Thursday, July 05, 2007

Late, as usual

It was never like that in my day.
I know I'm a bit on the drag with this, but we're busy people. We recorded all the BBC coverage of Glastonbury 2007 and have been catching up with it over the last few nights, to get us in the mood for our own festival hollybobs in a month's time. Now, much as I love the idea of Glastonbury, it's really not for me these days. I went back in 1995, and the ticket buying process was as complicated as wandering into Andy's Records, asking for a Glastonbury ticket and watching as the till-monkey carefully tore one out of the giant book of Glastonbury tickets kept behind the counter.
1995 was a top festival - the sun shone relentlessly (well, except for the cloudy Saturday but it didn't even manage to rain), I saw Page and Plant live, I fell out with my friends on the first day and spent the whole weekend wandering about on my own, stone cold sober and hungry owing to running out of giro spends on the Friday evening. I met a man from Islington with a macintosh and an AM/FM all-weather torch (with a siren) and heckled German men in leotards with him. We wandered around together all night, until about 5am when I had to run away owing to him coming up on his second lot of mushrooms in the Dog and Vomit bar and shouting at people who weren't there. I slept out on the hillside in the Green Fields campsite. I found the dragon. I watched the sun go down listening to the drummers in the Sacred Space. I painted some rainbow pants on the 25th anniversary mural. It was fucking aces.
I've never been back, and the older I get the less inclined I am to do so. It just looks a bit, well, sterile these days. I know from my own experience that a person can go to Glastonbury and spend four days there without seeing a single band with a record deal. But somehow, I'm afraid to sully my memories of my own golden weekend.
And besides, what the fuck is going on with all those giant flags in the Pyramid Stage crowd? Jesus. We saw the Killers' set last night and if you'd been at the back of the crowd it would have been impossible to see the band through the vast swathes of material flapping about on twenty-foot poles. And who is enjoying themselves waving the damn things?
It's a serious question. Do people really take those fucking great things with them*? Or is it all a ruse on the part of Mean Fiddler - do they supply them so people will wave them about and make the place look more festy-like?
I need to know.
* And yes, I have bought a fifteen foot pole and a Jolly Roger windsock to take on our holidays, but it's only to have in the campsite so we can find our tent. Honest. Shut up.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

1/ Oi, cheeky. I was one of those til monkeys in Andy's Records in 1995 as you well know!

2/Ah yes, the nineties Festival Scene. Still "organic" to coin a phrase that sends shivers of disgust up my spine.

Donington 1996 was most magical thanks to a petrol container full of Snakebite and Black and Ozzy Osbourne (pre horiffic MTV contract to make a tit of himself at home) performing "bark at the moon" as an encore just because I willed him to [from the back of a large field whilst wearing only my boots].

Those were the days.

Festie goers are a bit more Alco-pops and worrying about whether they've brought enough "spare" knickers these days. Kinda misses the point. TUT.

06 July, 2007 04:15  
Blogger Vicus Scurra chimed in with...

It is not clear whether it was the German men or you and your Islingtonian friend who were wearing leotards. We need to know.

06 July, 2007 08:32  
Blogger Donna chimed in with...

We had a similar problem with a small child brandishing a large board in front of us when we went to see Busted (with the children I might add). Fuckers.

06 July, 2007 10:33  
Blogger H chimed in with...

My cousin and her friends are currently preparing a banner for Justin Trousersnake on Saturday night. She is 30. For shame.

06 July, 2007 13:00  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

Aw I was there the Page and Plant year! Hazy days indeed. I read that the average festival chick these days spends over £500 on Kate Moss outfits. Love your blog, check it daily for updates, hilarious.

06 July, 2007 13:42  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

Er, sorry, what does 'found the dragon' mean?

06 July, 2007 14:08  
Blogger khlari chimed in with...

Cor...I last went about 1991! and it rained. Good though. Not sure I'm not a little long in the tooth for it now though, and it looks so humungous these days I'd probably never actually find a band I wanted to see.....

(Thinks, that actually happened to me at Reading in 1989, wher I spent a whole day convinced that the octopuses on my skirt were about to eat me.....but that was the tab someone had placed in my stella as opposed to the size of the place)

06 July, 2007 16:21  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

vicus - they were in the leotards, not me.

femme - no offence intended. till monkey.

donna - should have punched them in their tiny eager faces. fuckers.

homer - the horror. he is quite sexay tho. ahem.

sara - my festy bill this year amounts to about forty quid: a giant, earth-swallowing camouflage poncho and some skull-and-crossbones wellyboots. £500?? christ.

anonymous (or fifi sis, for it is you) - every year at glasto (or it used to be anyway) there's a dragon sculpture somewhere on site. i am a hippy. apparently.

khlari - drugs are bad, mkaay?

06 July, 2007 20:03  
Blogger FirstNations chimed in with...

i never knew you could have so much fun with a tor.

07 July, 2007 01:11  
Blogger bobbins chimed in with...

95 was a good one, yeah... missed Page & Plant though, no idea how/why now.

Yeah, the flags are a pain in the arse... trouble is they're sold all over the place now. Forget "Joe Bananas blanket stall" and "Herbal Highs", it's all about crappy flags.

Have to admit to lugging one round at V2004 though - see that Scottish one on the far right? http://www.snowpatrol.net/gallery06/displayimage.php?album=30&pos=0 that's me that is :-) Not that I'm Scottish or given to flag-waving - I blame sis-in-law who bought it in a drunken fit of madness. Muggins here got lumbered with it for the rest of the day, for some reason. Never again :-)

09 July, 2007 11:55  

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