Your smile is like a breath of spring, your voice is soft like summer rain
Hello. It's July. And at the end of June you know what happens, right? I go off to the world's greatest performing arts festival, and then drivel on for pages and pages about it.
So here we are, Glastonbury 2014. If you are allergic to words, you can find the pictorial version on Flickr.
Wednesday
We had a rather worrying drive to Glastonbury. There was a traffic jam around Stonehenge - of course - but the roads seemed empty. Our traditional service station (Solstice Services on the A303) was empty, not a flowery-haired and wellington-toting customer to be seen. The roads around Pilton were queue-free, and we followed the signs, sailing past the entrance we usually turned into. Err...
The yellow AA routing uses a bewildering system of coloured diamonds. Which one were we? Our diamond-shaped parking permit didn't seem to match any of them. Along we drove, being waved past various turnings, and seeing the opposite side of the road thick with cars wearing matching permits driving the other way. Err...
Eventually, a red diamond and a bunch of people in yellow hi-vis allowed us to take a turning, and we rattled over the temporary roadways into a West car park. A West car park! We've only ever parked in the massive East parks before. We loaded up, walked a short distance through the gate (no queues), walked into a spacious, commodious campsite, and pitched the tent. Like, properly pitched, with room to put the guy ropes out and everything. We chatted to our new neighbours in the sunshine - apparently we passed their test as the "nice, quiet people" they wanted nearby; I suspect they were about our age :)
We strolled in from our unfamiliar campsite, past the John Peel tent and the Dance Village Silver Hayes (damn this constant evolution), walking past the Other stage and the re-located Arcadia with its "mechanical playground" to the Park. ChrisC had been whinging pretty much non-stop since last year, because he never got an ice-cream-cookie-sandwich from the Park, so we fitted one in early to avoid tantrums. Being of different tastes, I had a barbecued corn on the cob instead. We climbed the hill, shuffled ourselves into one of the beautifully-painted wooden shelters (complete with hanging baskets and a wall-papered interior) and snoozed in the shade.
After a while, we managed to get up again and continue our exploration. Past the Tipi Field, down past the Stone Circle and through the extraordinarily lovely Peace Garden and into Green Crafts. Two little girls were playing on a rustic and not-terribly-effective seesaw (which rocked on a wooden roller); they weren't strong enough to make it go, so we helped by pushing until their mum showed up. And then we carried on, because it turns out she had a bad back. We swung in some twiddly cast iron swings hanging from a tree (I only vacated mine because more free-range children were looking on jealously), then headed towards West Holts for tea.
Except we walked past the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise, a vast wooden ship which has a viewing platform at one end (with audio-installation about the Arctic 30), a stage at the other, a climbing wall down the side and a skate ramp in the middle - just as a pro skating demo kicked off. We eventually made it to the excellent Leon for tea, then nosed through the stalls before scooting along to meet Carolyn at the Cider Bus.
It's traditional. We always meet Carolyn at the Cider Bus at 9 on the Wednesday. The fact that she now lives in Hong Kong and hasn't been to the festival in several years is neither here nor there. A cracking firework display started over the Stone Circle and we thought oh yes! This happened last year, and we made a note that this year we should be up there for the bonfire. We made a note that next year we should be up there for the bonfire.
By the time we got home to bed, a new tent had shown up, squeezed into a space not quite large enough. But it seemed to be occupied by a nice chap who looked very like mykreeve and was trying to put a rather flimsy-looking camp bed together (he subsequently showed me the finished product the following day, actually it seemed pretty plausible).
A whole day with no bands :)
Thursday
Gaz Brookfield, The 1975, Metronomy, Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer
This year I'd had a Great Idea. I'd bought an insulated mug, and my luggage included two lemons, two lumps of root ginger, and a sharp knife. I sliced lemon and ginger into my mug, blagged some hot water from the closest breakfast stall and bingo! Excellent beverage. While blagging, we noticed that their fry-ups looked damn fine, so bought fry-up as well.
(The hot water plan had a slightly flaw. I'd expected places which sold tea/coffee to have a nominal charge for hot water. Everywhere I asked was happy to give me it for nothing, but I felt slightly awkward about this and tried to limit it to stalls where we were buying something else anyway. When it was hot weather, I put cold water in my insulted mug, and that worked too. The lemon and ginger was a great idea.)
This year the festival's vintage Heidelberg printing press was willing to play nice, and we picked up Thursday's broadsheet on our way to the Green Crafts area. I was determined that, for once, I was going to make it to a workshop of some kind. A friendly drop forge was willing to issue me with a small aluminium blank, help me stamp it with their "Glasto 14" logo, show me how to hammer it round a series of decreasingly-sized rods to make a bead, and provide coloured string to plait into a bracelet. So I did that. For a while now, ChrisC has been saying he'd like to have a go on a harp, but that circumstances rarely allow; a nice lady under some shady trees had a small array of small harps so he had a lesson and footled around with one while I hammered. The Green Fields really are amazing. Next year I might move on to stone-carving :)
We ate ice cream and pootled past Greenpeace (the previous day's skaters were now giving lessons to kids). The circus fields seemed strangely empty, with little in the way of free-range nutters, so we sat down to watch the world go by and listened to Sita Sings, the red-dressed choir that roams the site all weekend. Then the sky did That Thing, the one where you realise you want a jumper. And that you should be wondering where you put your waterproof. And then it did That Other Thing, where you dive for the nearest bit of shelter (which, in this case, was a series of red Pimms-branded umbrellas, all rendered Glastonury-compliant by having their logos covered up with red duct tape).
