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The Glastonbury Festival 2009 Review - Part One!

Jul 4, 2009
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This is a review of this year's Glastonbury Festival, in Pilton, UK - in three parts, fully illustrated (ha ha!)

I’ve just about recovered from this year’s festival. You need about a week to fully recharge and get this thing out of your system, catch up on your sleep and (of course) watch the BBC highlights from the comfort of your armchair.

We had the mud, the overindulgence, the cider, the lack of sleep and the sore feet of course, but as the sun peeped around the clouds on Friday morning, I knew it was going to be a much more civilised affair this year.

Being possible to sit on the grass for most of the weekend, a rare joy in itself, I took every opportunity to remove my boots and socks to give my feet some air, much to the consternation of those in close proximity. When it did rain, it was warm, welcome and thunderous, with stabs of lightening which, far from being threatening, simply added to the magic. For the most part, blistering heat prevailed, suncream was the order of the day and cool, refreshing cider went down at an alarming rate.

The site gets bigger and bigger each year. They pack so much in. This is now my seventh Glastonbury – I’ve been coming on and off since 1997 – and in the nineties there was no such thing as Shangri-La, Trash City or The Park. Although I do seem to remember an area called Lost Vagueness from years ago, but it’s an appropriately hazy recollection. It’s no exaggeration to say that it takes well over an hour to walk (slowly) around the whole site.

And why rush when there are so many delights and distractions along the way. This year was definitely the year of chilling out, hanging out and letting the forces of circumstance work their magic. Rushing to catch such and such on the Other Stage, frantic dipping in and out of the John Peel Tent to see some overrated new band, and crushing myself up with the kids to get to the front is now a thing of the past. Although I did crush myself up with the kids on Thursday to watch Maximo open the festival in the Q tent. I guess I just got a little over excited.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. For all intents and purposes, Glastonbury is now a five day festival. So, in blazing sunshine, we jumped on the coach in Manchester at 9am on Wednesday morning all excited. This was short-lived excitement as it took us 14 hours to get there. We arrived late, in the dead of night, due to ridiculous, gridlocked traffic. It was a shocker, the worst ever according to festival organiser Michael Eavis.

Although coach-locked scallies threatened like black clouds on a clear day, mercifully they remained quiet even when frustration and heat stroke finally set in. They were all early drinkers anyway, and some fell asleep. The vodka was flowing and we hadn’t even left the M6. One girl (“date-rape girl” as she became known) demonstrated that it was possible to drink oneself into a stupor, sleep for six hours with your knickers in the air, wake up, be desperately hungover and then make a full recovery just in time to get off the bus and present herself, ticket in hand, at Pedestrian Gate A, fresh as a daisy.

Of course, as soon as we arrived and got ourselves fed and watered (life saving sausage rolls, Danny!), all thoughts of the coach were banished and Thursday, “cider-bus” day, dawned. Yes, the day when I traditionally get wrecked on Somerset’s finest was upon us once again, and I certainly wasted no time glugging down a few pints of medium sweet which certainly got the juices flowing.

It’s lethal stuff. Three pints and I’m singing. Four, and I’m anybodies. It also didn’t help that I followed it up with a rather tasty cocktail of 1part undisclosed energy drink, 2 parts Strongbow, and 3 parts red wine courtesy of some nice kids who I met at the Q stage watching Maximo. Basically, other than drinking, talking a lot and wondering about, that was Thursday. What fun!

Here we are in the sun, enjoying ourselves:

Friday. The main stages open and things kick off. I’ll admit I did start the day slightly hungover, but this was banished with force of will and the might of a veggie burger! So I decide not to waste time faffing about and get on with the day. It had rained overnight, so wellies were the order of the day, and although I’ll admit the photos do look a bit drab, this was nothing compared to previous years. NOTHING!

I’m going to say a few words about everything that I saw or heard, so sit tight! Over breakfast, the sound of ABBA on the breeze – it was Bjorn Again on the Pyramid Stage, rocking up the classics like “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme” and “Mamma Mia”! I didn’t dawdle. I was in serious music mode with no time for cheese!

