6am Wednesday, I have had two hours sleep maximum but the nervous energy is already kicking in as I wake myself up with both caffeine and an ice cold shower. I was drunk last night or should I say this morning and a day in bed would be the best option but instead I am off to do it all again several times over at the Glastonbury festival.
I still hadn’t packed come 7 am and was stumbling around my flat looking for aspirin to cure this thumping headache that had developed. Throwing all my gear into various bags and a huge rucksack I left my flat and walked to the pick up point. This was the moment that I had the first “I wish I was back home in bed’ thought.
I was sweating like a marathon runner by the time I reached the place my companion was to meet me. By sheer fluke I had amazingly not forgotten anything that I planned to bring with me. We set of from a very warm and humid Teesside and headed south along the various roads and motorways that would lead us to the Mecca that is Glastonbury.
The journey was fairly uneventful with the excitement level growing as each mile passed on the way. The predicted traditional June monsoon was an afterthought as we made good progress across this green and pleasant land. The first sign any trouble was around the Bristol area where we hit major traffic as we fought our way around the city. After slight hairy moment of not knowing where the hell we were, we hit the now infamous A37.
As the miles to go ratio hit half a dozen we hit a wall of traffic and stopped dead. The alarm bells rang very loudly as a truck driver coming the other way pulled up alongside us. “It goes all the way to the festival site” he advised us, smiling as he dropped his bombshell.
It proved to be worse than anything I had seen before, the last 6 miles of the journey took 8 hours before we finally parked the car in the festival’s yellow car park. It got so bad at one point that I left my friend in the car, wondered down the road passed the locals who had set up impromptu burger stands and into the village pub for a pint.
Highlight of the trip down was the Dunkirk spirit of out fellow travellers as we queued endlessly in the baking heat knowing that the salvation of Glasto would cure all ills.Looking back it is hard to get angry or to blame anyone for the sheer nightmare that was the traffic coming down. I understand from speaking to festival workers that 60 thousand more people had arrived on the Wednesday than expected.
On checking in and receiving our wristbands we set off to the plush hospitality campsite with its own showers and toilets. For once in my life I had heeded advice and had a dry run of putting my tent up. This exercise saved me from joining the dreaded ‘putting a strange tent up at a festival in the dark by torch’ club.
All camped up as a channel 4 light entertainer, we set off for our first view of the site. Immense is a word used all too often (normally by my lady friends) but Glastonbury festival is as such. It is the size of a medium sized town and probably has more shops and bars. We walked around had our first taste of the devils brew that is Brother’s Pear cider. Those not used to drinking cider or who drink run of the mill lager should be warned, this stuff kicks like a mule and one look at the carnage of drunken bodies left behind in Jazz world would confirm this.
After a very early night in ‘glastoworld’ I woke to answer the call of nature at 5.30am. I took this moment to grab my camera and take a few shots of the site in what would be the most peaceful I ever saw it. Early on Thursday after checking in at the press tent and grabbing as much free tea and coffee and our bodies could take, me and my photographer headed back to our camping field to gather our kit for a day of reporting.
This was when the first of the huge rain showers that were to blight my festival experience hit us. As I sat in my tent sulking about the rain the fact that it had started before I had even started ‘doing Glastonbury’, the rain stopped and turned into a magnificent sun filled day.
The rest of Thursday was a hazy blur (more of them later) of pear cider and random conversations with strangers about nothing and everything under the sun. Maximo Park kicked off the bands in fine style and we were lucky enough to be right at the front for that one, in what must have been the hottest place on Gods earth at the time. I actually feared that one cameraman next to me was going to faint.
The drinking and making merry continued well into the night and thanks to my Beatles t-shirt I was never short of people stopping me to talk.Then it happened, the news that is still shaking the world as I type this.
Through my drunken haze I spied a number of people looking at their phones and having animated conversations with each other. It was a slightly worse for wear Mancunian that told me and the people around me who had gathered to talk about The Beatles (got to love that T-shirt) that Michael Jackson was dead!
I got final confirmation that the self-proclaimed king of pop had died from the guys in the Guardian press hut and I promptly relayed the message to everyone I met on my way back to my tent. That night after breaking the world record for falling over tent pegs and swearing simultaneously, I thought to myself ‘at least I’ll remember where I was when Michael Jackson died’
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| Damon Albarn. Nice guy if I remember rightly. |
Part II
Next day at 9am, after a shouted conversation through tents between the photographer and myself, we decided to make a move. The rain was still beating down hard and the whole atmosphere had changed from one of joyful excitement to one of trepidation. The thing I feared the most of all as did the other festival goers I'm sure was mud, it came with the rain and by midday Friday the main walkways and paths had become a quagmire.
The mud gets
everywhere and with the rain still beating down hard you start to wonder what
the hell have you let yourself in for.
We had decided by mid-afternoon that we should head to the Pyramid stage to see the Fleet Foxes. As we headed backstage the rain which had been threatening to stop all day finally did so and the sun came out. At this point this working class lad from Middlesbrough became a tad overawed; imagine walking out into a place you had seen on TV many times and in front over one hundred thousand people. Ok, most of the people in the crowd apart from those at the very front won't have seen me, but to be in the pit of the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury ranks as high as seeing Gazza scoring at Wembley in 1996.
