30/06/07

GLASTONBURY 2007

(Read Patrick's 2008 Glastonbury Blog here)

1. Introduction

This, a retrospective blog and review of the wettest Glastonbury on record.

My random 'musings on music' and on Glastonbury in general follow below. First a brief comment (feel free to skip to the next paragraph!) on why this blog was published retrospectively and not "as it happened". Essentially, festival pigeon post was operating a more timely service than text messaging (this including catching and training the bird), and the chance of getting broadband links off site were non-existent - hence the "after the event" write-up. (Incidentally, the solution to the "it takes 10 hours to receive a text" was to start every text message with the time (and date) it was written, so you could gauge how irrelevant it was by the time it was received. This meant that with only limited brain power, we could work out if the message was useless, completely useless, or only partially useless. My award for the "most useless text" would go to "see you at the front in 10 minutes"!)

This year, unlike the first festival in 1970, everybody attending (presumably apart from Pete Dougherty and Kate Moss), had either uploaded a jpg file of their face or visited a photographer or photo booth and used a more traditional method of postal “pre-registration”. Nearly 400,000 of us wanted to go. Living “off the grid” was to prove a challenge this year. A permanent addresses and bank details were required. Of course, the photo-id’s bore little relationship to those walking around site (certainly by the end), but they did get you past security, and into the event. It’s hard to imagine an equivalent process in 1970 – perhaps registering at the local police station before attending would have been the norm. Anyway, we were in.

We arrived on Wednesday, a quartet including myself, and for the purposes of anonymity (for no particular reason), let’s call them Alistair, Angie and Chris. Dug, who works for the BBC, is also on site.

2. Arrival

We arrived and pitched by a metal track (but in a good position near the new Park Area – thanks Emily), two on one side of the tracks and two on the other (so to speak). I’d decided to take a large family tent, not with the intention of hosting wild orgies (let’s be clear here – four days of Glastonbury is not the sexiest experience when you’re walking around in slurry), but really as a place to shelter from the rain that might be coming. All us “well connected” (we’re talking broadband here) individuals, had been monitoring the future conditions for weeks before hand. Anyway, it appeared with a few days to go that it might drizzle a bit. Right!

Before progressing any further, it’s worth explaining that there is a different air to Glastonbury then you generally encounter in “real life”, especially when in a crowd - something I appreciate as a Londoner. For example, sitting at the railway station this morning (post-event) I notice a man reading a Harry Potter novel next to me (HP4). I just manage to catch myself in time before I commit a terrible faux pas. I nearly talked to a stranger. Undoubtedly, a “you better read that quickly, HP7 is out soon”, would have caused fear and consternation. At Glastonbury, the poor sod wouldn’t have got a page read during the festival – people would notice, comment, talk, debate, get drunk, trip out, whatever. The thicker paper of the dust cover would probably be turned into roaches for joints as the plots were deconstructed.

But anyway, we’re pitched, and head off into the temporary city.

There isn’t any organised music on Wednesday, so we generally drink. General drinking was something I did a lot of over the five days. I didn’t take any pills (well, OK – I tripped out on Clarytin once [calm down – it’s an anti-histamine]), and generally, Clinton-like, did not choose to inhale other smokey items. Well, maybe passively - and only on a couple of occasions (well, four). Bottles of Amyl Nitrate (£5 over the counter) are in evidence, of course. But it's not exactly crack. But I prefer my Glastonbury experiences naturally induced. Whilst it’s all about feeling elated, being moved by music, or a crowd, or a conversation – I like whatever kicks off the elation in your head to be what goes in through your ears. Remember your brain holds the keys to a veritable chemical factory – just get very scared or very sad to try this out at home… I prefer it to be a reaction to an event – not through chemical addition to your blood stream. But that’s just me. I can see how engagement with the event, shedding all inhibitions and genuinely becoming part of the lunacy that surrounds you at times would be greatly enhanced with chemical stimulation. But I’ve got kids, and whatever happened to the 26 year old from Birmingham who died of a suspected OD (at the time of going to press), sure as heck isn’t going to happen to me. It’s possible that some of my fellow attendees didn’t share this view, but hey – that’s fine. There are, after all, two sides of the tracks…

3. Nice!

A recurring theme was the Jazz Lounge.