Three o'clock Thursday is our second traditional meeting time, when we go to the Tiny Tea Tent to catch up with satyrica. He was there and everything, and we stayed comfortably under cover chatting while rain happened intermittently. Some time after five we left in the slightly sullen drizzle to go and find out what The Anthropic Organ was. It turned out to be a peculiar pink sound-installation thing, with two extremely mismatched performers offering laconic comedy and explaining that the Organ absorbed sound from the ground and therefore would randomly play back performances from previous festivals... it was very, very odd but, since we stood in the rain to watch it, clearly compelling :)
We resumed our aimless wandering, briefly finding ourselves in a game of musical bingo, munching on assorted snacks, and washed up in the unexpectedly-crowded Field of Avalon to catch Gaz Brookfield. Last year, he played on a tiny bandstand, this year he packed out the Avalon Cafe, and went down a storm. His set was cut slightly short[*], and we scarpered down into the south-east naughty corner to catch The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing on the Hell stage.
Which was surprisingly... quiet. No obvious signs of incipient giggage. Was this the right place? Then a bloke leaning on the barrier turned round, and I saw the large home-made "Margate" label on his hat and thought well, he's expecting The Men. We all stood about, and Marc (The Man who looks like Tin-Tin) wandered sheepishly on stage and, microphoneless, bellowed that actually the stage didn't start till 8 and so their 7 o'clock show wasn't happening. They'd be on at 9:30 somewhere else, and on Hell the following day at some time. Err, afternoon. Maybe 4ish.
So we resumed wandering again, and ChrisC pointed out that the "live music" on William's Green on Thursday night had, in previous years, been unexpectedly big names. On approach, he identified The 1975, and reading someone else's iPhone over their shoulder I gathered that they were rumoured to be followed by Metronomy. Immediate dilemma! Watch Metronomy, the Friday-night Park headliner that I was expecting to have to miss to see Arcade Fire? Head down to the Rocket Lounge for TMTWNBBFN to see what they'd promised would be a riotous show? I eventually chose Metronomy on the grounds that I was already there, and there was no guarantee I'd get in to the Rocket Lounge, plus The Men were on again the following day.
Metronomy played to a hugely enthusiastic audience, and were awesome. Then we did musical handbrake-turn and ran to Croissant Neuf for a chap-hop hoorah with Mr B. He had another hugely enthusiastic crowd packed into the tent, singing along with everything. When festival crowds Just Work, they are amazing.
[*] Apparently, he was followed by Michael Eavis karaoke-ing a Rolling Stones song.
Friday
Kaiser Chiefs, Alabama 3, [Blondie], Rodrigo y Gabriela, [The Young 'Uns], [De La Soul], Kevin P Gilday, Abe Nouk, [Fishermans Friends], The Tuts, Foster the People, Interpol, [Elbow], Lykke Li, Arcade Fire
Friday began with That Noise. That Noise that means that outside it is raining, and it means business. We sulked in the tent before eventually engaging reluctantly with the day. The rain obligingly stopped as we emerged, and we caught the 'secret' opener on the Other stage. Given the persistent rumours that the secret guest was Prince, had I been the festival organisers I wouldn't have had the stage lit up purple the previous evening if I'd known that it was actually the Kaiser Chiefs, but there you go. I was bewildered to hear someone approaching the stage say "No, dunno who that is. Looks like Ricky Wilson, though." ChrisC reminded me that he is on The Voice, and therefore now considerably better known than his band.
Just to the side of the Other stage is the Glade, a small stage which veers towards electronica and world music, and obligingly has a roof; our plan to watch the Alabama 3 Sound System coincided beautifully with the next downpour. DJs, MCs, and a woman with an amazing voice were all over the stage while the tracksuit-clad Reverend D Wayne Love looked on benignly. Also our only bit of celebrity-spotting for the weekend: we watched A3 alongside Marcus Brigstocke. We emerged in time to hear the opening notes of Heart of Glass, timed perfectly as the sun popped out from behind a cloud. Then Blondie ended and a huge people-jam ensued as crowds tried to walk in opposite directions. Eventually we gave up, and went back through the Glade instead. I asked a security guy what had caused it, and he shrugged and said "Blondie". Maybe they should have been on the Pyramid :)
We bought lunch, and sat in West Holts listening to the amazing Rodrigo y Gabriela while I fought with data coverage to try and load some pages from twitter. Y'see, I'd tried the info stands. Did they know when The Men were on the Hell stage? They did not. I tried tweeting (via SMS) @glastoninfo. She didn't know either. Their advice was to go to Hell, which I figured was dreadful advice - it would take an hour to get there and back, and I was reasonably sure that there wouldn't be anyone useful there to ask. I figured I'd try asking The Men directly, but couldn't remember their twitter handle. But could I load a single page of t'internet, despite a decent signal? Could I bollocks. We even tried diverting to the EE tent and picking up their free wifi, but couldn't get it to work. Eventually, I solved it laterally (and massive props to maviscruet for being the sort of person who will just answer peculiar questions instead of saying "what? why?") and sent an SMS to @tmtwnbbfn. There was no reply[*] and eventually I figured that I'd happily pay to see The Men at a regular gig and it wasn't worth spending half an afteroon chasing round looking for them.
