....Continued from Part One...To read the first 'ave a click HERE:



Dizzee Rascal

– The tiny distant ball of effervescent energy and the first act I saw who paid proper tribute to the newly departed MJ had the unenviable task of trying to jig-up the afternoon crowd and I’m happy to say hesucceeded emphatically. Brilliant -' Bonkers' and 'Dance Wiv Me' were perfect in the sunshine and his new stuff sounded pretty damn good to boot. Wasn’t a massive fan before but now I carry an ‘’If I die, give my organs to Dizzee Rascal’ card around at all times.

Part Time Hippie

 

As soon a foot was placed over the threshold to the Green Field, Healing Field, the Stone Circle or Avalon I felt my conscience surge as I was bizarrely imbued with the impression that this, here, like this, is how lives should be played out if humankind is to have any hopes for its long term persistence, before science or nature or Mother Earth or God(s) or whatever nomenclature your brain needs to qualify such a Bigger Picture concept, decides homo sapiens have overplayed their hand and, in a need to readdress the natural order of things, hurls a meteorite or bubonic pandemic our way. Crafts, tipis, massages, solar powered amps, poetry, music drifting along the breeze. Cleansing of the soul. No booze though, natch.

 

 Blur – Fuck me, that’s the best gig I’ve ever seen by an absolute country mile. I’ve never witnessed so much love in one area in all my life and by the end of 'The Universal' the audience’s love for the band has spilled out laterally, resulting in thousands of people turning to their fellow man and woman to exchange hugs and heartfelt well wishes. Damon changing the words to
'End Of A Century' to ‘the mind gets dirty, the closer you get to fifty’ seemed more poignant than it appears in print, Phil-effing-Daniels dancing like everyone’s dad and the crowd singing the refrain to 'Tender' long after the band had finished – all gave me goose pimples then and still do now. The whole thing was everything I’d hoped for and more. Beautiful.

 

Word the place to be on Sunday night was the Motown party over near the cinema, but everyone was so twisted no-one could figure out where it was. After an hour or so of clueless wandering we followed a kindly stranger and finally managed to track it down. A couple of hours of idiotic raving later the heavens well and truly fell, shitting raindrops the size of guinea pigs and forcing all but a few who would soon regret it into a huddle in the tent. The storm wasn’t as bad as the bowel-loosening one from two days previously - where a crazed network of forked lightning regularly struck the ground alarmingly close to us, forcing my Irish friend to dish out Jagerbombs as if bravely waiting for an inevitably inbound atom bomb – but it sure put a damper on things. We’d been on it all day though, as had everyone else I think, but the enormity of tomorrow’s trip home hadn’t even begun to enter our minds yet

 

 Fleet Foxes – Fucking hell, these guys really CAN do those harmonies, you know. Gentle but captivating, 'White Winter Hymnal' for some reason made perfect sense in the surroundings and 'Ragged Wood' was joyous, sticking out of the haunting but maudlin setlist like a stiffy in a blue Speedo

 

People were always bleating on about how huge it is and as such I had preconceptions of a labyrinthine metropolis - a view reinforced by the hour long trudge from the bus to the top of the Park near the tipis where we were to pitch camp (admittedly we got spectacularly lost). This trek took us past the John Peel Stage and Dance Village, the Other Stage and Park Area and bars, through an area already larger than many festivals but still only a fraction of this one. There are around 30 stages in all which is of course ludicrous and WILL result in bands being missed at some point because of the trek. Honestly though, in terms of square mileage and excluding the areas filled with tents, Glastonbury is not THAT big. By the second day you’ll have visited all the main areas, albeit briefly, but the point people are seemingly trying to get across is not only how many separate bits there are but how many noteworthy places are in each and every one. There’s just too much to do and not enough time: Cinema, circus, comedy – all the C’s - I wanted to do them all and got nowhere near any of them. Bugger.

 

Friendly Fires – By jove, that guys got some snake hips on him hasn’t he! Good times in the sunshine and the audience singalong to the chorus of 'Paris' near deafened me. Nice

 

Flags– a fatwa thereon

Look, if you have to wave a flag to indicate you are having a nice time watching a band do you have to stand RIGHT AT THE FUCKING FRONT thus obscuring the view for every one of the 60,000 people behind you? Granted, if you are sitting further back they provide essential landmarks for to and from toilet/bar navigation that are beneficial to all but please, think on. I like the word ‘clunge’ as much as the next man but I’d also like, just once, to be able to actually SEE Bruce Springsteen. You stupid, stupid cunts. I will fight you.

 

 The thing that struck me first and hardest was the relaxed attitude to drugs. Glasto security, in comparison to festivals I’ve been to in the past, is generous to say the least: the police
on site extend their courtesy and are happy to have pictures taken with stoned revelers and spaced-out hippies alike, and whilst skinning up I witnessed two nearby coppers lending a group of girls their hats for a photo while, not four feet away, a sunburnt chap sniffed a sugar cube-sized dollop of Bolivian from the frame of his shades. You can imagine their orders:

 

‘’Listen lads, just go along, make yourselves easy to find, have fun and turn a blind eye to pretty much everything unless someone’s in trouble’’

 Hilariously, Michael Eavis apparently bans the fuzz from the Stone Circle entirely as not to upset the fragile minds of those riding the rainbow there. Though my pocket didn’t exactly resemble the boot of Hunter S. Thompson’s car I had some weed I’d rather Joe Plod didn’t rifle his trotters through, but not a single mustachioed hi-viz gave me an over-eager cupping. I was both delighted and disappointed

 Shitbox

Traditional festival craperie experience: Consume one tray full of pre-digested offal that dictates you will spend the next two hours hovering, whimpering and bare-arsed, above the yawning entrance to Hades.You expel your innards, most of which you’re fairly certain are quite essential in order to live, waiting nervously for the soon-to-be-YouTubed flying kick that will send the pebble-dashed privy onto its side thus setting in motion the course of events inevitably leading to your very public suicide. Festival toilets are always bad and the traditional portaloos here, of which there are plenty, are no exception, but the Long Drops are something else; a smell, nay, a taste, that seeps into your skin through some form of vile osmosis poisoning your body from the inside out, burning scar tissue into nasal passages and oesophagi and bursting through all your senses into the long term memory, popping up in every future recollection until the
fortunate day you die.

 

That’s enough of that I think. Glastonbury is beyond fucking brilliant, that’s all anyone needs to know, I finally see what all the fuss is about and I’m kicking myself I didn’t go years earlier. Many apologies for this sorry excuse for a Glastonbury report too, I just don’t think it’s possible to write an account of everything in under 10,000 words. Maybe if you post your personal highlights below we might end up with some kind of tangible overview, or failing that simply join me in counting down the seconds until next year.

 

 310175600,

31017599,

31017598…

 

 Best.

Festival.

Ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted In Festivals, Aug 01 2009. Words - Luke