Swinging by The Other Stage (after a truly boring encounter with the Orange Chill and Charge tent), I caught a few songs by The Maccabees, who were OK but sadly, I’d have to assign the tag “landfill indie” to them as their set didn’t really grab me. Like a lot of MOR indie-by-numbers, they are just a bit dull. Hey ho. Hotfooting it up to The Park, I caught Gaz Coombs of Supergrass fame playing covers – a unadvertised “special guest” no less – and he was great, rocking out all over the place. That got my musical tastebuds fizzing, and about time too.

Finding myself a nice bench to rest my tired legs, I chilled out to the delightful sounds of Emiliana Torrini and band, who I’d never heard of but played a selection of delightful, heart-on-sleeve, low key songs. She has a gorgeous voice and a wonderful band, and will be someone worth checking out again now I’m back in the real world.

I wanted to catch Friendly Fires who were down on The Other Stage, and they didn’t disappoint with their hip-shaking, bum-swinging, hands-in-the-air percussion lead pop. They are a terrific festival band with a very energetic singer who has, shall we say, some serious moves! I danced and sang along as best I could. A particular highlight was their track “Paris”, its full bloodied and punchy. I urge you to check it out.

Back to The Park for the evening, and after catching the end of The Horrors, who bored me on this occasion I’m afraid by virtue of being too bleak for such a lovely day, it was time for Animal Collective who were amazing. I guess they are actually quite difficult to describe – so here’s a sample -

End of Part One!

The downstairs cupboard

Jun 23, 2009
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Digging around in the downstairs cupboard at the weekend, I was surprised to put my hand on an old bag of photos, folders, videos and notebooks from back in the day, that I thought I’d either lost forever or at the very least thrown out with the trash during a previous spring clean. It was a melancholy delight, like so many things in life, to rediscover and revisit some old memories.

How organised I must have been. I’d carefully sorted and labelled items in order, resplendent in cardboard files and for the most part clipped together with aging, rusty bulldogs which had started to turn the paper yellow. They had lost none of their bite, though, and pages were still neatly arranged and none had made bid for freedom over the forgotten years hiding in the downstairs cupboard.

Photographs, from a pre-digital age, were collected together in wallets, glossy prints having lost none of their sparkle, and, flicking through, I noticed how composed and considered the shots were – not like today when every photo is instantly disposable, deleteable, edited and uploaded onto Facebook. These were no displays of nightclub tomfoolery or bleary eyed hangovers; these were the best of us, always seemingly shot in glorious sunshine, beaming smiles, head and shoulders neatly composed in the frame, each photo having enjoyed a momentary consideration that only having a role of film with twenty-one pictures can impose. And look how young we all looked. Glorious.

I emptied the box. Here was a selection that I’d obviously deemed important enough to save from house-moves and midnight flits during the last twenty years. People who have known me for a long time will know that I’ve always had a tendency, either imposed or otherwise, to move around. Seven new houses in twelve years (I forget the exact ratio) was a feature of my childhood, while later moves were imposed either by family break-ups or entry into higher education. Following settlement in Manchester (and my defection to the red rose of Lancashire), I must have lived at least one year in every district in the south of the city, save for the big expenses of Didsbury or the city centre. So there were plenty of clearouts, plenty of bin bags for the charity shop, plenty of opportunities to wipe the slate clean and start again. I’ve certainly done that on more than one occasion.

So what remains is incomplete. Here, a few photos from the mid nineties, from my teenage years, focus on various drama-related activities. There, bright and bold costumes from “The Picnic”, a short VHS film we once made on a seemingly endless summer day. Unlike the photos, the finished video, with its crappy black and white, photocopied cover, and its out dated (even for the time) low-band format, only manages to glimmer dully. Regardless, I pop the video into the player. The most ludicrous story ever - a village fete in the 1930’s menaced by a couple of gothic vampires playing out some sort of revenge fantasy, while the women of the village try to outdo themselves by flirting and snogging their way round the male cast (who are all under the age of 16, some almost pre-pubescent) – is conducted as a cod-hammer horror pastiche with some shockingly contrived incident and moments of pure hilarity. How many sixteen year olds can claim to have spent the summer holidays dressed as a dandy in a boater pretending to save the world from the Goths and the Flirts? And my god that’s a lot of teenage hormone action going on right there. Although the finished product will forever be a source of embarrassment, and to be fair it’s not very good, the whole thing has a confident air about it. We must have been insulated from real criticism, preferring instead to indulge our every dramatic cliche and sexual urge. I wonder what happened to that confident lad who made films on a whim and managed to persuade every girl he knew to fondle his upper leg seductively, engage in full on snogging action, slap him about, strip him to the waist (in a woodland dream sequence), and bite him on the neck, and that’s nothing on the homoerotic content! I’m sure Freud had a word for that somewhere.

