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ventaWell, it's now over a week since I got back from Glastonbury, which is an aeon in blogworld. Still, here we go.
First, let's get the headline news out of the way. It didn't royally piss down the entire time! After a rather damp patch on Thursday evening and Friday morning, it cleared up and became bright, breezy and positive balmy. I think the weather was late - the Glastonbury downpour certainly seems to be here now.
If you want to know at greater length, keep reading. Don't say you weren't warned... it really does go on a bit.
(Following the convention of other years, bands in [] are those where I only caught a short part of their set.)
Wednesday
For novelty value, we set off from Reading this year. I was in work, ChrisC came up on the train, and we jaunted down the M4. It doesn't actually take any longer than driving from Oxford, which surprised me. Arriving at the gates around 8ish, large areas of the campsite were already scored off as 'FULL' - I think the fields around the Pyramid stage go pretty quickly. Even larger areas weren't marked as full, and we headed to our usual stamping ground of Pennards Hill.
I like it as a location to camp, it's handy for the Other stage and the new Park area, and doesn't seem to be too far from anything we might want during the festival. Sadly, it's about as far away as it's possible to be from the gate through which we come onto the site.
So we walked for miles and miles and miles, then found a gap and put a tent up. Our neighbours were absent or asleep; had we met them we might have folded the tent and stolen silently away. Not that they were nasty people, or antisocial, but they continued to make me feel elderly and past it all weekend. Every time we attempted to talk about bands, they didn't know who I was talking about and I didn't know who they were talking about. Claiming that Leonard Cohen was the act I was most looking forward to got a blank "who's he?" As we were getting up in the morning and thinking of breakfast, they were staggering home to their tents. I didn't even understand the paraphenalia required for the drugs they were taking, and I think they found my interest in the Greenfields inexplicable. All in all, while we conversed pleasantly, they left me feeling as if I and my tiny brain and my long spiny tail should go and nibble some trees and stop all this festival nonsense.
We rounded Wednesday off with a Thai green curry and a trip to the Ciderbus to meet Carolyn and Simon. I've actually never had cider at Glastonbury before. The Somerset dry cider was surprisingly unscary for "real" cider and I quite warmed to the stuff. Particularly given that the real ale sold continues to be pretty limp.
Thursday
Bands seen: Seal Cub Clubbing Club, Atavist Future Kings, The Amigos
There was a big new open area of the site this year - just open space, with some flags in it, and a cracking view over the festival. We went and viewed it, then started our wandering proper. Lots of the areas - like Trash City and Shangri-La - still had the builders in, and weren't really up and running.
Tucked away in a damp hollow near the Stone Circle we found a large, sleepy stone dragon. His tail curled up his body, and water pooled around him and poured from his mouth. He's been there, according to a bloke perched on his back, "for ever"; certainly he didn't look like a recent arrival. How we've managed to miss him for years is a mystery. This year, he had a huge, wooden counterpart sculpted from whole trees rearing above the Greenfields.
Ambling through the Circus Fields, I saw an advert chalked on a blackboard and demanded mutinously that we return at the stipulated time. Who wouldn't want to watch a display of speed-carving done with chainsaws ? A small stage on a trailer housed a band who blasted through breakneck Irish reels for 20 minutes while eight or so people ripped animals and faces from chunks of tree. With chainsaws. A bird of prey, a bear, an owl... although they were roughly done, the details were amazing. A speed auction followed, the crowd bidding for the statues. The bear's face went for over a hundred pounds, soaring way out of my price bracket before I'd even had time to think about raising my hand.
I admit: we went to see the Seal Cub Clubbing Club entirely because they had a silly name. They weren't bad, sounding a bit like the Young Knives. Late in the evening, when it was glooming in and pouring down in an all-too-familiar way, we paused by the bandstand to listen to the breezy rock'n'roll its band was generating. Turning away to head to bed we spied a small stage, surrounded by a carpet of woodchippings and hiding behind a building. On it were The Amigos, whom we stood in the rain for 45 minutes or so to watch. They were a lot of fun, ska-y and rock-y and pop-y and full of energy.
And so to bed.
