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Glastonbury 2008
By BAD BABY
01 July 2008
Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way first: yes, it started to rain literally as we were putting our tent up on day one; yes, the toilets were revolting open cesspools totally lacking toilet paper and running water; and yes, the rain created vast amounts of mud which managed to get absolutely everywhere including inside the toilet cubicles, leading to understandably worrying confusion upon seeing brown smears on the toilet doors, walls etc.
So, now that the topics of poo and mud have been thoroughly covered, it is possible to move on and focus on the other two things Glastonbury is famous for: music and alcohol. Personally, I thought that festival goers were far too concerned with the alcohol element over the musical side, but in all fairness that didn’t stop me from drinking 4 pints of cider in the middle of the day (plus a couple more drinks), eating someone’s cold disregarded chips much to BrianMay’s dismay, then passing out on a grassy hill at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. This experience caused me to miss a large amount of Shlomo’s set, which was vastly upsetting and put me off drink for the rest of the weekend. Apparently on the last night Bunji got so drunk she fell off a bench and had to be taken back to the tent by Bushido some time in the early hours. I, on the other hand, defeated by hayfever and a ridiculous amount of food (crepes, nachos, chips, ice creams, noodles, a bacon roll, milkshakes, potato wedges were consumed in a 24 hour period much to the detriment of my wallet), had retired to bed long before, and sadly missed Bunji’s drunken antics.
It might have been a consequence of cider consumption, but one of the most enjoyable performances of the festival was Alphabeat’s set on the Park stage, which was unquestionably my favourite stage. It was there I saw an engergetic Dizzee Rascal delight a hugely enthusiastic crowd with favourites such as ‘He’s jus a rascal..Dizzee Rascal..’ and ‘BLUD! Don’t make me get oldskool!’ I completely lost Bunji in the crowd, but the fact that I was alone did not prevent me from dancing harder than I ever have at a gig before, everyone was so totally hyped.
Although Dizzee’s performance was by far the best and most well-received I watched, it generally seemed that hip hop went down comparatively well over the whole weekend. Lupe Fiasco was warmly received, and Jay Z’s ‘Wonderwall’ introduction was just what the occasion called for. The audience was packed so tightly around the Pyramid stage that it was difficult to see anything apart from the sea of flags being waved by people standing at the front, but the atmosphere was amazing, especially in contrast to the slightly bored indifference of the audience watching the Verve the night after. The general feeling that night was that it was a shame that one had to endure an entire set of mediocre indie no one had heard of whilst one waited for the inevitable ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ finale.
That’s not to say there weren’t any decent non-hip hop performances. The Feeling were brilliant. Their relentlessly happy pop warmed the hearts of a soggy Friday afternoon crowd, who swayed and sang along to ‘Never Be Lonely’, ‘Sewn’ and other greats. ‘Helicopter’ was particularly apt for the repeated lyric “My heart is crawling in the mud, mud, mud”. The lead singer aplogized for referring so much to a sensitive issue.
Bushido made a grievous error in not bringing any wellington boots. He did of course have to buy some once his trainers were thoroughly soaked. Yet for some reason he chose to wear sandals when “danced in filth” whilst watching his favourite of the festival CSS.
Meanwhile BrianMay played in two sets in the Jazz Lounge. Billed as “new and dangerous” jazz, BrianMay may as well have been billed as “pretty much the only” jazz, seeing as despite the names of two stages at Glastonbury having ‘jazz’ in the title, there was hardly any jazz on at all. BrianMay wasn’t especially pleased with his performance, but to the uneducated listener it clearly wiped the floor with the other acoustic nonsense being paraded jazz. (To clarify – I do still hate jazz, it’s just inaccuracies and ignorance really wind me up.)
On the topic of inaccuracies, it was discovered upon my return to London that the Glastonbury festival is actually pretty far from Glastonbury. The nearest town is Pilton and the nearest large town is Wells, not Glastonbury. My father is insisting he call it the Wells festival from now on. But that’s just pedantic.
All in all, I had an excellent weekend, even if I did spend an obscene amount of money on food. The music was varied and largely agreeable. Perhaps the largest downside was the camping, but mainly because Bunji snored, Bushido accused me of snoring and tent seemed to act as a giant fly trap, later becoming a fly graveyard. Also a random Gomez t-shirt showed up in the tent on day 2 and was chucked back and forth across the tent until the day we left as no one seemed to want to claim ownership of it. Eventually it was left abandoned on site. Curious, though.