One of the reasons I end up with bands in brackets is that you're walking along past a tent, and something catches your ear... in this case the Young 'Uns, singing John Ball, one of my favourite songs, with Billy Bragg hovering in the background. ChrisC bought a milkshake which was about the same size as me, and we hurried along to the end of De La Soul and off into the weird shit fields. The nutters were out in force, and we saw story tellers, giant seagulls trying to steal children from the wheeled trollies that are used as pushchairs at Glasto[**], snow-crusted Arctic explorers trudging by and (terrifyingly) a troop of ninjas straight away. A strange, spinning cross-contraption had three blokes climbing, spinning and dancing round it and we watched, bemused, until they abruptly ran away across the field. Then we saw the colour of the approaching clouds, and dived for the Poetry and Words tent.
The clouds didn't deliver... until we approached the Acoustic tent later. We got under cover as it started to pour, and to thunder... and the power to the site was turned off in the face of an electric storm. Fishermans Friends left the stage as it powered down, and water rolled in quite staggering quantities off the tent roof. Did I want to walk across the site to Hell with ChrisC to see Beans on Toast? Did I hell. It was brightening up, the rain was slacking, the power would be back on soon and I wanted to hear Fishermans Friends. He took the umbrella.
And I realised that FF are big blokes, who bellow acapella harmony. Would they be sitting backstage waiting? No. I scanned the tent, and began fighting my way to the most densely-packed bit. Lo and behold, there were FF, singing shanties among the audience. Sadly, a lot of people had clearly only come in out the rain and the tent was noisy. People who were listening were standing up and absorbing the sound effectively, and I could barely hear. The storm rolled back round, and the power was still off when FF retired (having already sung for considerably longer than their stage slot).
When ChrisC and I met as arranged in the Left Field for the Tuts, he was brimming over with excitement. Beans on Toast (one man, guitar, lo-fi, sense of anarchy), also without power, had played a few songs then taken one look at the rain on his audience, orchestrated a clandestine break-in to a closed venue, and performed in the dark to the hundreds of people who jammed in. Apparently the venue's staff were a bit surprised, and wouldn't let him on the stage, but agreed to tolerate his presence until someone shouted that it'd stopped raining and everyone trooped back out again to watch him "in library silence" playing unamplified from the front of the still-unpowered stage. (ChrisC called Beans on Toast as band-of-the-festival; I think I made the wrong choice :)
We went to see Interpol, but they'd accidentally turned into Foster the People - the Other stage was running an hour late due to the power cut, although the Pyramid had somehow managed to get back on schedule so ChrisC missed the beginning of Elbow. I missed all but the last few songs of Elbow; that was deliberate because although I really, really want to like them for a number of reasons, I find them intolerably whiney. I skipped the extended singalong outro of One Day in favour of Lykke Li, who was brilliant under the rather apocalpytic stage-lighting that the people who run the John Peel stage seem to favour.
Arcade Fire were... fine. I like them. They were good. Just somehow they seemed to lack headliner punch, despite their multicolouredness. The crowds drifted away from the main stage repeatedly singing the woo-along chorus of their last song, though, so perhaps that was just me.
[*] In fairness, there were two replies, immediately. Only SMS notification was apparently buggered as well, and I didn't see them until I got back into a decent data signal on Sunday night.
[**] Some of which are decorated. My favourite looked like the Mystery Machine :)
Saturday
Nick Mulvey, Balina Whalers, Prof. Elemental, The Riptide Movement, Warpaint, Courtney Barnett, Clean Bandit, [George Ezra], Manic Street Preachers, [Goldfrapp], Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Metallica
For those who like to be kept informed of the mud situation, it actually wasn't that bad. Muddy, yes, but nowhere near as bad as it has been. Although there had been very heavy rain, it had been showers, not the dismal, relentless downpours that go on all day and make you want to go home. Saturday continued in this vein, waiting until we'd left the tent and then absolutely hammering it down. We simply stood still under our huge brolly and watched water bouncing off the mud all around us for ten minutes or so, then walked the remaining distance to the Beat Hotel to have American pancakes for breakfast. We later watched the whole of the Balina Whalers' set from a handy nearby bench, sitting under the umbrella. In fact, for the whole weekend we managed never to be actually badly rained on - we were either under cover, or in a brollyable situation.
By the time we made it down to the circus fields to see Prof. Elemental, it was blazing sunshine. With a brolly, a waterpoof and a jumper in my bag, I had to blag some suncream from the chap next to me in the crowd. The in-between-act filler on the Sensation Seeker's stage was busy organising a game show - a row of people picked from the audience were heavily muffled in badanas, and someone was invited up to play "Beard Or No Beard" - and made it considerably more entertaining than you might expect. Then the Prof. came out and played to a surprisingly large crowd, all union-flag jacket and freestyling rhmyes about the people in the audience. At one point he encouraged everyone in the audience to ride on imaginary horses; ChrisC gets joke-of-the-weekend for standing quietly in the trotting crowd playing imaginary coconuts.
We tracked down the Bootworks Theatre company, and watched their four five-minute plays, each delivered by a single character inside a box-on-a-tricycle. Not as great as the play we first saw them do years ago, but still entertaining. It was a good day for theatre and circus. Later, walking down one of the main shopping streets, I turned a corner and heard just the following:
"...option 2, kilt off."
A man balanced on a ladder had just about wrestled his kilt off by the time we passed him. He was on the stray circus stage that has been allowed out into the main festival, and had an unusually big crowd. He was very entertaining, despite not actually doing much. He was holding three knives, so I suppose he eventually got round to jugging them; we were hurrying to see Warpaint.