Friday
Bands seen: [Kate Nash], The Subways, Revere, Golden Silvers, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Attila the Stockbroker, Ben Folds, [Maclaine & Saul], The Epstein, [The Duke Spirit], Editors, Beardyman, Reverend and the Makers, [Kings of Leon], [Holloways], Alabama 3
Wow. What a lot of bands. There was also a band called The Argument About Yellow, but frankly I can't remember anything about them except their name.
An exciting discovery this year was the Worthy FM stage. Worthy FM broadcasts from the festival site for a week or so a year, but has a tiny little stage from which bands can play live to the airwaves. (Actually, when it was so wet the previous evening, we snuggled ourselves into sleeping bags and listened to the radio. Don't tell anyone.) Walking past the stage, we were dragged in by the sounds of Revere. ChrisC described them as "Promenade-era Divine Comedy", which seems pretty accurate. Their mySpace will play some if you're interested. They and the Golden Silvers (all chiming harmonies, they couldn't be better named) were joint winners of the festival's Emerging Talent contest and well worth watching.
My biggest discoverey of the festival was beatboxing. Beardyman and a guy called Shlomo who guested onstage with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly were the first people I have ever seen beatboxing live, and it's amazing. I've never got what's good about beatboxing before; any idiot can sound like a distant Walkman. When we found Beardyman on stage, he sounded like a very present DJ - mixing beats and samples live, but making all the sounds with his own voice. I find it incredibly hard to believe he's actually making the sounds - I'm sure humans can't make that many noises at once.
I'm persistently confused by Reverend and the Makers. Despite the singer having a very broad Yorkshire accent, I remain convinced that they're American and thus have to be surprised all over again every time I hear them. I like them, though. I and a largely male-dominated audience partied in the John Peel tent to their mid90s-esque guitar dance. It's like Madchester all over again :)
The main stage headliner was Kings of Leon, a band about whom I know absolutely nothing. Owing to geography, I spent quite a long time within earshot of them while I walked up to the Leftfield to see Holloways and Alabama 3. I'd have stopped to listen if they'd sounded remotely interesting. They didn't.
In between all the bands, we found time to wander through the Circus Fields. Before we knew quite what was happening, we were lying down as part of a long human chain to allow someone to roll a gigantic inflatable globe over us. I never did find out why. Then we got eaten by a fairground ride. Then managed to escape back out into the Jazzworld again.
Saturday
Bands seen: Billy Bragg, [Seasick Steve], Crowded House, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, The Wombats, Vampire Weekend, [Duffy], Mitch Benn, The Imagined Village, [Amy Winehouse], Teddy Thompson, Massive Attack, CSS
Getting up mid-morning, we made our way over to the Guardian Lounge and hit it lucky - the previous act had just finished and people were pouring out. We got in, and got seats - wooden dining chairs, at a proper table, in an area of the tent decked out with furniture, pictures and ornaments to look like a 1960s front room. We divvied up a copy of the Guardian, and settled down. I wandered over to the cafe, and discovered that the Guardian Lounge is the only place at Glastonbury middle-class enough to have sold out of Earl Grey. Elsewhere, you can buy bacon butties. In the Guardian Lounge one buys a bacon, rocket and tomato chutney bap. (I didn't, I bought a raspberry and white chocolate cupcake, thanks. I'd already had breakfast in the form of an amazing smoked halloumi wrap courtesy of a fantastic on-site smokehouse.)
Anyway, Billy Bragg appeared and noodled gently for a while, singing other people's songs which I didn't know before finishing up with his own A13 Trunk Road to the Sea, which shows how some clichés only work in America. After a couple of hours of gentle lazing and enjoying a nice sit down, we decided that perhaps we ought really to get moving.
Crowded House were big and sunshiney (please note absence of obvious remark), and as noted on here at the time I got to sit on the grass! In the sunshine! Without getting muddy! ChrisC obligingly fetched me a glass of champagne and all was well with the world.