Now, until Glastonbury I really hadn’t done jazz, and I’m not convinced I’m there yet, but in terms of the sheer musical capability it was inspiring. A small tent, the capacity of which expanded and contracted in direct correlation to the amount of water falling out of the sky, provided us with audio stimulation post-midnight on all five nights we were there. It should be noted that these nights ended at about 3am, 3am, 4.30am, 5.30am and 3.15am. Days started at between 10am and 11am apart from the final “pack up tent and leave” 7.15am alarm call (well more “run – run for it – get out – RUN!!”). Post Jazz Lounge, we’d chew the cud back at the tents. We were able to get a fire going on the first night (along with most of the world), but by Sunday morning (5am), we were the only ones coughing and spluttering (my monumentally sized tent providing space for a dry wood store). [We wondered about using smoke signals from the fire to challenge the mobile networks in term of sending messages around site, but however hard we tried, all we could make it signal was “we’ve lit a fire”.] Question – why does the smoke always go in your face, regardless as to where you move around the fire?

It’s possible that at some point I bought a hat. I also wrote a couple of post cards home to the kids.

4. King for Just One Day

Somewhere in there we took the ten steps to enlightenment through a Druid garden, with a strong emphasis on kingship and fairies. Unfortunately, the sixth task (from memory) involved pulling water up from a small well in a bucket that was supposed to be attached to a chain. Sadly, the bucket was untied, the chain broken (already!) and so the task cycle was broken. I did, however, sit on a wooden throne, and surveyed all that was before me. I think at that point was when it started raining. Some King!

We also made it up the stone circle (the one that was set up there in the past few year rather than being ever present since the Dark Ages), and had a look around Banksy’s portaloos. As you do. Attached to the fencing around the top of the field was a lot of artwork, generally about saving the planet. You had to step over all the rubbish left by revellers the night before to get to it. One panel had hundreds of labels tied on by people – all with their wishes and hopes. Some were quite moving, but the one that made me laugh was one saying they wished that ... “George Bush wasn’t such a Numpty”. Beautifully summed up!

5. The Music Begins

Over and above the nine or ten different performers in the Jazz Lounge that I cannot name or clearly remember (apart from “Something Completely Else”, and a free form Jazz Quartet with Harry Potter [him again] seeming playing one form the left), I managed to see twenty-three different acts at Glastonbury.

I’ll try to get the facts right about this, but as a music amateur I’ll just go ahead and write what I believe (even if it’s wrong). Please feel free to comment back via the feedback form elsewhere on this website. First up - Modest Mouse. They are the latest collective to feature Johnny Marr, the song-writing guitar-wielding genius behind The Smiths. Drifting around, a stint as part of Electronic, then with the excellent Matt Johnson as part of The The, you suspect Mr Marr really hasn’t found his niche. Song writers who produce tunes like “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, deserve another outing. But a sword needs a foil. They’re “fine”, and sound “quite good”. The cameras driving the large screens either side of The Other Stage loiter on Mr Marr more than they might. Then it’s the first of many trips from the Other Stage to the Pyramid Stage.

With around twenty stages to perform on around the Glastonbury site (and many smaller spots), it’s most likely that every one of the 177,500 visitors saw their own unique festival line-up, watching different artists at different times. I’d suspect that the only identical experience shared by anybody would be “not making it out of the tent at all”, but you hope that that would have been for only the most inspired of reasons. So in terms of having an “alternative Glastonbury” (and by that, I mean anything apart from setting up your folding chair half way up the hill overlooking the Pyramid Stage every morning at 10.30am and watching all the acts from Adjagas on Friday through Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and James Morrison, right through to The Who on Sunday night), it’s there for the taking. Unlike my previous Glastonbury visits (and let’s be honest here – there have only been two), I watch twice as many “complete sets” on The Other Stage, than on The Pyramid Stage. Now, that’s hardly “out there” (an open-air circus performance I watched at 1am one morning featuring a man in a pair of leather chaps stubbing a cigar out on a dominatrix’s tongue whilst trying to juggle a flaming hoop gives more of a clue to the “alternative” Glastonbury available), but hey - it’s progress of sorts!

What appears to be a very large tumbler of red wine is being consumed by Amy Winehouse. Her performance is great, although if she was a DJ, I’d have suggested that the links need a bit of work. Eccentricity, when it complements such a great voice and some good songs has to be admired, and the Glastonbury crowd duly acknowledge her performance. I was fearful of the state she’d be in by the time she made it to the Jazz Stage at 9pm later that day, but somebody we met later in the week in the Jazz Lounge said she was great. Presumably incoherent, but great.