The way it works for the press and Photographers is that we get the first three songs in the pit, and then we have to thin out, leaving the area free for artists such as Bruce Springsteen to jump into the crowd. The same process was repeated for the next act which was Lilly Allen, but disaster struck in the confusion my photographer hadn’t made in time and I was left with the task of photographing the first lady of Glastonbury. I was rather proud of my camera work in the end and I’m sure I got one of Ms Allen smiling at me.
The Friday evening after suitable refreshment of the liquid form, we headed through the drying mud to the acoustic tent to see the living legend Ray Davies of the Kinks fame. I’m not sure how many that tent is supposed to hold but it was full to bursting with people of all ages.
The massive crowd where treated to a set of outstanding proportions by a man who was at the very heart of the sixties musical revolution. Friday night ended with us rolling back the years in the dance village and in particular the Pussy Parlour with its retro style themed marquee.
I awoke Saturday morning feeling exactly like a man who had slept less than 10 hours out of 72 should feel. I had lost my photographer, who as it turned out went to a talk given by Tony Benn MP. I decided today was the day that I climbed the Glastonbury hill and took in the full vista of the site.
The sun was beating down the mud was drying as quickly as it had came and one could sense the mood lighten across the whole site. I walked sun on my back through the Glade, the Park and up to the top of viewing area, where I spent a good hour composing something in my mind to describe the wondrous site below me. Words failed me for once, but it is fair to say up there you get the bigger picture literally. I advise all future festival goers to treat themselves to an hour up there.
Speaking of the rock festival, Saturday night was the big one with some big names on the main stages. Kasabian warmed up the Pyramid crowd in fine style and cemented their place as one of the best live bands around with a set of controlled energy and arrogance. I had decided to give Bruce Springsteen a miss (knowing I could watch it on iplayer) that night in favour of Jarvis Cocker, we had no chance of getting into the pit due to half the worlds media being there it seemed.
Jarvis didn’t disappoint at all. He made up for the lack of well known Pulp songs by giving us a real showman’s performance, mix this in with his off the wall humour and you get a top class entertainer.
Saturday night ran into Sunday morning and just for a change I decided a few drinks might be in order to seal a fine day. Come 4am instead of walking back to my tent, in my confused state I thought it would be a good idea to head to the stone circle for the sunrise party. From what I remember it was an interesting experience but the long walk back, alcohol rapidly wearing off to a very warm tent, will not go down as a pleasant Glastonbury memory.
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| There's a Middlesbrough flag there if you look closely. |
Final Part
What can I say about the Sunday of Glastonbury 2009 that has not already been said? Well, very little in terms of bands or artists seen as it happens. As mentioned in my previous instalment, I arrived back at my tent in glorious English morning sunshine. My tent by this time was in direct competition with the sun for the hottest place in the galaxy.
I tried to doze in various positions and locations but sleep eluded me for the 5th day in a row. The hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep had now started to have hallucinations of their own.
I gave up on sleep around midday but only after listening to a very interesting and intimate conversation between two nearby female campers. Assuming there was nobody around they went into great detail about some poor chap called Roy who works in Stevenage. Don’t worry ladies or Roy your secrets are safe with me.
That Sunday afternoon I wandered around the festival trying hard to look like a human being and not the wreck of a man who was finally broken down after many years hard living. It was not all doom and gloom however, many a times on my wanderings I came across a new band or impromptu bit of entertainment that one could only find at Glastonbury.
Sadly for me, I let my dear mother down at Glastonbury by not securing anything in the form of Tom Jones photos. I got side-tracked eating curried goat in Jazz World and missed the call for Photographers at the pyramid stage. I did however get into the pit for Madness and witnessed a cracking performance that got the crowd going wild. The thing I noticed about Madness was that they seemed so happy to be there up on the pyramid stage, this wore off in their music and I’m sure they must gained a whole new generation of fans based on that performance.
That was about it for me band wise I’m sorry to say, my legs had stopped working and my brain was fried. I had already bumped into and photographed Damon Albarn (see my pics) so Blur was not essential. I wanted to catch Glasvegas and The Prodigy but failed as fatigue had took over my being and I headed to the sanctuary of the hospitality camping.
I spent my last night on Worthy farm sat outside my tent listening to Blur from the Pyramid mixed in with Echo and The Bunnymen coming from the John Peel Stage. Blur won in the loudest sound and most recognisable tunes stakes by the way.
Next morning we awoke early (I had actually slept for once) and packed our tents and gear away by seven o’clock. We had missed the first wave of festival escapees, who had gone during the night it seemed. There was a slight delay leaving the site as a fair few people had also decided to leave first thing Monday. The rain had started again during the night and as we left it was a once again muddy Worthy Farm we left behind.
Heading back up North, I thought about the sights, sounds and people of the Glastonbury festival. At Glastonbury you meet and talk to people in a way you would never dream of in the real world. There exists a kind of bond between festival goers in that we are all there for one reason and that is to have the time of our lives. I found myself describing the Glastonbury Festival as ‘Disneyland for grown ups’ and I think I pretty much nailed it with that description.
Best acts I witnessed in no particular order…
Madness
Kasabian
Ray Davies
Jarvis Cocker
Some trio consisting of two girls and a guy on a double bass, who I caught in the Greenpeace area.
Best drink….
Brothers Pear cider for sheer entertainment value.
Best Food…..
The curried Goat saved my life while very fragile on Sunday.
Best memory..
Seeing the actor who played Jimmy McNutly in the wire and taking 10 minutes to realise who it was stood next to me, he then buggered off before I had a chance to take his picture.
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