Again, geography and going from A to B meant I heard some of Amy Winehouse on the way past. Her first song sounded OK, but before the second she opened her mouth and began to talk... words were falling out but not making a lot of sense. I quickly concluded that this set was potential train-wreck material and beat a hasty retreat. (So I missed the controversy, and was somewhat puzzled later by a text message which hoped we hadn't been punched by the lady.)
I didn't deliberately boycott Jay-Z, I was just more interested in Massive Attack. I wish I'd seen Jay-Z's entrance - kudos to the man for coming on to a montage of media criticism of his headlining capability, and covering one of the best known songs of the most vocal critic.
Sunday
Bands seen: The Herbie Treehead Band, Attila the Stockbroker, [Balkan Beat Box], Scouting for Girls, Mark Ronson, [Bluetones], Leonard Cohen, Billy Bragg, Manu Chao, The Highliners
On Saturday I saw a sign. It was a sign outside the stall advertising Goan Fish Curry (which had a surprisingly long queueue). The sign said there would be kedgeree at breakfast time. At ten I was hotfooting it over to the Jazzworld field for my kedgeree. I ate it (with a nice cup of Earl Grey from the stall next door, though I had to blag a slice of lemon from the Goan people). It was bloody marvellous. ChrisC sat and looked vaguely mystified by people who want to eat fish curry for breakfast. I'm voting it food of the festival.
Sunday's line up wasn't really all that exciting to look at. And the thing about Glastonbury is that everywhere else is exciting, so we blew off the main stages and headed out to the Circus Fields again. We half-watched a band while a troupe of 4 girls dressed as 1960s civil servants danced around. I wasn't sure if they were on their way somewhere, or just passing the time. Anyway, I liked their choreographed umbrella-twirling. I'd had vague plans to see the Hoodoo Gurus, but frankly there was too much fun to be had with the circus nutters.
We found Japanese drummers, whose amazingly balletic moves make them as much worth watching as listening to. They also played tiny, saucer-sized cymbals in a routine which devolved into a tennis match, each player throwing the "ting!" to the next person. I joined in a crowd of people drawing marker-pen portraits of a lady sprawled in a chair. We found and watched a flea circus; the circus itself was impressive and might even have been the antique it claimed, but the ringmaster wasn't much of a showman so it was a little lacklustre. We watched people building little models of themselves from clay. We found a street theatre company putting on a recreation of a Pat Cash v. John McEnroe Wimbledon final, complete with slow-motion replays. We saw (and argued with) two people who carried a sign which read "Discussion Group: are signs good?
I suspect the Discussion Group weren't street artists or performers, just people who were there and liked the idea. They'd printed themselves up some t-shirts and made a sign, and were off. I do love the light-hearted creativeness that pervades areas of the festival. The Permaculture garden, hidden in the Greenfields, had had one of its herb beds flattened by late-night revellers. Rather than a tight-lipped message, the sign read "Sorry! Mint bed munted by the minty munters!" A van, reversing near a path of people, announced its intentions when someone hung out of the back door and yelled "Beep! Beep! Beep!" at passersby. Nothing in itself is particularly big or clever, but taken as a whole the experience of utter daftness is involving and easily lovable.
We also found my Thing of the Festival. A theatre company has designed a theatre - which seats one person. You booked a slot, and turned up at the allotted time to watch a six minute play. The theatre has three 'windows' which can be opened to show the action going on outside (a detailed description of the theatre's construction might give a better idea.)
The play, which was a silent Western, was presented very like a film using all kinds of cinematic tricks. Even bullet time, thanks to them knowing very precisely where the audient was looking from :) Everything was brilliantly done: well acted, with split-second timing and (I realised afterwards) absolutely no scuffling audible from inside the box as the actors moved from one scene to another with very little time. Every single person who went in to the box came out applauding and amazed; I certainly did.
Travelling through the Greenfields (pausing to look at bicycle-powered stages, Gospel choirs, gardens, posters, stalls...) we finally made it back to the main stages to see Scouting for Girls and Mark Ronson. Mr Ronson (the politest man in rock) has graduated from a small tent to the second stage since last year - but we wondered if he's no longer the man of the moment. Last year saw his string of 'friends' on stage become increasingly stellar; this year, although they were all fine performers, the only 'star' was a rather ragged performance from Lily Allen. I don't know how much longer he can keep going doing just covers - it still seems to be pleasing crowds, though.
