People think Glastonbury is all about sitting in the chillax field, propped up against a teepee shooting the breeze with a couple of ld grizzled hippies. Well let us tell you – we’ve never been so busy in our lives. We arrived on Thursday morning and the haystack that was the festival contained the needles that were our passes to get us in. Like the trials of Hercules or summat we went from the Red Car Park to pedestrian gate C battling heat and dust with only cans of cider to slake our thirst – it was 10.30am after all. Like some cold war spy thriller we had a contact, and we had to meet him for the exchange of passes to take place. Trouble was, Bez was our contact, and as most people know he’s not much of a morning person.
By midday the site was beginning to resemble the set of The Road by Cormac McCarthy and the festival proper didn’t start for 24 hours – like some unnamed disaster had hit the planet, or parts of Shoreditch at least, and those displaced had packed what they could and headed for the safety of Glastonbury. Just when the mirages were starting a call came in from beyond the fence. Our proverbial flare had been spotted and a runner was cycling our way. Not pedantic enough to point out that they surely weren’t a runner if they were on a bike, we were handed our passes and marched to the production office.
Wristband for backstage at The Unfair Ground – check Regular wristband – check Wristband for Bar Humbug – check Easy Pass out wristband – check
We were now marked up like some prizewinning steer at a country show and the world was our oyster – or rather anywhere within the steel fence was our oyster. Bez met us like a genial host at a dinner party and took us to our camp – you could see by the homemade teepee that this lot had a few year’s experience of festival living.
The first night we spent in Arcadia and Shangri La – like post apocalyptic parties with a background of broken buildings and car sculptures. Where people looked at you funny if you didn’t have stilts and flames coming out of your head. They say Glastonbury is not all about the music and we totally understood why.
Friday morning was an early start – the sun was pretty relentless and time waits for no man. If sunshine in England at 9am wasn’t confusing enough, 11am saw us join approximately 100,000 others to watch Rolf Harris on the main stage – the festival’s approach of welcoming everyone is kind of encapsulated in Rolf – 80 years old, known for rescuing animals but having had number one singles, a painter and passer on of swimming safety tips. He held everyone in the palm of his hand with his asthmatic rythmn and his skill at being the only person playing a didgeridoo that you don’t want to punch. As twee as Two Little Boys is as a song, there surely can’t be another played over the weekend that saw the shedding of so many tears. One ridiculous cover of Stairway to Heaven later and off he hops. Next we accidentally stumbled across what should have been The Stranglers, but for some reason the FM friendly American rock lite of Joshua Radin filled the air and sent us running.
The bands you miss shoot past like heavy artillery and every glance at the programme reveals what’s landed nearby – Miike Snow, we all said we’d watch them but we still hadn’t been within half a mile of where they were playing. Same with Tune-Yards. Like some injured comic book hero you try to get things together ‘….must put down cider….got to make it to watch a band….can’t quite…stand up’
Things got back on track with the dusty sounds of Mariachi El Bronx – to quote the song, they came to a place where the weather suits their clothes. Clad in the uniform of troubadour Mexicans they treated us to the best music so far. The Courteeners were next on the list and they seemed to take their time getting going but Liam Fray was genuinely touched by the reception and the first crowd freak out occurred as they struck up Not Nineteen Forever – valuable pints flung with total abandon and, dust stirred up by skinny jeaned bouncing, had got our afternoon going.
Sometimes it’s not the bands you go to see but the ones you accidentally find that are what defines a brilliant festival. Like those blokes in cartoons, stumbling past generic animal ribcages in the desert, we headed, blinded by the sun to look for some shade. We found it at the Bourbon St. Jazz Stage and took on some fluids – Mojitos and lager seeing as you ask. As we sipped the announcer told us that Aaron Wright and The Aprils were about to entertain us. And that they did – like Bob Dylan with Paolo Nuttini’s accent and voice and a band that consisted of a string quartet, the second best harmonica player of the weekend (of course he couldn’t top Stevie Wonder) and songs that ranged from upbeat singalongs to aching heartbreak.
Phoenix’s Lisztomania had everything that was needed as early evening approach – their louche Gallic cool was the soundtrack to the sun going down as everyone realised the temperature was dropping but the line up was getting hotter. Vampire Weekend represent the quick rise of quirky bands to the mainstream. Bands that can hold their place with material that appeals across the board but has an outsider approach. This is no more apparent than with Florence and The Machine – we first saw her as a bit of a freaky sideshow act in early 2007 and now she’s the benchmark for what’s cool. Seemingly blown away by the reaction and totally at ease with it in equal measures. Even the dreaded new material monster reared it’s head and slayed everyone in it’s path. We both took the same route straight to Dizzee Rascal’s set but obviously they were expecting her. Young Rascal secured his place in the audience’s hearts with a football anthem to kick off with and ran through his back catalogue that contained more number ones than anyone else playing that day – surely not something you would have imagined only three years back.
Our lot that went to catch Hot Chip reported back a little underwhelmed – and then we got a text. It said ‘The Strokes are the special guests on The Park stage’. That was all we needed to head off on our next mission. As we approached the story had changed and it turned out to be Radiohead (well, Thom and another one playing some Radiohead songs) – that’s the measure of how strong the bill is, none of us were big Radiohead fans so we looked down at our guide and decided we wanted to catch The Black Keys instead – an unorthadox stage set up that saw guitarist Dan Auerbach on his own at the front with the drummer Patrick Carney nestled behind him and the bass player and keyboards relegated to the very back just in case you thought they were in the band. Song of the day so far came in the form of Next Girl with the refrain ‘My next girl Will be nothing like my ex girl’ sticking with us all the way back to the main stage.
Now came dilemma of the weekend. No, dilemma of the year. The Flaming Lips, simply the best live band in the world, but a band we’d seen upwards of a dozen times and even danced for twice – like a pair of old slippers that nothing in the world could feel better than. Or Gorillaz, new kids on the block who’s phonebook possitively bulged with the names of the great and the even greater of music and rumours had abounded about who would be joining them. We opted to split up and, as ever, The Flaming Lips pseudo religious experience was punctuated with giant balls that transported Wayne Coyne out over the audience like a pysche rock hamster. They never fail and they converted many a disciple to their path of glitter spangled righteousness that someday will include everyone in the world.
Gorillaz however was another mug of flesh entirely. Yes, their address book had been plundered and the band itself was half The Clash before we even started on guests. But the clunky nature of their set – out and out hip hop after Turkish zouk music didn’t ever seem cohesive. Like a compilation album as opposed to a real album. It wasn’t ever the sum of its parts, but what parts they were. Mark E. Smith seemingly spitting out his own teeth on Glitter Freeze and Lou Reed with the sublime Some Kind of Nature which was as close as he’ll ever get to the childlike joy of The Velvet Underground. Chuck in Shaun Ryder and Bobby Womack, Snoop Dogg, The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and you realise it was something that was hard to pull off but whatever level it was done to it still beat watching The Edge’s cowboy hat and Bono’s sunglasses flex their egos. And that was that – like some hicktown UFO observers we trudged the dusty track back up to Shangri La,
Block 9 and The Unfair Ground to mix with the freaks and the misfits that only seem to come out after dark. A prefect first day.
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