Thought I’d jot down a few thoughts here partly as it will help me remember what I got up to but also will hopefully be of some interest / usefulness. It was my first time at Glastonbury and the vastness of the festival means this is a very narrow experience of what happened over the 5 days. Apologies for the long post, I’ve tried to break it up a bit by using Spotlight’s tell us how it was format:
Dates you were there:
Wednesday 21st June – Monday 26th June
Where you stayed:
Worthy View, which I thought was well worth the extra expense. For those that might not know Worthy View is an official, offsite pre-erected camping field, up the hill from Strummerville. My excuse for staying there should anyone look down their nose at me for not free camping is I was with my wife who is over 7 months pregnant so we were happy to spring for something that made our lives easier. And it really did – the hot showers were fantastic, parking was very close to the Pod that we stayed in so lugging all our kit in and out was quick and easy, lock on the door and lots of staff so felt secure, clean flushing toilets, quiet at night / early morning so slept really well and felt refreshed for the next day’s revelry, lots of space in the Pod for our kit. The walk up and down the hill each time isn’t much of a slog at all even when I was very much worse for wear.
Didn’t do much of a recce of the normal campgrounds but Pennard Hill looked a nightmare, absolutely rammed from Wednesday early afternoon. Some poor devils that pitched their tents right next to the main thoroughfares (Arcadia and Other Stage) also got a serious trampling at busy times which would have massively pissed me off, so very glad I didn’t go for that.
Highlights (in loose order)
Napalm Death ruled! Drew the biggest crowd I saw at the Truth Stage in Shangri-La, the bulk of whom were clearly just curious and didn’t get it so were either disgusted or bemused. There was a solid contingent of nutters down the front though having a whale of a time, loved it, powerful and divisive, just as they should be
NYC Downlow – went a few times, great fun and felt significant even though you could view it as something of a theme park attraction for nice, middle-class people to safely dip into another culture and be able to feel good about being adventurous and tolerant. I saw it as a bloody good party but it’s definitely been discovered. There were queues round the block to get in even when the London Underground and Genosys outdoor section were practically empty
The whole South-East corner is incredibly imaginative and the music right up my alley whilst still being diverse. Some of the most fun I had was exploring here and coming across someone performing on an unexpected, little, tucked-away stage. At one point in the Unfairground there was an old punk rapping nonsense to a nosebleed Techno backing track while his partner shook and vibrated along to an audience of about 10 of us. It was the kind of visceral, challenging thing I’d never get to see outside of Glastonbury but here I was exposed to it. They were a highlight and so was the marching band dressed up in full regalia yet all playing the kazoo. I found it amazing that all those people would go to all that effort for what is a one-note joke to me and stick through with it, much appreciated
Hacienda Classical, preceded by a moving minute’s silence, very nostalgic although some of the old guard are showing their age! Hooky still looks good though and him breaking out the bass for “Blue Monday” was magical
Radiohead were hypnotic, their musicianship and tightness as a band was remarkable although we headed off before they busted out their big hits in the second hour, needed to get away early for…
Arcadia – fantastic production. The structure itself was smaller than I expected though which I teased the wife about as she’d been banging on about how it was the best thing ever before we got there. Dusky were good. The Metamorphosis show was the pinnacle, I felt sorry for Jackmaster having to follow it on the Friday; he seemed to think a left-turn was needed straight after so came in with some upbeat vocal house which may have partly caused the mass-exodus. Returned here a few times, TQD and Noisia played some bass bangers on the Saturday which fit the vibe well
Sasha & Digweed – came to the Glade a couple of hours ahead as saw that many of the tents and stages were overflowing (Lovebullets!) and was desperate not to miss out. This meant being in a packed out crowd for Gorgon City, who are very popular it seems, can’t for the life of me work out why, and Way Out West who were in warm-up mode. Spine-tingling stuff when Alex and John were introduced as I never thought I’d see the day, anticipation was ramped up when I noticed that Tony Andrews was personally in charge of the Funktion 1 for the set (beast of a soundsystem setup for an outdoor stage). And it was… good, maybe even great but certainly not mindblowing. Sasha had all the big moments, some of his patented extended builds and mixes were vintage stuff, even drawing applause from Diggers at one point but John seemed to settle into playing the rhythmic recovery tracks after Sasha took the roof off. I really wanted this to floor me, it was a cracking set but looking back I came away a touch disappointed. It’s been said previously that maybe Glastonbury isn’t the place to see the acts you’d pay to see on their own terms elsewhere, I’d agree with that
Barry Gibb followed by Chic was just a wonderful way to spend a sunny afternoon, highlight of this was being able to sing-along to “How Deep Is Your Love” word-perfectly, to my great surprise, despite not having heard it in years and years
The wife loves Moderat, I see them as a latter-day Depeche Mode (a good thing), which I didn’t expect having only really heard Marcell Dettmann’s beast of a mix of “Bad Kingdom” previously
Why have I not heard more about the Temple in the Common area?! Fantastic venue, if I ever get to go back I’ll be focusing a lot more time here
We spent a lot of time in places I never expected to. The Healing Fields are full of interesting people with different perspectives; I loved the Speakers’ Forum and the passionate, well-informed debates I observed in there; there’s a huge area devoted to circus (The Black Eagles were particularly impressive), there’s comedy (never thought I’d get to see “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” alumni doing genuinely funny improv, there’s actors bowling around engaging you in surreal conversations, workshops in all kinds of activities and thousands of other things to see and do, loved it!