Boogying past the Bluetones, we made our way to the Pyramid stage to wait for Leonard Cohen.
I've heard a lot of mystical nonsense talked about Glastonbury - both the town and the festival. I've never understood the 'mystical' take on the festival, myself. To me it's always touched with the surreal or hysterical. As Leonard Cohen sang, the sun set leaving streaks of gold above the Pyramid stage and the Tor. Flocks of gulls wheeled silently overhead, and huge opalescent bubbles floated by on the breeze. Thousands of people sang together. And then a middle-aged man in an all-in-one lycra fairy suit, complete with wings, danced past. See what I mean ?
Anyway, the performance was amazing. He's still got a brilliant voice for a man in his seventies, and he picks his musicians and backing singers well. I might add that during Bird on a Wire, there were flocks of gulls swooping around the electricity pylons, and not one of them had the decency to land on the damn wire. Honestly, no sense of theatre, your average gull.
We gave up on the headliners and went wandering again, accidentally finding Billy Bragg (again), Manu Chao, a lot of fireworks, a really complicated structure in Trash City which spewed forth enormous flames in time to the deafeningly loud music. We found a four-armed robot sitting at a drum kit, but sadly his humans were packing him away. We spelled words on a giant "fridge poetry" board, and watched people conga-ing to the Highliners.
Sadly, mindful of wanting to get up early and beat the rush, we headed off to bed.
Monday
By the festival's main information point was a board enabling people to offer and exchange car shares. I'd texted someone who wanted a lift to Oxford, so at our allotted meeting time of half nine we were all packed up and waiting for them by the pedestrian gate. Whilst wondering what kind of disorganised soul goes to a festival without sorting out a lift home, and anxiously guessing just how drug-addled this knife-wielding maniac we had to transport would be.
Actually, we got a punctual, polite and friendly second-year student called Tim, who left behind nothing more serious than a large pile of glitter on the car seat. He didn't seem in the least addled, and if he wielded a knife, he did it very quietly and discreetly in the back seat.
First, let's get the headline news out of the way. It didn't royally piss down the entire time! After a rather damp patch on Thursday evening and Friday morning, it cleared up and became bright, breezy and positive balmy. I think the weather was late - the Glastonbury downpour certainly seems to be here now.
If you want to know at greater length, keep reading. Don't say you weren't warned... it really does go on a bit.
(Following the convention of other years, bands in [] are those where I only caught a short part of their set.)
Wednesday
For novelty value, we set off from Reading this year. I was in work, ChrisC came up on the train, and we jaunted down the M4. It doesn't actually take any longer than driving from Oxford, which surprised me. Arriving at the gates around 8ish, large areas of the campsite were already scored off as 'FULL' - I think the fields around the Pyramid stage go pretty quickly. Even larger areas weren't marked as full, and we headed to our usual stamping ground of Pennards Hill.
I like it as a location to camp, it's handy for the Other stage and the new Park area, and doesn't seem to be too far from anything we might want during the festival. Sadly, it's about as far away as it's possible to be from the gate through which we come onto the site.
So we walked for miles and miles and miles, then found a gap and put a tent up. Our neighbours were absent or asleep; had we met them we might have folded the tent and stolen silently away. Not that they were nasty people, or antisocial, but they continued to make me feel elderly and past it all weekend. Every time we attempted to talk about bands, they didn't know who I was talking about and I didn't know who they were talking about. Claiming that Leonard Cohen was the act I was most looking forward to got a blank "who's he?" As we were getting up in the morning and thinking of breakfast, they were staggering home to their tents. I didn't even understand the paraphenalia required for the drugs they were taking, and I think they found my interest in the Greenfields inexplicable. All in all, while we conversed pleasantly, they left me feeling as if I and my tiny brain and my long spiny tail should go and nibble some trees and stop all this festival nonsense.
We rounded Wednesday off with a Thai green curry and a trip to the Ciderbus to meet Carolyn and Simon. I've actually never had cider at Glastonbury before. The Somerset dry cider was surprisingly unscary for "real" cider and I quite warmed to the stuff. Particularly given that the real ale sold continues to be pretty limp.
