Part 2 of my barely-coherent Glastonbury ramblings – see Part 1 here. My first taste of Glastonbury proper was to follow, as we left the campsite and made our way to The Park area for some vital sustenance. Not for Glasto the crap burger vans, hot dog stands and boiled farts of lesser festivals - my first meal was a huge Lebanese mezze incorporating falafels, splats of hummus and cheesy-herby things in pastry. In keeping with the original hippie vibe, much of the food at Glastonbury is veggie, though those desperately in need of something's flesh are catered for too. It is possible to eat badly at Glastonbury, but it's difficult as most of the food is ace and covers pretty much every cuisine.
The two days prior to the music mostly involved wandering around and familiarising ourselves with the festival format and localities. There's an area called Shangri-La which is essentially “a futuristic and dystopian wonderland created by over 1,500 crew and artists.” It felt like a film-set (specifically Bladerunner), and was conceived as a pre-apocalyptic world for the festival-goer to immerse themselves in.
So with the end of the world apparently approaching, I felt it was as good a time as any to try some curry and some splendid strong, warm cider that may or may not have led to my subsequent purchase of a straw panama hat. My hopes of appearing as a right-on member of the counterculture were dashed with the realisation of my Geoffrey Boycott resemblance, but I stuck doggedly to my brimmed headgear until it was rained off in true cricketing fashion.
However, as Friday progressed and the drizzle saw no signs of abating, I began to consider that I was actually done with festivals, having been to too many wet, muddy, miserable affairs. It does tend to dampen the spirits as well as the skin when walking for miles through quagmires and queuing for the pleasure of using toilets that would be deemed unfit for animals in most circumstances. The sheer volume of people didn't help either – every inch of available camping land was seemingly taken up and the weight of numbers was ridiculous at times. It seemed rather avaricious of the organisers to cram Glastonbury farm with what felt like the absolute maximum legal amount of festival-goers, thrown together in the mud and filth to create crowds everywhere and render every journey a mission to be endured.
The turning point, of course, was seeing my first band, namely that of BB King. I was alone in the crowd, as my friends had gone to see some shouty blokes called the Wu Tang Clan. The rain continued, but my first experience of good music (on the main Pyramid stage too) transcended the elements. BB himself didn't come onstage for a good 15 minutes, leaving it to his band to showboat, taking individual turns in the spotlight to showcase their blues/jazz skills – as a chin-stroking jazz fan who now had an annoying hat to match, this was actually far better than it sounds.
Eventually the man himself arrived to rapturous applause. He's now 85 years old, so without being morbid I didn't know if I'd get chance to see him play again. Throughout I was thinking that this would be one to tell the grandchildren about, but sometimes it's best to enjoy the moment without thinking “this is history” and recording the event on your mobile phone so keenly that you miss the actual instance of the performance. Again, there were large instrumental passages to begin with and it occurred to me that perhaps his voice had gone and he's now content to make Lucille, his Gibson ES-355 guitar, sing. This fear was unfounded, as he provided stirring vocals throughout the set from then on.
Temporarily lifted, I gradually returned to terra firma as the rain persisted down and I turned to Radiohead, renowned purveyors of “hello-trees, hello-sky” good vibes, to provide comfort. They were announced on the day as surprise special guests but their scheduling was unfortunate, as they were playing at the same time as Morrissey. This of course presented a dilemma for fans of angsty introspection, and siphoned away those who would otherwise have enjoyed both acts into an either/or quandary. Personally, I was buoyed by footage of Radiohead's triumphant 1997 performance replayed on TV in the weeks before the festival, so swayed towards the Oxford band instead of the unsigned former Smith who I figured would be promoting new material to secure a record deal.
As it happened, Radiohead played a somewhat esoteric set, eschewing their 90's work for more tricksy post-millenial material. Mozzer, on the other hand, ran through a greatest hits set with plenty of Smiths songs, though apparently he included the bloody awful Meat is Murder so my disappointment at having missed him was tempered slightly.
In fairness to Radiohead, this was a rare opportunity to play such a set, with their status of surprise special guests partially negating the sense of expectation synonymous with an actual headline act. Their show was hampered slightly by low sound levels, though the volume was passable enough from where I was standing. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi sounded great, as did Reckoner and the new material was impressive too. However, the crowd wanted, and needed, some well-loved OK Computer/Bends-era anthems to help them forget the mud and rain.
Indeed, even a smattering of 90's hits amid the newer material would have caused the damp crowd to gratefully erupt, but we had to wait until the encore for the sole pre-Kid A offering (Street Spirit/Fade Out.) Not a bad set by any means, but it felt like a missed opportunity for both band and audience. In a bizarre twist, Harry Enfield was watching only feet away from me, maturely ignoring a broadside of “Only Me's” from a battery of laddish cards.
Part 3 coming soon: Guru Smith goes a-meditating, enjoys some cabaret and skulks off to the Acoustic Tent in a strop.
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