Crystal Passion Ch. 09

But the truth is that none of us were feeling positive about appearing on stage that evening, sandwiched as we were between the Djuna Barnes Folk Trio and the Women of Babylon. Crystal cancelled the customary dress rehearsal without comment, although we knew it was from fear of organised disruption. We could no longer wander round the festival with the self-confidence we had on the first day (and I made a point of hiding my shaved head under a woollen hat in the hope of not being recognised). The only members of the band still openly supportive of the decision to play at the Purple Robe were Judy Dildo, Jenny Alpha and the Harlot. In fact, the Harlot went so far as to say that if there had been onstage sex as so many of the festival women at the festival believed then she'd have made a point of being up there with the rest of us.

"What could be more cool than to have Judy's fucking dildo in my twat and your fist up my arse?" the Harlot said provocatively.

"Um!" I said, feeling decidedly uncool as the image of doing this while being watched by the creepy Purple Robe clientele flashed through my mind.

The only person oblivious to the prevailing mood was Tomiko. She seemed genuinely surprised that the rehearsal was cancelled. She was put out to be told that the set would be almost exactly the same as the Mary Jane's gig in Philadelphia and that it was unlikely that we'd play songs by the Beatles, the Kinks or the Dave Clark Five. "Fuck!" she exclaimed as if it was the most polite expletive imaginable. "What's happening with you guys?" And then before anyone could reply, she rolled another joint and returned to the state of narcotic bliss that so became her.

As the time for our gig approached, we gathered together back-stage as a procession of all-women acts performed ahead of us. Just before the Djuna Barnes Folk Trio was the nearest to an electronic duo the Sisterhood Women's Music Festival had to offer. Like Soft Cell and Wazoo, Black Triangle consisted of a flashy singer and an uncharismatic keyboard player. To my ears, the singing was oddly stylised and the twiddling was decidedly too high register. And worse, the beats were totally pre-programmed and flat-footed. It was a real relief for me when they at last came off-stage. Was the very land from which Techno and House owed its origins still suffering from such undanceable electronic music?

The Djuna Barnes Folk Trio was a trio of women who played bluegrass and American folk songs and were a blessed relief to me. Andrea and Crystal weren't the only ones in the band enjoying their set, though Judy said they were total shit and Jane and Jacquie were more interested in a private joke about the fiddler in the trio whose jeans kept slipping down and revealing her not notably appealing bottom crack. At least the songs weren't hectoring anthems on the virtues of womanhood and lesbianism. They had a yearning thoughtful quality that made me wonder how well the lyrics and tunes could be mixed by a Drum & Bass or Deep House producer.

But all too soon, it was our turn to appear on stage.

And as we all expected (with the exception of Tomiko who was a hundred yards away in the mixing tent), we were immediately greeted by boos and jeering. There were even a few banners waved up and down in the audience emblazoned with phrases like 'Crystal Passion: No Thanks!', 'Go Home to England!' and 'Strippers Not Welcome!'.

"Uh-oh!" said Olivia as we came onto the stage.

"This doesn't look good," said Andrea who joined Philippa and Thelma in the scuffle to take position as far as possible from the front of the stage.

"Fucking fascists!" Judy Dildo spat out, but not otherwise appearing confrontational and, for her, dressed quite modestly.

"If they want a fight," said the Harlot unconvincingly, "I say: Bring It On!"

"Oh shit!" I said in fear at what lay ahead.

Crystal, however, behaved no differently to how she would normally. She made no marked concession to the change in attitude expressed about her onstage nudity.

She walked toward the front of the stage with as broad a smile as she'd have had if the audience were greeting her with cheers. She picked up the microphone and ignored the barrage of jeers.

"Put your clothes back on!"

"Stick to Blue Movies!"

"Fuck off Judas!"

The jeering died down as Crystal stood her ground and made no comment. Her smile was as unforced and generous as ever.

"Can I have a word please?" she asked the audience. "You've heard some bad things about me and my band and I'd like to set the record straight."

This plea simply led to even more jeering and heckling, but Crystal let it all wash over her. She maintained her beatific smile regardless while the volume of vocal dissent steadily dipped.