Thursday
Bands seen: Seal Cub Clubbing Club, Atavist Future Kings, The Amigos
There was a big new open area of the site this year - just open space, with some flags in it, and a cracking view over the festival. We went and viewed it, then started our wandering proper. Lots of the areas - like Trash City and Shangri-La - still had the builders in, and weren't really up and running.
Tucked away in a damp hollow near the Stone Circle we found a large, sleepy stone dragon. His tail curled up his body, and water pooled around him and poured from his mouth. He's been there, according to a bloke perched on his back, "for ever"; certainly he didn't look like a recent arrival. How we've managed to miss him for years is a mystery. This year, he had a huge, wooden counterpart sculpted from whole trees rearing above the Greenfields.
Ambling through the Circus Fields, I saw an advert chalked on a blackboard and demanded mutinously that we return at the stipulated time. Who wouldn't want to watch a display of speed-carving done with chainsaws ? A small stage on a trailer housed a band who blasted through breakneck Irish reels for 20 minutes while eight or so people ripped animals and faces from chunks of tree. With chainsaws. A bird of prey, a bear, an owl... although they were roughly done, the details were amazing. A speed auction followed, the crowd bidding for the statues. The bear's face went for over a hundred pounds, soaring way out of my price bracket before I'd even had time to think about raising my hand.
I admit: we went to see the Seal Cub Clubbing Club entirely because they had a silly name. They weren't bad, sounding a bit like the Young Knives. Late in the evening, when it was glooming in and pouring down in an all-too-familiar way, we paused by the bandstand to listen to the breezy rock'n'roll its band was generating. Turning away to head to bed we spied a small stage, surrounded by a carpet of woodchippings and hiding behind a building. On it were The Amigos, whom we stood in the rain for 45 minutes or so to watch. They were a lot of fun, ska-y and rock-y and pop-y and full of energy.
And so to bed.
Friday
Bands seen: [Kate Nash], The Subways, Revere, Golden Silvers, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Attila the Stockbroker, Ben Folds, [Maclaine & Saul], The Epstein, [The Duke Spirit], Editors, Beardyman, Reverend and the Makers, [Kings of Leon], [Holloways], Alabama 3
Wow. What a lot of bands. There was also a band called The Argument About Yellow, but frankly I can't remember anything about them except their name.
An exciting discovery this year was the Worthy FM stage. Worthy FM broadcasts from the festival site for a week or so a year, but has a tiny little stage from which bands can play live to the airwaves. (Actually, when it was so wet the previous evening, we snuggled ourselves into sleeping bags and listened to the radio. Don't tell anyone.) Walking past the stage, we were dragged in by the sounds of Revere. ChrisC described them as "Promenade-era Divine Comedy", which seems pretty accurate. Their mySpace will play some if you're interested. They and the Golden Silvers (all chiming harmonies, they couldn't be better named) were joint winners of the festival's Emerging Talent contest and well worth watching.
My biggest discoverey of the festival was beatboxing. Beardyman and a guy called Shlomo who guested onstage with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly were the first people I have ever seen beatboxing live, and it's amazing. I've never got what's good about beatboxing before; any idiot can sound like a distant Walkman. When we found Beardyman on stage, he sounded like a very present DJ - mixing beats and samples live, but making all the sounds with his own voice. I find it incredibly hard to believe he's actually making the sounds - I'm sure humans can't make that many noises at once.
I'm persistently confused by Reverend and the Makers. Despite the singer having a very broad Yorkshire accent, I remain convinced that they're American and thus have to be surprised all over again every time I hear them. I like them, though. I and a largely male-dominated audience partied in the John Peel tent to their mid90s-esque guitar dance. It's like Madchester all over again :)
The main stage headliner was Kings of Leon, a band about whom I know absolutely nothing. Owing to geography, I spent quite a long time within earshot of them while I walked up to the Leftfield to see Holloways and Alabama 3. I'd have stopped to listen if they'd sounded remotely interesting. They didn't.