6. Here Comes the Sun

The Magic Numbers then perform, and there is the first of several “Glastonbury Moments” when the sun comes out, and the crowd cheers up noticeably. There are some good sing-along moments, and they play all the songs everybody wants to hear.

I then set off for a slog around the site. The Glastonbury Festival covers around 900 acres and it can take up to 30 minutes to make it from one corner of activity to the opposite. It’s therefore something not to be undertaking lightly or selfishly, but reverently and responsibly. I pick up a couple of carved wooden boxes for the kids, watch some “metalloids” (metal droids?) being set up, and then manage to rendez-vous with Alistair and buy some Glasto t-shirts.

My journey takes me past Mumm-Ra, who are playing the John Peel Stage. I met John Peel at Glastonbury a couple of years back. I complemented him on a Festive Fifty I remember which put “How Soon is Now” by The Smiths at No 1 and two Cocteau Twins songs second and third – “Spanglemaker” and “Pearly Dew Drops Drops”. “I was always a Spanglemaker kind of person myself”, I remember him saying on the radio at the time. I reminded him of this, and said I agreed. He was eating cabbage at the time and seemed a bit confused. How could he not remember!? It was only 20 years or more ago? One of a million sound bites. Anyway, shortly afterwards he went to South America on holiday and died. He has a tent named after him now. That’s where I went.

I then see Arcade Fire on The Other Stage. Paul Morley (who I also met a few times a long time ago in ZTT days when I used to buy, and maintain a list of all the ZTT releases - yes I know - pretty sad really ... but who now remembers Propaganda's iconic Dr Mabuse with the affection I still hold for it - and what of Andrew Poppy, Nasty Rox Inc or Das Psycho Rangers...) ... Anyway Paul thinks they are pretty exciting. I generally like what Paul Morley writes, and I have to agree. There was a real energy there, and although I’ve so far held off buying any of their music, it’s the first band I’ve seen that will drive me to a record shop. (Sorry modern generation – I want to buy something I can hold; read the sleeve notes on; read who produced it; see who it’s dedicated to. I don’t want to use my broadband connection and spend 79p on the best tracks from an album to download, putting “compressed to hell” digital data onto my iPod. Peter Blake’s iconic Sergeant Peppers Cover [much discussed over the past month] would have been really poor as a 2 cm square .jpg file... But as a Flash animation, I guess it could have worked... Maybe technology has its place... But I bought a record player the other day, so it’s clearly going to take its time.)

7. Bjork

Then, for me, it’s the performance of Glastonbury. It’s Bjork – looking not only like she’s lost the plot – it’s more like there probably wasn’t ever a plot. Actually, she looks stunning. And that voice. It’s the most amazing weapon. Despite going to many, many concerts over the years, I’ve never seen her perform. “Venus as a Boy” is remarkable. “Hunter” is excellent, and when “Army of Me” came on, it felt like the earth was opening up. This was the Chemical Brothers meets Massive Attack with a bit of opera lobbed in – an extraordinary pulsing heavy beat that felt like it would shake you to bits. Just extraordinary. “Bachelorette” takes some beating, and the set closes with a final song “we have time for one more” – yeah, right! – it’s “Declare Independence”. Bjork started late, and as picked up by the press, was the only person to breach the 00:30 curfew on a main stage – in fact by 20 minutes. Standing at nearly one in the morning with tens of thousands of people listening to Bjork was, officially, another “Glastonbury Moment”.

There she is - can't you see her on stage?

Thanks by the way (from myself and Dug) to the guys standing behind us for the first three numbers (until we moved). Great to hear such detailed (shouted) analysis of the performance, the equipment, what you expected her to play, etc, but it totally drowned out the performance, the equipment, and what she actually played. A great reverence for my fellow man resulted in me buttoning it and relocating with Dug. Keep quiet – and smile. Same reason you pay a 10% tip in a restaurant if the service is crap, and a 10% tip if it’s fantastic, I guess. It’s just the way you type in the PIN that expresses your dissatisfaction. Perhaps it would have been better to talk to them about it, to point out the error of their ways, but then as somebody was shot at the last Bjork concert at Glastonbury some thirteen years before, it might have been unfair to kick something off. “Bjork – don’t worry – it’s only a minor altercation – they were talking over you”. Powerful words.

