Wednesday:
The Glastonbury journey begun well before arriving at the festival. Gratefully Ed came with me to Liverpool st station and carried my far too heavy backpack for me. From there I headed solo to Victoria coach station to meet with Stanya and Lan for our 1pm bus for glasto. Except for just a small thing.... we were met with a huge, stagnant queue of other glasto bus riding enthusiasts.
2 hours later.... we were on the bus, and 3 hours later we had hit dead moving traffic. This might have been bearable if there had been some freakin windows on the bus... but there was no air except for a sunroof which was doing a little on a non-moving bus of 40 odd people. Spirits were still high though, and we all hopped off the bus and started walking in the direction of glasto, stopping at an ice-cream truck on the way to replenish our energy. We were 20 miles out and wouldn't arrive at Glatonbury for another 4 hours, hopping on and off the bus as it caught up to us in the snail pace traffic. Eventually at about 11pm we caught our first sight of Glastonbury and Stanya exclaimed in her best aussie bogan accent 'it's bigger than Sydney!!'
The rest of the evening was spent putting up our tents up wrong, befriending our neighbours (which served us well the next day when they helped us fix our tents before a downpour), exploring, getting lost, marveling at how wasted people already were, and exclaiming continually that the magnitude of this festival was blowing our minds.
Thursday-
Although the music doesn't start officially til Friday there was plenty to entertain us on Thurs and still many small stages/tents with their own band line-ups. We saw an amazing band called 'Roots Union' (myspace them - seriously), sampled the cider, continued to explore the overwhelmingly huge festival site (but still hardly scratched the surface), welcomed Lex, James and Alex to our camping posse and kept breaking into East17 songs 'Alright, Alright everythings gonna be alright. It's really alriiight' (lyrical geniuses they are).
Apparently the rest of the festival had the same idea because the rather small tent they were playing in was absolutely packed and we had to stand outside which seemed equally packed. Of course they couldn't live up to the impossibly high expectations we had of them, but it was some good nostalgic fun.
It was here that the news that Michael Jackson had died broke and the crowd went into a frenzy. People were screaming it, running round telling their friends, telling strangers, calling home to find out if it was true...
All I can say is that when someone asks me where I was when MJ died - I'm gonna be pretty stoked to be able to say - 'At an East17 gig'.
Friday-
And the festival officially began for me with Regina Spektor at the Pyramid stage. As expected her voice is incredible, she is amazingly talented and she played my favourites (Samson, Fidelity, That Time) and her new songs that I really like, like Blue Planet and Laughing at God (don't know if that is the actual song names). She was giggly, happy and delightful to watch.
I stayed on at Pyramid for N*E*R*D.
Pharrell Williams begun by exclaiming that Glastonbury wanted to shorten their set – though I later found out this was because they arrived late. Pharrell revved up the crowd by asking if we wanted to see their whole set – of course we did.
‘200 000 people want our whole set!’ – No Pharrell, there are 200 000 people at the whole festival, not at your gig.
Pharrell’s arrogance was amusing, they played some of their fun new stuff, some of that generic American hip hop and I had my first good dance of the fest.
Also heard my first of many MJ tributes ‘REST IN PEEAAACEE MICHAEL JAAACKSON’.
As they stubbornly continued their set over their allotted time the plug was pulled on them mid-song, the crowed was dumb struck and clearly so was N*E*R*D, well at least Pharrell got his memorable set!
Next was Fleet Foxes. I’de heard they put on an amazing live show and was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately they seemed to struggle with the immensity of the Pyramid stage and seemed really awkward and uncomfortable with it. I still enjoyed it, and their harmonies are great. Hope to see them again in a more intimate venue.
Lilly Allen followed and was as cheeky and fun as you would expect her to be. Played a mix of new and old, and wore a really hot one piece blue number with some very obvious boob tape, though she did exclaim that she had tape on her nipples in case her breasts did fall out. A highlight was watching the 10 year old girl next to me singing along enthusiastically to wet spots and being left sexuallt unsatisfied during ‘It’s not fair’.
And then there was Neil Young.
A highlight of the whole festival! There's good reason why he's such a rock legend! He kicked it off with ‘Hey hey my my’ and did 4 false endings to ‘Rocking in the free world’ – GENIUS – the crowd went even more nuts each time. Also sung ‘Heart of gold’ (I may have almost cried). He encored with ‘A day in the life’ by the Beatles and then trashed his guitar at the end of it. HE IS SO ROCK AND ROLL. Only disappointment is that he didn’t play ‘Old Man’, one of my all time favourites.
Saturday –
Saturday was mainly spent running solo between stages and dancing energetically.
It begun with Peter, Bjorn and John at the Other stage. Enjoyed hearing another big favourite of mine ‘Young Folks’ and really enjoyed Peter’s kookiness and interaction with the crowd.
I stayed on at the Other stage for Metric. It was too hot to dance, and they probably should have been on a bit later in the day, but again really liked it, they were energetic and had lots of ‘we’ll inspire you to follow your dreams’ kinda messages going on (but not in too much of a wanky way).
