I was in bits for pretty much the whole time anyway.

I didn’t recognise the track she was singing when I entered, but later a fantastic version of Young Hearts Run Free broke into a short clip of Amazing Grace, which gave me a very wobbly moment. Then when she led into You Got the Love I was positively choking into my Kleenex Mansize. I was all waving arms and shrieking like a drunken Sunday night at Marvellous.

Want pictures? Here you are then. And no, they’re not blurry, they’re ARTISTIC!





Sadly Candi couldn’t stay to do an encore because she had to catch a flight to a gig in Scotland, but the host, Jonny Woo, dragged her back on stage for a bow and led a chant of CANDI! CANDI! CANDI! CANDI! By the time she left the stage she was blubbing too – adorable!

A few beers to settle my nerves and then I headed over to watch the Tranny Netball. I had been all about the Tranny Netball expecting it to be a right old hoot, but I confess I was just a weeny bit disappointed. There was lots of prancing about and some very impressive acrobatics from a tranny doing handstands in heels, but aside from that there really wasn't much action during the 20 minutes or so I stood watching.

Or maybe I just gave up because of the conversation that was happening beside me. A group of people were discussing netball at school and “what position were you?” One of the braggarts claimed that he was Goal Attack, which reminded me that I was always Wing Defence - that's polite way of saying shit.

Standby for tranny pics …