In the Jazz Lounge, it’s those free form players who eventually come on at about 2:20am. Just “random” (sorry Jazz fans!) playing. And once again, I understand why people take mind altering drugs. It might have made sense. Probably cheaper than noise cancelling headphones. We eventually leave just after 3.00am. An eclectic collection of different music duly observed since wake-up time.

Sitting outside the tent, we hit the red wine for a bit before calling it a day. We’re really now into Glastonbury. Oddly, it appears to be raining.

And raining.

And raining.

 

In the tent, the sound of rain is blocked out by my ear plugs. I hasten to add that they were not bought to attend any concerts, but a freebee I received when travelling overnight on a train (the best way to travel, everybody!), and for the purpose of sleeping, undisturbed. They nearly drown out the rain, as I sleep not too badly, slightly restless, and awake with a sore back. A recurring theme.

8. When a man’s got to go…

The toilets at Glastonbury are something out of the middle ages. Occasionally lockable (“sorry mate, I didn’t mean to walk in on you having a sh**”, “Oi, I just walked in on somebody having a sh**), rarely fragrant, piles of excrement grow beneath you as the event goes on, lorries occasionally travelling around to suck it all up. It’s not for the faint hearted. When it’s raining, or when people have missed the hole (yes sadly – some serious misses observed) – toilet seats optional – it’s just fabulous. We all get very used to our creature comforts. It’s worth remembering that this would still represent a luxury to well over 1,000,000,000 people on a global level. Wateraid, Oxfam and Greenpeace remind us of such things at the event, and too bloody right. It’s a great tie up. Both water and music are needed for life, and it’s an obvious link. All this music is great, but have a good think about how easy life is as you have another cup of cider and stumble back towards the toilets.

I think it’s about 11am when I finally wake up (properly). A jump start is needed after the late night. Angie has brought me a copy of the Guardian. Having a quick read, I then take my electro-acoustic guitar from its case (ah yes - neglected to say I brought that as well), open up the tent, set up my stool, and “play Glastonbury”. I’ve been playing the only four things I can play (well, sort of play) over the past couple of days (Angie had finally pointed out that the chord sequence is starting to grate a bit the night before…). I’ve just about mastered simple versions of “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead, and three songs I sort of wrote. I’d not profess to be any good (learning the guitar being the result of a drunken deal made a Glastonbury three years before), but I enjoy it. So it’s time to learn something else – it’s to be “Welcome to the Machine” by Pink Floyd. It’s just about there by the end of my time on site (the voice is very ropey though), but then there are only five chords. Or is it four? Keep it simple.

9. Saturday Splatter-day

This is the second “official” day of music, so it’s time now to mention the fantastic bacon and egg baguettes from the Park Area. Now, many people who know me will be aware that I am partial to the odd bacon sandwich. We’d found this place on Thursday, tried somewhere else on Friday (we went for inside a tent as it was raining, but found half the eating area had already been abandoned due to a mud bath, and ended up battling a fried breakfast leaking through a paper plate… you get the picture), but it just wasn’t the same. So we subsequently took our business back to the baguette outlet. And a fantastic Fair Trade (too right) latte each morning was a help. I think I only consumed about 1 litre of water whilst at Glastonbury. Lager, cider, whiskey (brought in), red wine (brought in), white wine (brought in), bourbon (only two in the Jazz Lounge on the final night at 2.00am) and coffee (lattes) provided all the liquid I needed. It’s good to look after yourself – stay hydrated kids!

10. A man in a red suit picks a fight with a chair

The Guillemots are the first band I see on Saturday on the main stage. As if by magic, the saxophonist who was in the Jazz Lounge at 3.00am earlier that day is now on the Pyramid stage playing with them, again on the far left. I think he plays exactly the same free form set, but it sounds great in the context of “modern pop”. Interesting how interchangeable this trad. (“mad”?) jazz is. Fyfe Dangerfield, our red-suited lead singer picks a fight with his chair during the performance, and wrestles on the floor with it. It’s actually one of the most genuinely deranged and unexpected moments I witness on stage during the weekend. Forget Iggy Pop singing “I’ll be your dog” (twice). This is the sort of stuff that you’d be sectioned for if undertaken in a TGI Fridays. But they are an interesting band, and probably one to add to the next CD order (joining Arcade Fire and Amy Winehouse, which have already been purchased…).

