Glastonbury

the what-now?

<googles>

sounds ghastly

 

It's a smallish tent in one place on a thousand acre festival site. You
could spend five days walking round the site and not even notice it.

Really, only someone who hasn't been could come out with some bollocks
like your post. And then you say you're going to V, where even the
*name* of the festival is loaded with corporate branding.

It's hard to explain what makes Glastonbury so fucking great. It's hard
to get someone to understand just what makes it so, it really is
something you have to just experience, albeit taking the weirdy-beardy
shit like the healing fields with a large pinch of salt. Oddly, those
who seem to have the worst time are the ones who turn up on Friday
morning, pitch tent, and barely move away from the two main stages all
weekend.

I had the time of my life - best one so far, regardless of the weather
(boy am I glad I took my wellies this time, made all the difference) and
for what I did see [1], 150 quid is peanuts.

Fucking horrible toilets, mind.,


[1] Modest Mouse (shit), The Automatic (ok), Amy Winerack (great),
Chas'n'Dave (fucking stunning!), some random bloke in a solar-powered
tent playing two acoustic guitars at the same time, Mumm-Ra
(surprisingly good), Arcade Fire (so-so), Spiritualized Acoustic
Mainline (gorgeous and ran on til 2am), The Switches (whatever), El
Presidente (likewise), The Pipettes (smashing), Long Blondes (not bad0,
Biffy Clyro (whatever), CSS (genius), Lily Allen (way way better than I
expected, and with a surprise Specials reunion), Maximo Park (storming),
Nick Lowe (hurrah), Iggy and the Stooges (200-man stage invasion, one of
the best of the weekend), The Holloways (ok), The Enemy (fair enough),
Sunshine Underground (almost as good as the full-enlish-baguette I had
at the same time), Tony Benn, Mark Thomas (both great), Tinariwen
(hypnotic), Manic Street Preachers (not as good as Reading a few years
ago), Billy Bragg (hero) and, not forgetting the loudest pensioners
there, The Who. [2]

[2] Not to mention all the random shit I stumbled across in small tents
or giant teepees staffed by paralytic women in fancy dress, the
bicycle-powered prog rock tent, the fucking great robot things,
Wednesday night laying wasted by the stone circle watching 12 year olds
knocking back MDMA like sherbet fountains, etc etc etc. [3]

[3] I was there for two days before the bands started and wasn't bored
for a minute - don't find that at V.

 

There's a real ale tent up by the Acoustic stage, and almost all the
bars had at least one ale (Woodford's Wherry) and/or Guinness, not
counting the random bars like the random pub in the tipi village which
had its own selection of ales and ciders.

Don't think I had more than 5 pints of carlsberg all weekend, after the
ale started to run out, but I did take a crate of lager and a 3 litre
box of red wine with me which saw me through for the most part (in the
case of the wine, it saw me through Friday, anyway)

 

Indeed.

Sounds like an ideal place for an airburst tacnuke as long as you could
guarentee all the bands would be present at the time.

Phil.

 

<uber snip>

I watched some of it on TV, some of it looked awful, but I managed to
see some of Mark Ronson on the Sunday night and that looked to be a
highlight. Had to wiki to find out who he was though.

 

The tv coverage is crap, it focuses entirely on the four big stages. I
recorded the "best bits" show from each night and watched them yesterday
evening. Of all the bands they showed, I only bothered to see one or two
- for all of the others, I was either at a different stage seeing
someone else, or in a random tent somewhere soaking up the atmosphere
(and nursing my liver).

Shame I missed The Twang, but Iggy rocked a fat one.

 

That reminds me that they are on tour in October and coming to the Civic
Hall on the 11th.

--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

As the song ends the singer asks for some water. One of the female
fans now onstage passes him a bottle with a kiss. "Thank you
sweetheart," he says before recoiling.

"Oh no," protests Iggy Pop, legendarily unpredictable grand vizier of
rock debauchery, who mere minutes before had been singing about being
Dirt. "It's covered in mud!"


This grumpy review of Glastonbury is hilarious though:
'....If there's one piece of Glastonbury advice I can give you, it's
this: don't camp backstage. On the plus side, there was no flooding,
no thieving, and the toilets did indeed flush properly. On the minus
side, at 3am a group of post-pubescent upper-middle-class music-
industry gitsacks pitched their tent beside mine, and no power on
Earth could make them stop braying witless bullshit at the top of
their idiot lung'


http://music.guardian.co.uk/glastonbury2007/story/0,,2110642,00.html

 

No surprise. I suspect most of the current contents of my MP3 player
would have your toes curling in horror as well.
--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

The Who were seriously impressive as well. Every band I saw
deliberately, rather than stumbling across them or happening to hear
because I was camped within spitting distance of the Other stage, was
either better than I expected or just plain great. And who knew that
miniskirts, leggings and wellies could look so fantastic on women who
haven't washed for the best part of a week?

It was one of the highlights of the weekend. The stage invasion was
hilarious, especially when he implored of the security guys "no, no,
don't hit him, you can't do that, he's dressed as a clown!" after
crooning a serenade to the people on the stage without accompaniment.

 

I currently have on mine: Runrig, Santana, Eurythmics, Dire Straits,
Kate Rusby and Nic Jones.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I worship them, but *if* you like them,
their live performances rarely disappoint. Whereas, I have been let down
on occasion by seeing some bands, whose recordings I rate, live. That
may, in fairness, be more a case of the wrong venue. For example The
Robert Cray band at the NEC years ago left me cold, but at the Wulfrun
(even smaller than the Civic) they were memorable.
--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Earplugs. Next time I go to a festival I'll take several hundred pairs
for sale.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Ah! I knew I'd missed something off my Chimay packing list...

 

You don't need earplugs, just more alcohol.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10
`\|/`
`

 

Simple answer - he's not trendy.

Phil.

 

I saw some of their set on TV and it looked seriously good. Those guys
really can play.

Phil

 

I wish to draw the courts attention to White Willow, Fairport
Convention and Magic Pie in mitigation of sentance..

Phil.

 

I thought I'd mentioned the meths already...

 

Which probably means they will be at Colston Halls at some point.

Ah yes - 18th October..

Phil

 

wow - I've been trying to come up with a mission statement for my
team, and I think that might just hit the spot!