Matt Edmondson had become Scott’s fashion consultant
Scott had been spending some mornings helping out elsewhere in BBC radio and had struck up an unlikely friendship with Matt Edmondson.
The relationship had reached the stage where Matt was recommending trousers.
Scott liked a pair which looked smart enough to wear properly but felt more like jogging bottoms.
Chris was amused that after years of pop stars, stylists and television work, Scott’s latest fashion influence was Matt from down the corridor.
Scott did not care.
Comfortable trousers were comfortable trousers.
Billie Eilish wanted an entrance
Then the Big Weekend planning became much more ambitious.
Scott and Chris spoke to Billie Eilish about her appearance in Coventry.
The conversation developed into the idea that she should be brought onto the stage on horseback.
A real horse was obviously not practical.
The logical Radio 1 alternative was therefore a pantomime horse.
Scott and Chris would be inside it.
Billie would receive the sort of dramatic entrance normally associated with royalty, except powered by two radio presenters bent over inside a fabric animal.
The pair immediately began searching for a costume.
The logistics were already worrying
Even before they had found the horse, they began discussing who would take the front and who would take the back.
Neither position was especially dignified.
They also needed something strong enough to survive a festival stage and large enough for two grown men who would be trying to move in time without seeing much of what was happening.
The fact the idea was obviously impractical only made them more determined to do it.
Coventry fever had properly arrived
The rest of the programme had the atmosphere of a show about to leave London for a major event.
Packing, weather, festival rumours and ticket stories were all now taking over ordinary conversation.
Radio 1’s Big Weekend was no longer something happening at the end of the week.
It had become the entire week.
And if the plan worked, one of the world’s biggest pop stars was going to arrive on stage with Scott and Chris pretending to be a horse.
COMMENTS