Then it’s on to see Biffy Clyro (back on The Other Stage across site, and through the oceans of mud). It takes me a little while to warm to them. You can hear the “classic heavy metal” chords bursting through, and for a while I have to say it all sounds a bit formulaic. Then a slower one, and the “surprise soft hit from heavy band” is played! More formula. Perhaps that’s unfair. I then meet up with Angie who suggested trying them out in the first place, and actually it starts to get better. It’s a strange thing, but I think watching a performance with somebody you know sometimes allow you to connect better it to. You can share the experience – rather more closely than with all the other anonymous punters. They are followed by CSS, who I thought were good fun. Lovefoxxx tried to get involved with the crowd by jumping into it – sadly, a failure, but I’ll come back to that one when I talk about Iggy Pop later on.

Sadly, I realise I’ve missed Holy F***, who were playing a smaller stage somewhere else. I just thought they might be a nice bunch of lads, and worth seeing. (Checking them out on MySpace, I think they probably would have been well worth seeing, but there we go...)

We head back to the tent for a bit, and “Welcome to the Machine” moves on a little. The way I play there is still room for applause between some of the chord changes (a useful technique to fill time), but I’m getting there... But with no crowd, no applause.

11. What’s all the fuss about?

Then it’s Babyshambles. I’m expecting just that. Being a bit long in the tooth and not listening to much “new” music these days, I missed out on The Libertines, and all the fuss about Mr Docherty. Reading around it all now, and the "re-birth of Cool Britiania post bloated Oasis et al", I suspect I have missed out... But I was unimpressed with the performance I witnessed post Libertines (on TV) at Live8, and didn’t quite get Pete. Two performances later (more to come on the other one), and I’m convinced. They/he were/was great. Another album to purchase perhaps – but then I think the music might need the live performance of Pete in order to “work”. We of course particularly enjoy a couple of lovely, spontaneous appearances from the delightful Ms Moss.

I slog back to the Pyramid Stage, and I’m down at the front with Alistair to see Paul Weller. He’s got a fabulous voice (Paul that is - not Alistair - sorry mate!) and I’m pretty blown away by it. You can see why he couldn’t necessarily showcase it on “Eaton Rifles”. He does however finish on “Town Called Malice”, after a great set that includes “Wild Wood”, “Paper Smile” and “Porcelain Gods”. He’s still got real attitude, lighting a cigarette and smoking with such apparent aggression – it’s like we’re all school teachers and he’s the bad kid – totally oblivious to us – he just needs a few massive drags – one huge one before bringing out that smooth voice again. He spits a few times as well. Perhaps he’ll never get old but just explode in anger one day. I've always been dissappointed by his solo albums, but Weller live is a revelation.

By comparison to all this rage (and why not?) Pete Docherty, is lackadaisical, and just kind of rocks up and casually performs. With Weller, there is a suppressed menace that comes through every now and again – this in contraction to his sweet-soul vocalising. I think I’ll write to the relevant record companies and suggest a duet. Perhaps it could be put on a compilation one day with other great combos such as David Bowie and Bing Crosby. It would be right up there with the best of them.

12. Eric and Luke

I go for a wander round, really not sure what to do or see that evening. I’m torn between The Killers (who I really don’t know at all well - sorry!), and Iggy Pop, who I’ve really never had the inclination to “discover”. So I wander, and find Eric Bibb in the Acoustic Tent, catching the last twenty minutes of his set. It’s more intimate than the “big rock gigs” I’ve been to so far, and all the better for that. He’s a great guitarist, the music verging on “Gospel” to my untrained ear – there is almost the feeling of a Sunday morning evangelical church service. (Despite their organ giving religious overtones, I suspect Arcade Fire wouldn’t work such an event as well). Not really my kind of music, but over the weekend, I actually find it hard to find fault with any of the performances I see. From Eric Bibb, I walk across the mud and find myself passing a tent where they are "doing comedy" – and in ten minutes, it’s Star Wars, the one-man show performed by Charles Ross. Episodes IV, V and VI (forget the new nonsense!) are each compressed with great skill into twenty minutes, and there are many clever and genuinely funny moments. I suspect it’s not really for the kids – I had been wondering about taking my two (aged 7 and 9) along to see it in London – but I think I’ll give it a miss. He does well, battling against rock music swirling around outside, and acknowledges as much.

So that was my non-music performing arts moment. Sorry to The Kooks, The Editors and John Fogerty, and especially to Nick Lowe who I’d been on the way to seeing when I was distracted by Yoda and co., but I just needed something a bit different.