In between all the bands, we found time to wander through the Circus Fields. Before we knew quite what was happening, we were lying down as part of a long human chain to allow someone to roll a gigantic inflatable globe over us. I never did find out why. Then we got eaten by a fairground ride. Then managed to escape back out into the Jazzworld again.
Saturday
Bands seen: Billy Bragg, [Seasick Steve], Crowded House, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, The Wombats, Vampire Weekend, [Duffy], Mitch Benn, The Imagined Village, [Amy Winehouse], Teddy Thompson, Massive Attack, CSS
Getting up mid-morning, we made our way over to the Guardian Lounge and hit it lucky - the previous act had just finished and people were pouring out. We got in, and got seats - wooden dining chairs, at a proper table, in an area of the tent decked out with furniture, pictures and ornaments to look like a 1960s front room. We divvied up a copy of the Guardian, and settled down. I wandered over to the cafe, and discovered that the Guardian Lounge is the only place at Glastonbury middle-class enough to have sold out of Earl Grey. Elsewhere, you can buy bacon butties. In the Guardian Lounge one buys a bacon, rocket and tomato chutney bap. (I didn't, I bought a raspberry and white chocolate cupcake, thanks. I'd already had breakfast in the form of an amazing smoked halloumi wrap courtesy of a fantastic on-site smokehouse.)
Anyway, Billy Bragg appeared and noodled gently for a while, singing other people's songs which I didn't know before finishing up with his own A13 Trunk Road to the Sea, which shows how some clichés only work in America. After a couple of hours of gentle lazing and enjoying a nice sit down, we decided that perhaps we ought really to get moving.
Crowded House were big and sunshiney (please note absence of obvious remark), and as noted on here at the time I got to sit on the grass! In the sunshine! Without getting muddy! ChrisC obligingly fetched me a glass of champagne and all was well with the world.
Again, geography and going from A to B meant I heard some of Amy Winehouse on the way past. Her first song sounded OK, but before the second she opened her mouth and began to talk... words were falling out but not making a lot of sense. I quickly concluded that this set was potential train-wreck material and beat a hasty retreat. (So I missed the controversy, and was somewhat puzzled later by a text message which hoped we hadn't been punched by the lady.)
I didn't deliberately boycott Jay-Z, I was just more interested in Massive Attack. I wish I'd seen Jay-Z's entrance - kudos to the man for coming on to a montage of media criticism of his headlining capability, and covering one of the best known songs of the most vocal critic.
Sunday
Bands seen: The Herbie Treehead Band, Attila the Stockbroker, [Balkan Beat Box], Scouting for Girls, Mark Ronson, [Bluetones], Leonard Cohen, Billy Bragg, Manu Chao, The Highliners
On Saturday I saw a sign. It was a sign outside the stall advertising Goan Fish Curry (which had a surprisingly long queueue). The sign said there would be kedgeree at breakfast time. At ten I was hotfooting it over to the Jazzworld field for my kedgeree. I ate it (with a nice cup of Earl Grey from the stall next door, though I had to blag a slice of lemon from the Goan people). It was bloody marvellous. ChrisC sat and looked vaguely mystified by people who want to eat fish curry for breakfast. I'm voting it food of the festival.
Sunday's line up wasn't really all that exciting to look at. And the thing about Glastonbury is that everywhere else is exciting, so we blew off the main stages and headed out to the Circus Fields again. We half-watched a band while a troupe of 4 girls dressed as 1960s civil servants danced around. I wasn't sure if they were on their way somewhere, or just passing the time. Anyway, I liked their choreographed umbrella-twirling. I'd had vague plans to see the Hoodoo Gurus, but frankly there was too much fun to be had with the circus nutters.
We found Japanese drummers, whose amazingly balletic moves make them as much worth watching as listening to. They also played tiny, saucer-sized cymbals in a routine which devolved into a tennis match, each player throwing the "ting!" to the next person. I joined in a crowd of people drawing marker-pen portraits of a lady sprawled in a chair. We found and watched a flea circus; the circus itself was impressive and might even have been the antique it claimed, but the ringmaster wasn't much of a showman so it was a little lacklustre. We watched people building little models of themselves from clay. We found a street theatre company putting on a recreation of a Pat Cash v. John McEnroe Wimbledon final, complete with slow-motion replays. We saw (and argued with) two people who carried a sign which read "Discussion Group: are signs good?