We caught a few more bands, before declaring it Sausage Day and whaling into platefuls of sausages and tartiflette from the excellent Le Grand Bouffe. (Courtney Barnett's audience in the John Peel tent provided my favourite political-statement-on-a-flag all weekend: a patently homemade St Andrew's saltire, with "GO ON THEN, PISS OFF :)" on it in large letters.) Our chosen headliner for the night was Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, who filled the Left Field tent to capacity. I really wouldn't describe myself as someone who - offered the whole of Glastonbury - would choose hip hop and the sort of bangin' noise Dan Le Sac makes. The crowd danced, sang along, and roared for an encore after the show-closer An Open Letter From God To Man.
We shambled to bed via the Pyramid, to hear the second half of Metallica. We watched from the back of the field, the audience was relatively subdued with clearly not that many people knowing much more than the real biggies. Still, not many bands close by releasing loads of black, branded beachballs into the audience :)
Sunday
Billy Bragg, English National Ballet, CC Smugglers, Attila the Stockbroker, [Billy Bragg], [Soak], [White Lies], Public Service Broadcasting, Dolly Parton, Jake Bugg, Bombay Bicycle Club, [Kate Tempest], Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, Kasabian
Our Sunday was a bit different from usual. ChrisC not only had to go to a conference on Monday[*], but was speaking; we packed up and took our luggage to the (mercifully close) car in the morning, then furled the tent and stowed it in one of the property lock-ups. Despite a half-hearted attempt at drizzle, the weather was mostly accommodating and we were down at the main stage having had bunnychow for breakfast in time for the first act.
Bunnychow, you say? ChrisC new what it was; I didn't. A soft, but structurally-integrous Vietnamese roll hollowed out and filled witn (in this case) chorizo, refried beans, salsa, cheese and scrambled eggs. I was quite excited about mine.
Now, we've commented before that you can't go to Glastonbury without seeing Billy Bragg. Even so, we were lightly surprised to find him coming on stage when we were expecting the English National Ballet. As it turned out, the ENB were performing the modern ballet Dust about WWI, and BB had popped up to explain that, to talk about the fact the previous day had been the 100th anniversary of the assination of Archduke Ferdinand, to introduce a short film of memories, and to sing Between the Wars.
Dust was amazing - very modern (in so far as I know anything about ballet), and very emotional, and held everyone's attention. At one point the cameras swung out over the audience, as they do - instead of the bouncing, cheering, grinning masses you usually see, there was a solemn, crowd watching spell-bound. The respectful silence continued until the ballet had ended, when there was huge applause. I had assumed that the ENB would do something terribly well-known and the epitome of everyone's idea of ballet - preferably involving a twirly lady in a pink tutu. They didn't, and it went down brilliantly.
Looking back over previous festival write-ups, it seems we can barely go to Glastonbury without seeing Attila the Stockbroker, either. He's always good value. This year, more stages than ever had signers interpreting performances for the hard of hearing; Attila speaks so quickly that I worried signing-lady's arms might unscrew. She coped admirably, though - even in a new song whose chorus ran along the lines of "A picture of Prince Harry's knob, his knob! His knob, his knob..."
For the first time in a while we strolled through the Kidzfield, which must be the most amazing place in the world if you're a kid. Stuff to climb up, swing on, slide down, try out, play with, build... and regular shows and workshops for all ages. We passed a sign which read "It is forbidden to read this sign"; a costumed and very funny mime was attempting to enforce it. Everything is bright coloured, and everything looks like fun. We were collared by two small boys, and invited to play Capchor the Flag (they had a sign, so I know how it was spelled). We agreed, but sadly the rules had been made up in the contradictory and confusing manner you might expect from two 8 year olds, and were massively biased against us (the flag started in their base, the only approach to their base was over a narrow bridge); I got "shot" several times before I realised that they seemed to be playing prettily happily in their base anyway, and we left them to it.
Walking through the Left Field, ChrisC observed that doubtless we'd spot Billy Bragg any moment; bang on cue a nasal whine floated out of a tent singing Greetings to the New Brunette. It was "Billy Bragg's Round Up" where he introduces new acts; we stopped to watch a song from SOAK (who, in the distance, I mis-identified as a very young boy - turns out she's a very young girl. Worth checking out.)
I went off by myself to see Public Service Broadcasting, then hared down to the Pyramid field and ran into a massive crowd: Dolly Parton. I watched the last half a dozen songs or so: she really is amazing performer, particularly given that she's pushing seventy. There had been persistent rumours all weekend of "Dollymob" - a synchronised dance routine had been published unofficially online, and people encouraged to learn it to perform to Jolene. All weekend in the circus fields we'd seen people running quick classes, and I was quite looking forward to 100K people doing the dance. In the event, Jolene was in the middle of the set and I missed it, but it seems barely anyone did the dance (though TV coverage shows the front-of-stage security enthusiastically dancing away).
Previous write-ups suggest this is the third time we've watched Kasabian, a fact which surprises me. I'm not an especial Kasabian fan, but they were far and away the most headlinery of the Pyramid headliners (of which I actually watched all three this year). They probably also had the largest crowd (barring Dolly), with people singing and dancing right to the back of the field. As we hurried off to the car to get on the road, the "Laaaa, la, laaaa..." outro of LSF followed us across the site.