13. Something new and something old

Pining for more music, I decide to slog back to the main stage to see The Killers. There was a lot of talk about lack of volume, but I didn’t suffer this. I’d hoped to get reasonably close (centre, just in front of the sound desk is the best place at the Pyramid and Other Stages), but I’m going to get nowhere near. It’s absolutely packed out, the hill a sea of people (well, a sea of mud with people standing in it). I don’t know the songs, so I don’t get out of it what I might, but it’s big, colourful and working my way up the hill, hugely impressive in terms of spectacle. Having previously seen Radiohead and Muse playing with technology and giving great performances, it certainly looked technically ambitious. It also seemed a bit Queen meets AOR US-type Rock Band to me, but there we go. Having said that, I think it’s time to buy a Killers album as well.

Having seen enough, I cut and run and slog back round to see the last ten minutes of Iggy Pop and the Stooges playing The Other Stage. I don’t think I’d have got more out of eighty minutes than ten minutes, although the stage invasion (much reported) would undoubtedly have been one of the comedy moments of the festival. It was witnessed by Alistair, who said it was great fun. Several bands I watched over the weekend tried to “engage” with the crowd by launching themselves into them. Security appeared to disapprove of this behaviour, and in most cases the artists managed to get nowhere near the masses (though I did witness CSS’s Ms Lovefoxxx having her headband pinched), but Iggy instead took the approach of bringing the crowd (about 200 of them) to him – and it worked. Anarchy of another sort. He finishes with “I’ll be your dog” – apparently for the second time. Dug says he missed a trick by not performing “Passengers” or “Lust for Life”, but most reviews are glowing. Old timer? Iggy certainly isn’t. Maybe Iggy is all cucumber sandwiches and bond issues in real life – but looking at him crawling around the stage doing an impression of a dog, I think I’d give him a wide berth if we met in a dark alley.

14. Spring rolls and smoke signals at dawn

So we’re through for Saturday night. It’s the Jazz Lounge again, again until after 3.00am. We’re actually herded out at 3.30am – just the right time for a couple of spring rolls (well one spring roll and some vegetarian tempura as it turns out – the spring rolls are out - crisis!). The herding, it has to be said, was very un-Jazz like – but then I guess everybody needs sleep...

Back at the tent, its chairs out (it’s not raining – let’s celebrate), and let’s get that previously-hyped fire going. Some people stop to warm their hands as they walk home. It’s the first (and only) evening I stay up until it is light. Glastonbury is still buzzing although to be fair, it’s now more like a lost bluebottle than a swarm of hornets – lots of people are heading to their tents to get some sleep. Around 8am is the quietest time I think. No commuters here... So I hit the sack (literally) at around 5.15am, and I’m asleep by 5.30am. That’s just 30 minutes before I’ll be getting up the Tuesday after returning to London. I appear to have now successfully adjusted my time zone to Mumbai. Great news!

15. How can you not smoke dope at moments like these?

It’s Sunday afternoon, and Bob Marley songs are blasting out over the Pyramid Stage. They are performed by the Marley Brothers. Having woken up at around 11.00am, a clear ninety minutes before the rest of the gang, I’m working on Floyd again. (“… It’s all right… We know where you been…”). I make it to the stage with Alistair after another one of those bacon and egg baguettes. Weed and Marley go together like Weller and Docherty. Well OK – slightly better. The sun comes out, and there we are. Bathed in bright sun light, fifty-thousand plus singing “One Love”.

We’re reasonably far back at this point, stage left. The crowd (or rather lack of it) who have turned up to watch James Morrison, let us get rather nearer – there has appeared (rather alarmingly for James), a gap which we partially fill. We stay for a few tracks. Nice enough songs, but having expected Alistair to say “you’re joking – let’s go”, it me who suggests we should head off first. There’s a clear choice – watching a live performance by an artist who’s crafted his songs over a long period of time, deserving respect – or a muddy slog over to the bar for a pint of cider you could get at one of 10,000 pubs in London on a typical night out… Tough choice.

Pints in hand, we decide to head for a gap in the programme, back up to Emily’s creation. Apparently (the rumour goes), Madness are about to perform. Sad how age disconnects you from the pulse of life. Reading Glastonbury reviews after the event indicate that the "surprise" Madness gig was in fact the previous day. It’s actually completely impossible to stay in touch with what’s going on everywhere. Whilst Ms Moss may have a sheet that conveniently indicates all the “surprise appearances”, it’s all very well reading about Damon Alban’s low key concert (his continued antidote to Live8), but if nobody knows about it then it’s only the journalists (and Ms Moss), who are going to observe it. Tough luck, the rest of us.

