Morecambe Rides Again...
Kicking off in Morecambe. It’s not like it used to be… thank God!
The First Kick Scooter Collective organised ‘Morecambe Rides Again’ over the weekend of July 12-14. First Kick’s main objective is to put Morecambe back on the map. If you’ve not been there for a while, you’ll be in for a shock. It’s having more than a face-lift, it’s had Botox, liposuction, nose job, boob job, buttock implants – the lot! Even the Almighty had laid on cracking weather. Your tenner wristband bought you a whole weekend of entertainment and a campsite pitch, too. This was indeed a bargain, whether you took up the offer of tenting it or not. First Kick are ambitious, and their mission is to catch the eye of the big boys in order to ‘Make Morecambe great again’, to get it back on the National Runs map. Morecambe is an entirely different place to my first foray as a fresh-faced V90 rider back in 83. There’s no heavy police presence and no pitched battles through the town, a change for the better and no mistake. First Kick have taken the task on seriously and professionally. No, it wasn’t all bells and whistles that you’d expect from a National, but it didn’t pretend to be. It’s a neat venue and it was well organised. There was a nice mix of sounds from bands as varied as The Skapones to Marquis Drive. Yes, there were cover bands, but this raises questions, too. Are the bands to be blamed for doing covers, or are the attendees to be blamed for not giving original new creators a fair hearing because ‘they don’t know it’? If the latter is the case, then the scene will end up disappearing down its own plug-hole. Fact. One cracking idea First Kick did was the fold-up leaflet, which outlined the whole event, with the venues, maps, artist times and the like all in one tidy small piece, brilliant for a no direction Herbert like me. It helped when you bowled up and thought, ‘Looks a bit busy in there, I’ll try elsewhere.’ There were a goodly number of traders too, and those I chatted to all agreed (on the whole) that this year had been the busiest yet… there’s something in the wind, eh? The Vespa Club of Britain held a ‘Sign up here’ stall in the Platform Venue itself, and there were a number of
the usual suspects with pitches, too. One particular trader slipped me the wink on a new product which I’ll be toddling down to cover for the mag very shortly, so watch this space.
Whilst Bobby of First Kick Scooter Collective played tracks and kept the crowd entertained outside ‘The Platform’, the Collective handed out trophies for various categories of scoot.
Naturally, the standard of machines entered is increasingly high; it’s getting more and more difficult to judge these things (nice problems to have). During the ceremony, I bumped into Dave Lucky and he remarked that it was only a few years ago that he felt the scene was turning a bit stale, but he’s been proved wrong.
We agreed that the ‘custom’ end has become more varied and detailed than ever. No longer is it how much gold plate, engraving and murals can you chuck on a scoot, but these days there has to be some nuance, too. I don’t think Morecambe is ready for a National… yet. But that’s for folk loftier than I to decide and create. Do I think the place has got legs to sustain it as a go-to place? Definitely, but then again, I’m totally biased as I’ve always had a soft spot for it.
Rose-tinted specs aside, the town is being developed and is now a lot more welcoming to scooters (on the surface at least) than it ever has been, venues are re-opening or being created anew, and the whole town feels ‘fresher’. First Kick, five stars and more power to you.
As a final positive end note, I managed to grab a pic at the car park of ‘The Platform’ of a decidedly young dude gripping on to a PX.
God bless ’em and let’s hope their brainwashing becomes complete, for there’s the next torch bearer for the future scene, right there.