[*] This is my excuse for our shameless lack of late-night frolicking this year. It is totally nothing to do with me being absolutely knackered. I was knackered when I arrived at the festival; I totally do not recommend this.
So here we are, Glastonbury 2014. If you are allergic to words, you can find the pictorial version on Flickr.
Wednesday
We had a rather worrying drive to Glastonbury. There was a traffic jam around Stonehenge - of course - but the roads seemed empty. Our traditional service station (Solstice Services on the A303) was empty, not a flowery-haired and wellington-toting customer to be seen. The roads around Pilton were queue-free, and we followed the signs, sailing past the entrance we usually turned into. Err...
The yellow AA routing uses a bewildering system of coloured diamonds. Which one were we? Our diamond-shaped parking permit didn't seem to match any of them. Along we drove, being waved past various turnings, and seeing the opposite side of the road thick with cars wearing matching permits driving the other way. Err...
Eventually, a red diamond and a bunch of people in yellow hi-vis allowed us to take a turning, and we rattled over the temporary roadways into a West car park. A West car park! We've only ever parked in the massive East parks before. We loaded up, walked a short distance through the gate (no queues), walked into a spacious, commodious campsite, and pitched the tent. Like, properly pitched, with room to put the guy ropes out and everything. We chatted to our new neighbours in the sunshine - apparently we passed their test as the "nice, quiet people" they wanted nearby; I suspect they were about our age :)
We strolled in from our unfamiliar campsite, past the John Peel tent and the Dance Village Silver Hayes (damn this constant evolution), walking past the Other stage and the re-located Arcadia with its "mechanical playground" to the Park. ChrisC had been whinging pretty much non-stop since last year, because he never got an ice-cream-cookie-sandwich from the Park, so we fitted one in early to avoid tantrums. Being of different tastes, I had a barbecued corn on the cob instead. We climbed the hill, shuffled ourselves into one of the beautifully-painted wooden shelters (complete with hanging baskets and a wall-papered interior) and snoozed in the shade.
After a while, we managed to get up again and continue our exploration. Past the Tipi Field, down past the Stone Circle and through the extraordinarily lovely Peace Garden and into Green Crafts. Two little girls were playing on a rustic and not-terribly-effective seesaw (which rocked on a wooden roller); they weren't strong enough to make it go, so we helped by pushing until their mum showed up. And then we carried on, because it turns out she had a bad back. We swung in some twiddly cast iron swings hanging from a tree (I only vacated mine because more free-range children were looking on jealously), then headed towards West Holts for tea.
Except we walked past the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise, a vast wooden ship which has a viewing platform at one end (with audio-installation about the Arctic 30), a stage at the other, a climbing wall down the side and a skate ramp in the middle - just as a pro skating demo kicked off. We eventually made it to the excellent Leon for tea, then nosed through the stalls before scooting along to meet Carolyn at the Cider Bus.
It's traditional. We always meet Carolyn at the Cider Bus at 9 on the Wednesday. The fact that she now lives in Hong Kong and hasn't been to the festival in several years is neither here nor there. A cracking firework display started over the Stone Circle and we thought oh yes! This happened last year, and we made a note that this year we should be up there for the bonfire. We made a note that next year we should be up there for the bonfire.
By the time we got home to bed, a new tent had shown up, squeezed into a space not quite large enough. But it seemed to be occupied by a nice chap who looked very like mykreeve and was trying to put a rather flimsy-looking camp bed together (he subsequently showed me the finished product the following day, actually it seemed pretty plausible).
A whole day with no bands :)
Thursday
Gaz Brookfield, The 1975, Metronomy, Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer
This year I'd had a Great Idea. I'd bought an insulated mug, and my luggage included two lemons, two lumps of root ginger, and a sharp knife. I sliced lemon and ginger into my mug, blagged some hot water from the closest breakfast stall and bingo! Excellent beverage. While blagging, we noticed that their fry-ups looked damn fine, so bought fry-up as well.
(The hot water plan had a slightly flaw. I'd expected places which sold tea/coffee to have a nominal charge for hot water. Everywhere I asked was happy to give me it for nothing, but I felt slightly awkward about this and tried to limit it to stalls where we were buying something else anyway. When it was hot weather, I put cold water in my insulted mug, and that worked too. The lemon and ginger was a great idea.)
This year the festival's vintage Heidelberg printing press was willing to play nice, and we picked up Thursday's broadsheet on our way to the Green Crafts area. I was determined that, for once, I was going to make it to a workshop of some kind. A friendly drop forge was willing to issue me with a small aluminium blank, help me stamp it with their "Glasto 14" logo, show me how to hammer it round a series of decreasingly-sized rods to make a bead, and provide coloured string to plait into a bracelet. So I did that. For a while now, ChrisC has been saying he'd like to have a go on a harp, but that circumstances rarely allow; a nice lady under some shady trees had a small array of small harps so he had a lesson and footled around with one while I hammered. The Green Fields really are amazing. Next year I might move on to stone-carving :)
We ate ice cream and pootled past Greenpeace (the previous day's skaters were now giving lessons to kids). The circus fields seemed strangely empty, with little in the way of free-range nutters, so we sat down to watch the world go by and listened to Sita Sings, the red-dressed choir that roams the site all weekend. Then the sky did That Thing, the one where you realise you want a jumper. And that you should be wondering where you put your waterproof. And then it did That Other Thing, where you dive for the nearest bit of shelter (which, in this case, was a series of red Pimms-branded umbrellas, all rendered Glastonury-compliant by having their logos covered up with red duct tape).