Needles in haystacks are hard to fine. But needles and Pete Docherty are often written about in the same story, so here we go again. It’s not Madness, but madness, as Pete, with guitar and without mossy backing singer, performs an almost exclusively solo (most of the time) set. I think it's great. He sure can play guitar, and his songs have a casualness that is endearing. It’s a small, much more intimate concert than the one I saw on the Other Stage. Like watching Radiohead at Shepherds Bush Empire rather than Earls Court, or perhaps more like being locked in one of Banky’s portaloos with Bjork. Well, perhaps not quite that intimate.

16. Bottling it

Highly impressed, I return to a conversation between Alistair, Angie and Chris. Angie was planning on going home on Sunday, but suddenly Chris has had enough. I’m not sure if it’s possible to lock yourself in your tent (I guess the zips are on the outside, and so actually attaching the padlock could be difficult…), but after a metaphorical lock in, he’s had enough. “I’m not happy to be left here without a lift off site”, I declared with all the aggression of the ex-Libertines front man. Angie agrees to stay. Hindsight says that Glastonbury, this year, was the sort of place that if you’d been on a family holiday, and got your tent out of the car to see what awaited you, you’d have packed up and gone home the moment you got out the first tent peg. But as was revealed earlier, I saw twenty-three bands (average price - less than £6 each, so stop complaining about the ticket cost). So, looks like I’m staying.

Our lift, however, is not.

I return to see Pete finish his set – yeah whatever – and then it’s a journey through oceans of squelch, and then the most obvious follow up to Mr Docherty – Shirley Bassey. Alistair and I make it back in time to hear “I am what I am”, surely an anthem for Glastonbury. Or perhaps “I am what I am, but I only let people see it Glastonbury” may be more appropriate, but there we go. Anyway, it’s great, and another official “Glastonbury Moment”. One of many Dames spotted over the stay should perhaps have done another number or two in order to avoid the storm that saw her landing on a school playing field in her helicopter on the way home – but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.

17. Word Power

The Manic Street Preachers are always game for a laugh, and so when they come on stage wearing Charley Corroli outfits, driving dodgem cars with those annoying horns and doors that fall off, you know you’re in for a treat. Now, if I – or you – had been taking drugs – that’s maybe what you were experiencing. However, I didn’t. Instead, it’s just a bunch of Welshmen with a library fixation.

Anyway they are great (for the fifteen minutes I stay), and I make a thankless trip across to (eventually) the Solidarity Bar to get Alistair some red wine to “set him up” for the night. The obvious choice from there is to remain in situ, and watch the Kaiser Chiefs and The Who, but having covered a good twenty miles so far, the leftfield option is to slog round and watch the final three bands (jazz excluded), at the Other Stage – The Go Team, followed by The View (cheeky [arctic-ish] monkeys) and the Chemical Brothers.

The Go Team are good fun, and I watch them with Dug (who calls it a day after that as well – they’re dying like flies!). Another blog I read said their new songs were better than the old ones. The bloke standing near me (perhaps he’d also been at the Bjork concert) shouted out “Do some old ones”, and deftly followed it up with “the new stuff is s***”. It felt really embarrassing. They did another new one, and it went down a storm. So pal, stick a sock in it.

Glastonbury – as it perhaps now is – was nicely summed up during this set. A silver–haired lady – perhaps in her sixties, stepped up next to me and smiled, before settling in to watch The Go Team. Perhaps she was there in 1970. When the rain stated, out came the umbrella. Expecting a Vivienne Westwood type affair, or a bright number covered in fascist jingoistic prose, I was surprised to see a navy blue number with the name of an estate agent on it. Rock and Roll!

18. The Youth of Today

The View are about 12. That’s if you add all of their ages together. Whilst earlier, I’d sat in the tent with my guitar, attempting to learn songs written thirty years earlier, they are up there and going for it. “Up the Junction” is a bit lame, but the festival tradition of doing cover versions is held high, for only the first time I’ve seen this year (little will top “Bohemian Rhopsody” that I saw being played by The Flaming Lips a few years before on the Pyramid Stage), but it’s a brave attempt.

