Life & Wisdom Quote by Neil Innes

The most telling word here is "I think" - a tiny shrug at the end of a sentence that’s otherwise doing quiet logistical work. Neil Innes isn’t trying to mythologize Keith Moon so much as puncture the myth with the reality of touring: people "came on tour" the way they drop by, drift in, become part of the traveling weather. Moon, a figure usually framed as pure combustion, gets re-situated as a presence in a van, a backstage corridor, a schedule creeping toward "a big festival."

"In fact" signals correction, the conversational move of someone tightening the record, not polishing it. It reads like memory being responsibly handled in public: yes, Moon was there, but the details refuse to land like a headline. Even the festival is only "a big festival in Brighton", filed under geography and vibe rather than brand name. That casualness becomes the point. Innes, who made a career out of sly, adjacent fame (Bonzo Dog, Rutles), knows how celebrity narratives inflate; he answers with deflation.

The subtext is a musician’s-eye view of proximity to legend: not worship, not scandal, just a slice of time before the next show. By framing it as "for a bit", Innes keeps the story human-scale, hinting at how these chaotic cultural icons were also just colleagues passing through, half-remembered in the fog of gigs. The quote’s intent is less to impress than to normalize, turning rock history into something lived rather than curated.