I suspect the Discussion Group weren't street artists or performers, just people who were there and liked the idea. They'd printed themselves up some t-shirts and made a sign, and were off. I do love the light-hearted creativeness that pervades areas of the festival. The Permaculture garden, hidden in the Greenfields, had had one of its herb beds flattened by late-night revellers. Rather than a tight-lipped message, the sign read "Sorry! Mint bed munted by the minty munters!" A van, reversing near a path of people, announced its intentions when someone hung out of the back door and yelled "Beep! Beep! Beep!" at passersby. Nothing in itself is particularly big or clever, but taken as a whole the experience of utter daftness is involving and easily lovable.
We also found my Thing of the Festival. A theatre company has designed a theatre - which seats one person. You booked a slot, and turned up at the allotted time to watch a six minute play. The theatre has three 'windows' which can be opened to show the action going on outside (a detailed description of the theatre's construction might give a better idea.)
The play, which was a silent Western, was presented very like a film using all kinds of cinematic tricks. Even bullet time, thanks to them knowing very precisely where the audient was looking from :) Everything was brilliantly done: well acted, with split-second timing and (I realised afterwards) absolutely no scuffling audible from inside the box as the actors moved from one scene to another with very little time. Every single person who went in to the box came out applauding and amazed; I certainly did.
Travelling through the Greenfields (pausing to look at bicycle-powered stages, Gospel choirs, gardens, posters, stalls...) we finally made it back to the main stages to see Scouting for Girls and Mark Ronson. Mr Ronson (the politest man in rock) has graduated from a small tent to the second stage since last year - but we wondered if he's no longer the man of the moment. Last year saw his string of 'friends' on stage become increasingly stellar; this year, although they were all fine performers, the only 'star' was a rather ragged performance from Lily Allen. I don't know how much longer he can keep going doing just covers - it still seems to be pleasing crowds, though.
Boogying past the Bluetones, we made our way to the Pyramid stage to wait for Leonard Cohen.
I've heard a lot of mystical nonsense talked about Glastonbury - both the town and the festival. I've never understood the 'mystical' take on the festival, myself. To me it's always touched with the surreal or hysterical. As Leonard Cohen sang, the sun set leaving streaks of gold above the Pyramid stage and the Tor. Flocks of gulls wheeled silently overhead, and huge opalescent bubbles floated by on the breeze. Thousands of people sang together. And then a middle-aged man in an all-in-one lycra fairy suit, complete with wings, danced past. See what I mean ?
Anyway, the performance was amazing. He's still got a brilliant voice for a man in his seventies, and he picks his musicians and backing singers well. I might add that during Bird on a Wire, there were flocks of gulls swooping around the electricity pylons, and not one of them had the decency to land on the damn wire. Honestly, no sense of theatre, your average gull.
We gave up on the headliners and went wandering again, accidentally finding Billy Bragg (again), Manu Chao, a lot of fireworks, a really complicated structure in Trash City which spewed forth enormous flames in time to the deafeningly loud music. We found a four-armed robot sitting at a drum kit, but sadly his humans were packing him away. We spelled words on a giant "fridge poetry" board, and watched people conga-ing to the Highliners.
Sadly, mindful of wanting to get up early and beat the rush, we headed off to bed.
Monday
By the festival's main information point was a board enabling people to offer and exchange car shares. I'd texted someone who wanted a lift to Oxford, so at our allotted meeting time of half nine we were all packed up and waiting for them by the pedestrian gate. Whilst wondering what kind of disorganised soul goes to a festival without sorting out a lift home, and anxiously guessing just how drug-addled this knife-wielding maniac we had to transport would be.
Actually, we got a punctual, polite and friendly second-year student called Tim, who left behind nothing more serious than a large pile of glitter on the car seat. He didn't seem in the least addled, and if he wielded a knife, he did it very quietly and discreetly in the back seat.