These were the deep, dark ages of the teenager. I don’t think I was a very good teenager. In fact, I think my refusal to grow up in my twenties was as a direct result of being a crap teenager. Where was the rebellion? Where was the rock music? Where was the bad hair? Well, OK, there’s plenty of evidence of that, but it was just bad, not “cool” bad like you might hope. And ginger. You’d think that plonking about at drama club might have got the juices flowing, and I do remember being introduced to Nirvana by someone there, and The Doors (and that was a good spot), but I guess it wasn’t enough. We had to wait for the advent of Britpop before I really got into music. (I suppose thanks to the Gallagher brothers should be offered– their first and last mention on this blog).

Digging in further, the post University years began to manifest themselves. These were the days when I thought it would be a good idea to try and become a screen writer. Oh the folly of youth! Or should I say “young adulthood”!

Actually, the collection of half finished scripts and short stories made for interesting reading. Some of the ideas still have legs. I don’t think the realisation was up to much – the plotting needs a radical rethink in everything – but I’d correctly identified the rise of the terrorist two years early in one script (in a “London underground terrorist attack with nerve gas story”), and amazingly started a eco-drama set on a desert island a few years before climate change became daily news (although I assume climate change must have been on the radar somewhere at the turn of the century) about poachers. Yes, I think I shall revisit that, maybe they were good ideas after all.

And then I dig deeper – dozens of rejection letters from various agents, production companies and script editors. My female characters don’t have much of a voice, one reads. Hardly surprising, I think. I wouldn’t feel confident working the market with this script, says another. Oh well. At least they were read.

My mood clouds, so I get a pile of stuff together to throw out. I don’t hesitate. Some of the stuff I really don’t need. Then I come across a file with about 50 pages of a novel I’d once tried to write. My God, where did I find the time to do all this stuff! It was a Doctor Who related effort. I’d called it “Vengeance of the Cybermen” – what a title! God knows when I put pen to paper on this, but I looked closely at the typeface I realised it was the old typewriter that got nicked when we got burgled in Longsight – it was an easy steal, one of our number left a back window open - so that dates the text to the mid to late nineties. I’d even drawn a nice cover with the “New Adventures” logo on it and a picture of the Cyberleader. Again, the details of the plot leave a little bit to be desired, but the prose is OK, the characters ring true and there’s some lovely exchanges between the Doctor and his companions. Yes, not too bad at all. Maybe I should start writing again.

As I ponder this revelation, the phone rings and I am distracted. Back to the present.

Well, the present is potentially very nice as I’m off down to Glastonbury tomorrow for this year’s mud-inspection committee with additional rain and poo. And hopefully some great music. Well, Blur are playing so that should be good. Another trip down memory lane right there. Bring it on.

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My Glastonbury Review!

Jul 11, 2007
4 comments

Well, I'm back.

As you may have seen from various news reports, it wasn't the driest Glastonbury Festival on record; indeed, it's been the wettest weekend in June in the UK since records began, which is an awfully long time ago. With flooding in many parts of the UK resulting in loss of life and transport chaos, it comes as no surprise that this year's Glastonbury Festival was also a total "mudfest". We are talking serious, wellies required mud here. Not for the faint hearted.

However, this year we had one big advantage. We had been forewarned! The marvellous British institution that is the Met Office informed us well in advance of the impending deluge and in the light of this information, brollies, wellies and rain coats were all packed and taken to Pilton enabling one hundred and seventy seven thousand festival goers defied the elements and had one hell of a party.