A strange chirruping sound resonates from The View's main vocalist between songs “Brrrr-yipyipyip”. Cicadas from The Magus? It’s great though – often there guys just talk over the top of each other when they give us some banter between songs. These links are a total shambles as a result, but they are fun. The band are, great fun. Having missed out on the Arctic Monkeys, I feel I’ve seen a near equivalent.

The cocoa is on, slippers and pipes out, and barely an hour before the Chemical Brothers started their set (by started, perhaps I should say “pressed play on their CD-AV pre-programmed output” – but that’s maybe unfair), Pete and Co (Townsend, not Moss-side), are on their way back to their camper van, ready to queue out of site like the rest of us. I cannot comment on The Who, as I didn’t see them. Alistair said they were good, and sounded pretty “with it” when he called from the Jazz Lounge at 11:45pm. He’d already got a seat – clearly, the Jazz Lounge clientele were waiting for the Chemical Brothers to finish.

19. Visuals to Dream About

Whilst not challenging Massive Attack on their (2005?) Tour (a total assault of the senses with statistics about global weapons expenditure, etc scrolling around to "Safe From Harm"), the AV show put on by the Chemicals is extraordinary. The set (as hinted at), had the largest CD players I’ve ever seen.

I have a relative grasp of technology, but to deliver two forty-minute sets all coordinated to what was the equivalent of Disney’s Fantasia for the drug-fuelled masses, does require a fair amount of pre-planning (and pre-programming).

I thought they were fantastic, and we have a great view standing on a wooden surround by the sound tent in the middle. (We’d regrouped here a number of times – well,  immediately behind it by the trash cans and the “Fire 43” sign – I’ll meet anybody bothering to read this there on Saturday at 11:30am at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival – if I get tickets – and if you do... and you can be bothered).

 

Oh - that's not me by the way. That's where your licence fee goes!

A great spectacle to round proceedings off… and then back to the Jazz Lounge.

Angie, who stayed for the Chemicals (good on her), is off to bed to sleep but because of the driving rain and concern about the rising flood waters, fails miserably... Alistair and I are on bourbon, and then vegetable tempura. A genuine shambles.

20. Home again

By the time we exit the following morning (just under four hours of sleep for me), it’s been raining for eleven-and-a-half hours out of twelve. The tents are soaked, people are filing out and its muddy, cold and wet. Just generally horrible... But let’s get some perspective. We have tents and rucksacks (and a guitar), not barely functioning rifles. We’re not going "Over the Top" at the Somme, we’re sobering up, and walking to cars that will take us back to our comfortable houses.

Trolleys are abandoned in the mud – the submerged ground is rough and ready. Q sell Glastonbury reviews to us as we leave for £3 each. How Kind. Put all you gear down. Find £3 in your rain-soaked pockets – put the magazine away somewhere dry… put your kit back on again… And we’re back to the car – which starts – and we leave.

A drop off at the station, and we’re chatting to the Glasto crowd on board the train back to Paddington. We get seats. Somebody on the train who looks a bit like Fossey Bear from the Muppets offers me £3 for my Q review. Then £5 – then “whatever you want”. I’ve not slogged through mud and grime (picture the end of the Shawshank Redemption and you’d be getting close), to give this away for £5.

I accept £5.50.

No. I don’t. I send him on his way, with a suggestion based on all I’ve witnessed culturally at Glastonbury during the past five days. “Check on ebay”. You see, when you saw somebody at the Festival a few years back (and I have no cause here to sit on my high horse, as I’m really part of the establishment as well)… well, when you saw somebody a few years back wearing a pin striped suit, they were being ironic, and on their way to Lost Vagueness for a 4am ho-down, having rented or bought the outfit on-site. This year, it was the same – except I got the impression they may have come straight from the office…

On the way back to the car, in the filth, I did question if I would return. I’m sorry. It was a mere lapse – an aberration. In the same way that Michael Eavis was “glad it rained” (great quote – thanks Micheal – I’ll swap my tent for Worthy Farm any day to prove you right), it’s always going to be better the following year. Already, there’s a “great band” lined up for next year – although it’s "not U2 or Muse", apparently.

Perhaps it’ll be the Wurzels, thinking better of their rejection to appear at the greatest Music Festival on the Planet. It doesn’t matter how big your stage is. It’s at Glastonbury. And that, despite the horror we endured, is enough to keep us trying to come back again and again.

I’m slowly returning to reality now. Only 358 days to go…

Thanks for reading.

Patrick

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