Astronomical Wonders, Beer Changes... And a Festival!
- The Crow Crew
- Aug 14
- 5 min read
Well, what can I say...
The whole world seemed excited for the biggest solar eclipse since 1999. While I could only view the phenomenon from outside The Crow (we were hosting our Big Fat Quiz from 8pm Wednesday night), I was pretty underwhelmed.
I was 20 during the last eclipse, and as it was the '90s, my memories of the event are a bit hazy! The 1 o'clock news that day was filled with Cornish revellers telling tales of eerie darkness and magical druid-esque vibes... But that wasn't my experience stood in a field in Leighton Buzzard. It was cloudy, it was 10am, I was hanging out my arse - reeking of B&H & Tropical Reef, wearing ridiculous cardboard sunglasses that I'd got free with the newspaper. There was no spiritual epiphany; no street party happenings with strangers armed with banging Britpop tunes and a kitchen colander. It got dark briefly; I went back to bed! But that non-event 27 years ago still surpassed Wednesday's "Meh" of the daylight dimming slightly in the precinct carpark as we sweated our baps off!
Obviously, if your experience of either eclipse was profound, then fair play and I apologise for my cynicism. My longing for Mother Nature's colossal forces to put my menial everyday problems into some perspective had failed... so back to work I went!
Life here at Crow HQ has felt tough this year... Don't get me wrong, there hasn't been a year to date that has been easy! But this year, a combination of long work hours, rising costs, lower spending trends, and my rotund carcass being no longer able to suppress nearly 48 years of anarchic hormones, has made it start to feel like a bit of a slog.
From the ghosts of blog-posts-past, you know that when I decided to keep going with The Crooked Crow Bar on my own, the magical figure we were looking for to make the business viable (and my life easier) was a 20% increase. After a lot of faffing, restructuring and starting a buggering Facebook page from scratch, we achieved it; however, with the sharp rise in running costs, coupled with the fact that the average spend per customer has decreased, the 20% goalpost has moved.
It's still not insurmountable, but I am TIRED!!!
There seems to be a never-ending to-do list of tasks, from bar management to funding applications, boring arse admin, promo and events and trying to be productive at anything gets harder as time whizzes past (in that smug, unnecessarily quick way it does when you reach middle age)!
Absolutely every aspect of my life that is not Crow-related has taken a back seat: family, friends, home, sense & self. Everyone understood the sacrifice; everyone wanted The Crooked Crow Bar to succeed... But six bloody years is a lot!!!
The bar has been busy in waves, but for every peak there's a trough, and whilst we keep bobbing along, it's worrying. It's an industry wide problem- every music venue is feeling it. It will get better, I'm sure of it, but I'm tired and frankly bored of fighting. We have overcome so many hurdles that now I have succumbed to the fact we will jump the ones we can and run todger first into the ones we can't and if we survive (todger in tact) it's a bonus!
It's perhaps inevitable that, even being the size of a particularly porky dragon, I would eventually run out of fire. There was always going to be a limit.
My gut feeling was - and still is, that the fix (or at least, part of it) is to have more regular events scheduled on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. So this year became a frustrating 'suck it and see' process to find what events would work in those slots. The Eco Social and Curtain Caw radio-play workshops, despite being great fun, sadly haven't worked as monthly events - so it's back to the drawing board! Vinyl DJ sets, the quiz, the comedy night, the open mic, midweek acoustic gigs and OSP showcases are all events that we will be keeping - and I am toying with regular Drag and Theatre events - which we should be launching soon. In fairness, my target for filling the midweek calendar was the end of August, and although we are cutting it a bit fine (which is a regular theme for me) I guess we are still on track. I would still like to feature some ad-hoc events throughout the year too, so there is a chance that film screenings, DJ nights and workshops might still be on the schedule, just not as monthly events.
In general.... We are hanging in there, and despite my moaning, we have made progress. Things have improved. Whilst there seems no let up, business has got better than previous years and the summer months are always turbelent for all venues as it's when they start to compete with holidays festivals, weddings, BBQ's, beer gardens and the bloody World Cup!
So oversharing and whinging aside - there is hope that this is the year where The Crooked Crow Bar FINALLY starts to thrive.... Please, Dear All That Is Holy, Let It Be The Case!!!
As well as those new events launching, we have a fantastic lineup of gigs scheduled in for this year. The full years calendar will be going up on our website by the end of this month.
We have new beer coming!!!
We have teamed up with Adnams and Bitburger, and will be swapping out our draught offerings for some fantastic German lagers, Adnams IPA, Stout and Cider (the Trooper, spirits, bottles and Tring beer will remain the same). We are just waiting for an install date and will update you with all the details soon.
THIS WEEKEND we've teamed up with Osp Promotions to bring you CROW FEST #26
3 days, rammed with epic live music, vinyl DJ sets, indie stalls & urban vibes...
The lineup has been announced... Tickets are now on sale from our website...
What are you waiting for? It's gonna be LEGENDARY!!
This event, more than anything, is a complete reflection of who we are and what we are trying to achieve with The Crooked Crow Bar. So it's the perfect opportunity for you to come and show your support - and experience a fantastic live music event at the same time!
It's the only grassroots festival in Central Bedfordshire. It features 13 original acts/bands and 5 vinyl DJ's. We've split the tickets so people can choose to come to Fridays heavier music scene, Saturday daytime's chilled vibes, Saturday evenings party vibes, the free entry Sunday afternoon or the top-tier Sunday evening finale...
FRI 14 AUG
Until 9 + Project Noise, Destroy The Map & DJ Harv
SAT 15 AUG
1PM-6PM. (DAY)
Coda Rushing + Jet Lag Jeff, Barney Murray, Chilcraft Music & DJ Hyperstep + Durtee Dawg
CLOSED 6-7PM
7PM-00AM (NIGHT)
Junk Season + Audionasties, The Dog Cat Scene, Open Mirrors & DJ Wout
SUN 16 AUG
12-4PM: The Gazza Records Takeover: vinyl beats from DJ Prof M. (Free Entry until 4pm)
CLOSED 4-6PM
FINALE 6PM: Paul-Ronney Angel (The Urban Voodoo Machine) solo show + support from A.D Stranik
Check out our website for listings for the rest of this month (plus the rest of 2026 will be going up on our website soon, so get your diaries ready)!!
Now I'm off to start to prep for the festival!!! See you at the bar!!!
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