Three o'clock Thursday is our second traditional meeting time, when we go to the Tiny Tea Tent to catch up with satyrica. He was there and everything, and we stayed comfortably under cover chatting while rain happened intermittently. Some time after five we left in the slightly sullen drizzle to go and find out what The Anthropic Organ was. It turned out to be a peculiar pink sound-installation thing, with two extremely mismatched performers offering laconic comedy and explaining that the Organ absorbed sound from the ground and therefore would randomly play back performances from previous festivals... it was very, very odd but, since we stood in the rain to watch it, clearly compelling :)
We resumed our aimless wandering, briefly finding ourselves in a game of musical bingo, munching on assorted snacks, and washed up in the unexpectedly-crowded Field of Avalon to catch Gaz Brookfield. Last year, he played on a tiny bandstand, this year he packed out the Avalon Cafe, and went down a storm. His set was cut slightly short[*], and we scarpered down into the south-east naughty corner to catch The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing on the Hell stage.
Which was surprisingly... quiet. No obvious signs of incipient giggage. Was this the right place? Then a bloke leaning on the barrier turned round, and I saw the large home-made "Margate" label on his hat and thought well, he's expecting The Men. We all stood about, and Marc (The Man who looks like Tin-Tin) wandered sheepishly on stage and, microphoneless, bellowed that actually the stage didn't start till 8 and so their 7 o'clock show wasn't happening. They'd be on at 9:30 somewhere else, and on Hell the following day at some time. Err, afternoon. Maybe 4ish.
So we resumed wandering again, and ChrisC pointed out that the "live music" on William's Green on Thursday night had, in previous years, been unexpectedly big names. On approach, he identified The 1975, and reading someone else's iPhone over their shoulder I gathered that they were rumoured to be followed by Metronomy. Immediate dilemma! Watch Metronomy, the Friday-night Park headliner that I was expecting to have to miss to see Arcade Fire? Head down to the Rocket Lounge for TMTWNBBFN to see what they'd promised would be a riotous show? I eventually chose Metronomy on the grounds that I was already there, and there was no guarantee I'd get in to the Rocket Lounge, plus The Men were on again the following day.
Metronomy played to a hugely enthusiastic audience, and were awesome. Then we did musical handbrake-turn and ran to Croissant Neuf for a chap-hop hoorah with Mr B. He had another hugely enthusiastic crowd packed into the tent, singing along with everything. When festival crowds Just Work, they are amazing.
[*] Apparently, he was followed by Michael Eavis karaoke-ing a Rolling Stones song.
Friday
Kaiser Chiefs, Alabama 3, [Blondie], Rodrigo y Gabriela, [The Young 'Uns], [De La Soul], Kevin P Gilday, Abe Nouk, [Fishermans Friends], The Tuts, Foster the People, Interpol, [Elbow], Lykke Li, Arcade Fire
Friday began with That Noise. That Noise that means that outside it is raining, and it means business. We sulked in the tent before eventually engaging reluctantly with the day. The rain obligingly stopped as we emerged, and we caught the 'secret' opener on the Other stage. Given the persistent rumours that the secret guest was Prince, had I been the festival organisers I wouldn't have had the stage lit up purple the previous evening if I'd known that it was actually the Kaiser Chiefs, but there you go. I was bewildered to hear someone approaching the stage say "No, dunno who that is. Looks like Ricky Wilson, though." ChrisC reminded me that he is on The Voice, and therefore now considerably better known than his band.
Just to the side of the Other stage is the Glade, a small stage which veers towards electronica and world music, and obligingly has a roof; our plan to watch the Alabama 3 Sound System coincided beautifully with the next downpour. DJs, MCs, and a woman with an amazing voice were all over the stage while the tracksuit-clad Reverend D Wayne Love looked on benignly. Also our only bit of celebrity-spotting for the weekend: we watched A3 alongside Marcus Brigstocke. We emerged in time to hear the opening notes of Heart of Glass, timed perfectly as the sun popped out from behind a cloud. Then Blondie ended and a huge people-jam ensued as crowds tried to walk in opposite directions. Eventually we gave up, and went back through the Glade instead. I asked a security guy what had caused it, and he shrugged and said "Blondie". Maybe they should have been on the Pyramid :)
We bought lunch, and sat in West Holts listening to the amazing Rodrigo y Gabriela while I fought with data coverage to try and load some pages from twitter. Y'see, I'd tried the info stands. Did they know when The Men were on the Hell stage? They did not. I tried tweeting (via SMS) @glastoninfo. She didn't know either. Their advice was to go to Hell, which I figured was dreadful advice - it would take an hour to get there and back, and I was reasonably sure that there wouldn't be anyone useful there to ask. I figured I'd try asking The Men directly, but couldn't remember their twitter handle. But could I load a single page of t'internet, despite a decent signal? Could I bollocks. We even tried diverting to the EE tent and picking up their free wifi, but couldn't get it to work. Eventually, I solved it laterally (and massive props to maviscruet for being the sort of person who will just answer peculiar questions instead of saying "what? why?") and sent an SMS to @tmtwnbbfn. There was no reply[*] and eventually I figured that I'd happily pay to see The Men at a regular gig and it wasn't worth spending half an afteroon chasing round looking for them.