From there I headed for the John Peel stage to support Aussie band Temper Trap. I was curious to see what sort of crowd they would pull. As it turned out, quite a small but very enthusiastic one (they were on the same time as Spinal Tap to be fair). They put on an amazing live show, and I danced and yelled my heart out. I felt weirdly proud of them and will definitely love to see them again if I get the opportunity. They were one of my Saturday stand outs.
From here I checked out Dizzee Rascal. Although I’m not really into the whole ‘make some noiiiissee’ and ‘chant my name over and over’ thing, I still had fun. Highlights were: beginning the set with a version of the Ting Tings ‘That’s not my name’, the Michael Jackson medley, free styling to M.I.A’s ‘Paper Planes’ and of course ‘Bonkers’.
I quickly high-tailed it over to Jazz World for Jamie Callum. He definitely wins for most comfortable banter with the crowd. He was really laidback, had the British boy charm going and of course plays a mean piano. Unfortunately I missed the end of his set where apparently someone from the crowd decided to accompany him with their own trumpet playing which made for some amusing spontaneous fun from Jamie. Oh well, again I’de love an opportunity to see him again.
At this point I had a very hard decision to make – Badly Drawn Boy or Passion Pit. I thought I had made up my mind to see Badly Drawn Boy, yet I found myself walking in the direction of Passion Pit… I guess my subconscious wanted to see the ‘this years MGMT’ (as quoted by the Daily Glastonbury paper). Passion Pit was good fun, all the hype around them is justified. And although it was busy, if the person in front of me moved slightly to the left, and the person in front of them to the right, and if Passion Pit stood at a certain part of the stage… I could even see them!
Whilst grabbing some dins I stumbled on Peter, Bjorn and John doing a teeny gig in The Guardian tent and got to see them all close up – even though it was the 2nd time that day – it was very exciting!
And so came on The Boss! Almost 3 hours of extreme high energy, at one point you could literally see steam pouring off his skin!! I didn’t know a lot of his songs, and he didn’t play some classics. But he did finish with Dancing in the Dark. Didn’t move me like Neil Young, but still an awesome performance.
Sunday –
Unfortunately I didn’t have the same amount of energy I had the day before, and struggled to dash between stages. Spent the morning with the girls chilling out at the Green Fields and seeing Linda Lewis at Jazz world. We then wandered over to Pyramid for our West African beat fix and relaxed in front of Amadou & Miriam.
As I was already at Pyramid I decided to hang around for Tom Jones. I hadn’t given him much thought, but he was seriously entertaining, has an amazing voice and is the sexiest 69 year old I’ve ever seen! Got to hear ‘You can leave your hat on’ and ‘Sex bomb’ – big crowd pleases and seemed to put a big smile on everyone’s face.
I left Tom Jones before the end and headed over to the Other stage for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but found out they had started half an hour earlier than they were spose to and I only caught 2 songs. Though got to see my second guitar get trashed (sorry Neil did it better). I stayed for Bat For Lashes, which seemed to give me back some much needed energy, and then eagerly awaited Bon Iver.
Bon Iver met all expectations! He was really comfortable with the huge crowd, really humble, and gave us all a singing part in ‘The Wolves (Act I and II)’ … he asked us to sing‘What might have been lost’ quietly and get louder and louder and then when he gives us the sign just break into loud cheering. The moment was magic. Can’t wait for his 2nd album (bless that Emma chick for breaking his heart!).
Quickly raced back to the Pyramid stage to see the end of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Didn’t catch much of it, but it was an crazy high energy end and again (for the umpteenth time that festival) wished I could have seen the whole set (though didn’t at all regret choosing Bon Iver).
And then there was Blur…
It was like listening to their Best Of album, albeit with 100 000 odd people singing along! The crowd were crazy for Blur, and I’m pretty sure it was the most packed the Pyramid stage had been all festival. I saw more than one teary eye… never underestimate Brits love for Britpop. Blur were awesome, and I got the genuine feeling they were thrilled to be there. At one point Damon Albarn did exclaim ‘I’m so glad we decided to this!’. Best moments had to be the whole crowd singing to ‘Tender’ (Come on, come on, Come …get through it… love is the greatest thing… that we have…I’m waiting on that feeling….. oh my baby, oh my baby …. Etc). And of course Song 2 went off.
After Blur we all regrouped and headed for the small and intimate ‘Small World stage’ in the Green Futures field. It was there that I had one of my best dances of the fest to ‘The Worms’ and ‘Roots Union’. When the stage closed and as the sky was beginning to get light we explored Trash City and Shangrila. Shangrila’s theme of ‘dyscotopia’ described as ‘a bladerunner-inspired-retro-futuristic citadel of pleasures gone wrong: a mono-state of quarantined and enforced utopia, a self proclaimed paradise’ …. Need I say more? I was there until it was time to pack up the tent and head home.
So even though this seems like a pretty detailed account of Glasto... there is so much more to this festival than music, and there is no way you can do everything you want to. I could have spent the whole festival at Shangrila, or The Park, and still had an amazing time. Hopefully i'll be there next year to continue exploring this overwhelming amazing festival.
In summary – If the hardest decision I had to make were Badly Drawn Boy or Passion Pit, Bat for Lashes or Ladyhawke, Neil Young or Doves/Animal Collective/Q-Tip/Bloc Party, Springsteen or Franz Ferdinand … then really… life is pretty good! And on that note I got a plane to Barcelona to catch.