This year's Glastonbury was the largest arts festival ever held. It took all day just to walk from one side of the farm to the other. There were literally hundreds of stages, dedicated to all different types of quality music from around the world. The famous Pyramid Stage featured, in my mind, the rather controversial choice of headline acts which were the Artic Monkeys (Fri, my friend said they were "just OK"), The Killers (Sat) and The Who (Sun), while The Other Stage (which is just as big) featured Bjork (Fri), Iggy and the Stooges (Sat), and The Chemical Brothers (Sun).

Although the live music and fun didn't start until Friday, most of us turned up on Wednesday to soak up some atmosphere and the campsite was filling up rapidly by mid afternoon. I'd strongly advise anybody going to Glasto in the future to turn up as early as possible as the camping areas get ridiculously full very quickly. Prepare to be very well acquainted with your neighbours throughout the weekend. I travelled light, with only a tent, sleeping bag, three bottles of vodka, a torch, boots and wellies and some clean clothes for company. In actual fact the coach down was so quick and easy, and it dropped me so close to where I was camping, that I barely carried my luggage 500 yards all day.

One of the great, unsung features of Glastonbury is the great array of foods available. You could eat your way round the site. The emphasis is defiantly on vegan, veggie and healthy foods washed down with cider and more cider. But there were plenty of meat options on offer as well. Its London prices so be warned. £3.50 a pint of cider. I didn't think that was too bad to be honest, all things considered.

Lets talk music. Bjork was amazing. One of my main reasons for going this year was to catch this set, and she didn't disappoint. She emerged wearing a mushroom shaped hat and long coat, but this soon gave way to a multicoloured flowing outfit with a silver painted forehead. She played a selection of hits, with at least one tune from each of her albums. Despite making a balls up of playing "5 years" (I don't think anybody noticed apart from obsessives like me), the set was excellent, and the triple-header of "Hyperballad", "Pluto" and "Declare Independence" was a magnificent finale. I must say the rendition of "Army of Me" was probably my musical highlight all weekend. Other acts I caught on the Friday were Arcade Fire, who didn't really grab me I'm afraid, The Magic Numbers, for whom the sun shined and we all sang along, someone I can't remember the name of at The Glade Stage, who were doing hip-hop and drum and bass with saxophones and were excellent, Mcr's very own The Travelling Band, who deserve a bigger stage and were terrific, and Bloc Party, who are a very tight band but bored me as I realised I don't like any of their songs, and they didn't play "Two More Years"!

Saturday saw CSS (excellent, camp nonsense), Babyshambles (outright rubbish, even with a guest appearance from Kate Moss), Klaxons (all shouting and loudness and jumping and brilliance), Maximo Park (who should be further up the bill, simply excellent stuff from them), and The Editors (only caught part of the set but sounded great). Then onto the Dance Arena. That's five different stages all catering for different dance music types, and I caught Mr. Scruff (a bit too downtempo considering the time of night), and Sasha (what a fantastic Thom Yorke remix he finished on) plus loads of random stuff.

Sunday will be known as the day I was the most wrecked, and the day in which I had to drink mostly lager because some of the bars had run out of cider! However, Shirley Bassey was probably the highlight – she knows how to hold a crowd and the diamond-encrusted wellies were remarkably clean. The Bond medley was brilliant, and we got "Big Spender" twice. The Kaiser Chiefs played and I have to say they have some great songs but why do they insist on yelling "whoa, whoooa, whoooooooahhhh" at every opportunity? The last show of the festival for me was "The Chemical Brothers" and it was a stunning, stunning show – although I couldn't stay to the end because I needed the loo so much I just had to go.

So that was Glastonbury, and it was amazing. Although I had to get up for the bus early on Monday, the day it closed, I was home by three in the afternoon and started the painful process of readjusting to normal life again. I still have a raging thirst for cider. Luckily, I have some in the fridge waiting for me right now. I honestly don't think the bad weather and the mud spoilt the weekend at all for most people. Out of the four Glastonbury's I've attended (1997, 1998, 2003, 2007), three have been wet and wild and one has been sunny. I guess its all part of the charm. Hopefully, next year we can get a gig there. I shall do a rain dance to try and make this happen!!

I shall be field bound once again.

Ben