One of the reasons I end up with bands in brackets is that you're walking along past a tent, and something catches your ear... in this case the Young 'Uns, singing John Ball, one of my favourite songs, with Billy Bragg hovering in the background. ChrisC bought a milkshake which was about the same size as me, and we hurried along to the end of De La Soul and off into the weird shit fields. The nutters were out in force, and we saw story tellers, giant seagulls trying to steal children from the wheeled trollies that are used as pushchairs at Glasto[**], snow-crusted Arctic explorers trudging by and (terrifyingly) a troop of ninjas straight away. A strange, spinning cross-contraption had three blokes climbing, spinning and dancing round it and we watched, bemused, until they abruptly ran away across the field. Then we saw the colour of the approaching clouds, and dived for the Poetry and Words tent.
The clouds didn't deliver... until we approached the Acoustic tent later. We got under cover as it started to pour, and to thunder... and the power to the site was turned off in the face of an electric storm. Fishermans Friends left the stage as it powered down, and water rolled in quite staggering quantities off the tent roof. Did I want to walk across the site to Hell with ChrisC to see Beans on Toast? Did I hell. It was brightening up, the rain was slacking, the power would be back on soon and I wanted to hear Fishermans Friends. He took the umbrella.
And I realised that FF are big blokes, who bellow acapella harmony. Would they be sitting backstage waiting? No. I scanned the tent, and began fighting my way to the most densely-packed bit. Lo and behold, there were FF, singing shanties among the audience. Sadly, a lot of people had clearly only come in out the rain and the tent was noisy. People who were listening were standing up and absorbing the sound effectively, and I could barely hear. The storm rolled back round, and the power was still off when FF retired (having already sung for considerably longer than their stage slot).
When ChrisC and I met as arranged in the Left Field for the Tuts, he was brimming over with excitement. Beans on Toast (one man, guitar, lo-fi, sense of anarchy), also without power, had played a few songs then taken one look at the rain on his audience, orchestrated a clandestine break-in to a closed venue, and performed in the dark to the hundreds of people who jammed in. Apparently the venue's staff were a bit surprised, and wouldn't let him on the stage, but agreed to tolerate his presence until someone shouted that it'd stopped raining and everyone trooped back out again to watch him "in library silence" playing unamplified from the front of the still-unpowered stage. (ChrisC called Beans on Toast as band-of-the-festival; I think I made the wrong choice :)
We went to see Interpol, but they'd accidentally turned into Foster the People - the Other stage was running an hour late due to the power cut, although the Pyramid had somehow managed to get back on schedule so ChrisC missed the beginning of Elbow. I missed all but the last few songs of Elbow; that was deliberate because although I really, really want to like them for a number of reasons, I find them intolerably whiney. I skipped the extended singalong outro of One Day in favour of Lykke Li, who was brilliant under the rather apocalpytic stage-lighting that the people who run the John Peel stage seem to favour.
Arcade Fire were... fine. I like them. They were good. Just somehow they seemed to lack headliner punch, despite their multicolouredness. The crowds drifted away from the main stage repeatedly singing the woo-along chorus of their last song, though, so perhaps that was just me.
[*] In fairness, there were two replies, immediately. Only SMS notification was apparently buggered as well, and I didn't see them until I got back into a decent data signal on Sunday night.
[**] Some of which are decorated. My favourite looked like the Mystery Machine :)
Saturday
Nick Mulvey, Balina Whalers, Prof. Elemental, The Riptide Movement, Warpaint, Courtney Barnett, Clean Bandit, [George Ezra], Manic Street Preachers, [Goldfrapp], Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Metallica
For those who like to be kept informed of the mud situation, it actually wasn't that bad. Muddy, yes, but nowhere near as bad as it has been. Although there had been very heavy rain, it had been showers, not the dismal, relentless downpours that go on all day and make you want to go home. Saturday continued in this vein, waiting until we'd left the tent and then absolutely hammering it down. We simply stood still under our huge brolly and watched water bouncing off the mud all around us for ten minutes or so, then walked the remaining distance to the Beat Hotel to have American pancakes for breakfast. We later watched the whole of the Balina Whalers' set from a handy nearby bench, sitting under the umbrella. In fact, for the whole weekend we managed never to be actually badly rained on - we were either under cover, or in a brollyable situation.
By the time we made it down to the circus fields to see Prof. Elemental, it was blazing sunshine. With a brolly, a waterpoof and a jumper in my bag, I had to blag some suncream from the chap next to me in the crowd. The in-between-act filler on the Sensation Seeker's stage was busy organising a game show - a row of people picked from the audience were heavily muffled in badanas, and someone was invited up to play "Beard Or No Beard" - and made it considerably more entertaining than you might expect. Then the Prof. came out and played to a surprisingly large crowd, all union-flag jacket and freestyling rhmyes about the people in the audience. At one point he encouraged everyone in the audience to ride on imaginary horses; ChrisC gets joke-of-the-weekend for standing quietly in the trotting crowd playing imaginary coconuts.
We tracked down the Bootworks Theatre company, and watched their four five-minute plays, each delivered by a single character inside a box-on-a-tricycle. Not as great as the play we first saw them do years ago, but still entertaining. It was a good day for theatre and circus. Later, walking down one of the main shopping streets, I turned a corner and heard just the following:
"...option 2, kilt off."
A man balanced on a ladder had just about wrestled his kilt off by the time we passed him. He was on the stray circus stage that has been allowed out into the main festival, and had an unusually big crowd. He was very entertaining, despite not actually doing much. He was holding three knives, so I suppose he eventually got round to jugging them; we were hurrying to see Warpaint.