"Daughters of America," she announced as if addressing not just the audience at the Sisterhood Women's Music Festival, but all women. "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for the unborn children of America. For the days are coming, in which people shall say that the women of today are fortunate indeed. Blessed are the barren and those who will never carry children and the nipples which will never give suck. Then shall the people of America say to the mountains, 'Fall on us' and to the hills 'Cover us'. For if those as innocent as us are the victim of such scorn, what shall be done to those who have true cause for concern?"

This was typical of Crystal Passion's oblique mysticism and I didn't understand a word she was saying then and I don't understand it any better now. Perhaps she'd learnt this way of speaking when she was travelling across India. Or maybe its origin was the music and mystical musing of George Gurdjieff that she loved so much. Wherever it came from, it mystified and bemused the audience just long enough for us to launch into the first song of our set, Bread for the Fisherman, with its equally enigmatic lyrics and its punchy guitar riff.

I can't say the gig was a success as such, but we played for over half an hour and we deliberately didn't pause for long between songs so there was little opportunity for the catcalls or boos to be heard. Except for Crystal's nakedness, which in any case was mostly obscured by hair and the way she held her guitar, there was nothing in our performance that could have persuaded an uninformed observer that there was ever a whiff of scandal associated with the Crystal Passion band. Both Judy Dildo and the Harlot were remarkably restrained. We kept the songs short and let them tumble out one after the other. The only ones in the band to take solos were Andrea, Thelma and Philippa. Nobody seeing my sister could imagine her as anything other than an earnest advocate of the sisterhood. With her curly hair, checked shirt and jeans she looked more like a member of the Djuna Barnes Folk Trio than the Porn Star or stripper that many in the audience might have thought she was.

We didn't expect an encore and we didn't give the audience the opportunity to ask for one. As soon as Crystal had sung the last few words of a rather folky Rambling Woman she waved at the audience with a free arm while her other grabbed her guitar as if in response to an explosion of applause.

"Thank you! Thank you very much for letting us appear at the Sisterhood Women's Music Festival. Hope to see you again!" Crystal shouted out.

And then as quickly as was possible we fled the stage, Jenny Alpha and Bertha rushed on to dismantle our equipment, and the Festival's DJ once more took to her decks with an uninspiring mix of records by 1970s' women Soul singers like Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Gloria Gaynor. And we knew better than to walk back to our tents where we were expecting to be waylaid by those in the audience still angry at our well-documented betrayal of the feminist cause.

"Let's see what the Women of Babylon are like," said Judy Dildo, as if this was the one thing she'd been looking forward to all evening. I agreed to listen to the gig reluctantly, but I actually rather enjoyed it, probably more so from having survived our own set without having been spat on or hit by a thrown beer-can.

The Women of Babylon was a band much more in tune with Judy's musical taste but were admirably fervent in their support for the lesbian and feminist cause. They were angry, very angry, at the injustices of male patriarchy and its thoughtless chauvinism and casual sexism. They were a great deal more like the kind of rock band the American media thought we ought to be (and a lot more so than any woman's rock group I'd ever seen in London or anywhere in the UK). They even permitted themselves some gratuitous nudity, but much more in the confrontational manner of Courtney Love and Babes in Toyland.

The festival audience seemed divided amongst itself as to the virtues of the Women of Babylon. Some in the audience were insanely enthusiastic about the band (especially when the band were riffing on the theme of tampons and period pains) whereas there were other women were just sitting out the set so they'd have a good seat for the headline band. To my ears (but not Judy's), the final act, Third Rock, was a rock group that could have performed their set at any time in the previous thirty years. The single distinguishing fact about the band was that they were all women. Dressed in a sexually ambivalent uniform of jeans and leather and long full-bodied hair, the band's gender was quite simply the only thing that distinguished them from dreary 1970s' Rock bands like Iron Maiden, Blue Oyster Cult and Grand Funk Railroad.

At one point in Third Rock's set, I turned my head round to check whether Judy Dildo was enjoying the music as much as I was hating it, but instead of her being beside me, miming to the Rock theatrics and guitar licks, there was no sign of her at all.

Or for that matter of Crystal.

"You're looking for Judy and Crystal?" guessed Jane who along with her sister understood more than most my obsession with our band leader.

I nodded.

"They left about half an hour ago," Jane said.

"Any idea where?"

Jane shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Crystal's her own woman. And whatever it is that Judy's got to offer, it's what Crystal wants most at the moment."