We caught a few more bands, before declaring it Sausage Day and whaling into platefuls of sausages and tartiflette from the excellent Le Grand Bouffe. (Courtney Barnett's audience in the John Peel tent provided my favourite political-statement-on-a-flag all weekend: a patently homemade St Andrew's saltire, with "GO ON THEN, PISS OFF :)" on it in large letters.) Our chosen headliner for the night was Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, who filled the Left Field tent to capacity. I really wouldn't describe myself as someone who - offered the whole of Glastonbury - would choose hip hop and the sort of bangin' noise Dan Le Sac makes. The crowd danced, sang along, and roared for an encore after the show-closer An Open Letter From God To Man.
We shambled to bed via the Pyramid, to hear the second half of Metallica. We watched from the back of the field, the audience was relatively subdued with clearly not that many people knowing much more than the real biggies. Still, not many bands close by releasing loads of black, branded beachballs into the audience :)
Sunday
Billy Bragg, English National Ballet, CC Smugglers, Attila the Stockbroker, [Billy Bragg], [Soak], [White Lies], Public Service Broadcasting, Dolly Parton, Jake Bugg, Bombay Bicycle Club, [Kate Tempest], Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, Kasabian
Our Sunday was a bit different from usual. ChrisC not only had to go to a conference on Monday[*], but was speaking; we packed up and took our luggage to the (mercifully close) car in the morning, then furled the tent and stowed it in one of the property lock-ups. Despite a half-hearted attempt at drizzle, the weather was mostly accommodating and we were down at the main stage having had bunnychow for breakfast in time for the first act.
Bunnychow, you say? ChrisC new what it was; I didn't. A soft, but structurally-integrous Vietnamese roll hollowed out and filled witn (in this case) chorizo, refried beans, salsa, cheese and scrambled eggs. I was quite excited about mine.
Now, we've commented before that you can't go to Glastonbury without seeing Billy Bragg. Even so, we were lightly surprised to find him coming on stage when we were expecting the English National Ballet. As it turned out, the ENB were performing the modern ballet Dust about WWI, and BB had popped up to explain that, to talk about the fact the previous day had been the 100th anniversary of the assination of Archduke Ferdinand, to introduce a short film of memories, and to sing Between the Wars.
Dust was amazing - very modern (in so far as I know anything about ballet), and very emotional, and held everyone's attention. At one point the cameras swung out over the audience, as they do - instead of the bouncing, cheering, grinning masses you usually see, there was a solemn, crowd watching spell-bound. The respectful silence continued until the ballet had ended, when there was huge applause. I had assumed that the ENB would do something terribly well-known and the epitome of everyone's idea of ballet - preferably involving a twirly lady in a pink tutu. They didn't, and it went down brilliantly.
Looking back over previous festival write-ups, it seems we can barely go to Glastonbury without seeing Attila the Stockbroker, either. He's always good value. This year, more stages than ever had signers interpreting performances for the hard of hearing; Attila speaks so quickly that I worried signing-lady's arms might unscrew. She coped admirably, though - even in a new song whose chorus ran along the lines of "A picture of Prince Harry's knob, his knob! His knob, his knob..."
For the first time in a while we strolled through the Kidzfield, which must be the most amazing place in the world if you're a kid. Stuff to climb up, swing on, slide down, try out, play with, build... and regular shows and workshops for all ages. We passed a sign which read "It is forbidden to read this sign"; a costumed and very funny mime was attempting to enforce it. Everything is bright coloured, and everything looks like fun. We were collared by two small boys, and invited to play Capchor the Flag (they had a sign, so I know how it was spelled). We agreed, but sadly the rules had been made up in the contradictory and confusing manner you might expect from two 8 year olds, and were massively biased against us (the flag started in their base, the only approach to their base was over a narrow bridge); I got "shot" several times before I realised that they seemed to be playing prettily happily in their base anyway, and we left them to it.
Walking through the Left Field, ChrisC observed that doubtless we'd spot Billy Bragg any moment; bang on cue a nasal whine floated out of a tent singing Greetings to the New Brunette. It was "Billy Bragg's Round Up" where he introduces new acts; we stopped to watch a song from SOAK (who, in the distance, I mis-identified as a very young boy - turns out she's a very young girl. Worth checking out.)
I went off by myself to see Public Service Broadcasting, then hared down to the Pyramid field and ran into a massive crowd: Dolly Parton. I watched the last half a dozen songs or so: she really is amazing performer, particularly given that she's pushing seventy. There had been persistent rumours all weekend of "Dollymob" - a synchronised dance routine had been published unofficially online, and people encouraged to learn it to perform to Jolene. All weekend in the circus fields we'd seen people running quick classes, and I was quite looking forward to 100K people doing the dance. In the event, Jolene was in the middle of the set and I missed it, but it seems barely anyone did the dance (though TV coverage shows the front-of-stage security enthusiastically dancing away).
Previous write-ups suggest this is the third time we've watched Kasabian, a fact which surprises me. I'm not an especial Kasabian fan, but they were far and away the most headlinery of the Pyramid headliners (of which I actually watched all three this year). They probably also had the largest crowd (barring Dolly), with people singing and dancing right to the back of the field. As we hurried off to the car to get on the road, the "Laaaa, la, laaaa..." outro of LSF followed us across the site.
[*] This is my excuse for our shameless lack of late-night frolicking this year. It is totally nothing to do with me being absolutely knackered. I was knackered when I arrived at the festival; I totally do not recommend this.