Glastonbury Review

Indefinite car parks stretch along indefinitely tall metal fences, popping in and out of their crumpled dents as the wind buffets them from either side. Crates of beer weigh down back packed shoulders as the trudge reaches past the point of excitement and the distance between carpark E9 and the Dairy Field campsite sinks in in its full enormity. Members of the camp get sore and begin to squabble as black bin bagged wellington boots slip out of hastily bungee corded nooses, leaving a slightly dark cloud hanging over the eventual pitch which breaks with morning and sends a cold drizzle over tired and hungry faces.

This experience is not a new one for me. Having just returned from my ninth Glastonbury, I am no stranger to the more strenuous sides of festivals. Arriving on any kind of holiday is enough to leave a ball of aching tiredness and doubt in the chest, but in a situation removed from the shuttle bus heavy halls of Gatwick, the feeling is capitulated. The first day of this year’s festival did little to abate my fears that perhaps this was one too many. Following the failure of both university and home friends to get tickets, I put my longing for contemporary performing arts to the back of my mind; only to be woken up by my mother a month before the opening friday informing me of her sneaky ticket success.

Glastonbury with family. Again, this is not a new experience. At the age of 9 my father decided memories of Battle of the Bean Fields era travellers chasing him across the Pyramid stage field waving pitch forks were hazy enough to allow us a taste of the mid summer weekend party that had kept him enthralled since the early 70’s. My fledgling years were spent playing with diabolos in the circus field, falling asleep during REM and getting complimented on my flowing locks. As time passed this innocence was replaced with a desire for a hallowed plains of the dance village as family pitched up in their respective field and my group of school friends in ours. Eager but not fully proficient, an emerging want of intoxication led to the smoking of a 1x salvia spliff in a porterloo with my friend Ben and several failed attempts to wrap our sausagey, middle class fingers around joints. Having finally mastered such a feat and traded Worthy Farm for Bestival during the 2012 fallow year, the notion of a familial festival experience seemed alien.

To add to my trepidation, my initial wander to the breakfast tent on Thursday morning was marked by tall, tanned and muscular 20 something men sporting powerfully low vest tops and cans of lager. Whilst I pride myself on an ability to not judge books by their cover, the boysboysboys atmosphere induced by these Geordie Shore knock offs seems at odd with my previous experiences. My ability to jump to such snap judgment was slightly curtailed later in the day as a sustained period of rain furrowed the fields into muddy waves and forced the fellas into pac-a-macs.

The mud is an infamous and persistent feature of Glastonbury, with teams of irrigators, planners and weather forecasters employed for the job of management and of predicating whether it will reach over the lip of an average wellie. Whilst we may fear it, it is also a beautiful equaliser and the perfect metaphor for the festival effect, not particular, but understood best at Glastonbury. As soon as the rain falls a common conversation is born which spreads into glib, mid wade conversations and offers a common dirtiness that one can’t help but revel in. Add rivers of oaky west country cider, a millinary department worth of ridiculous hats and The Rolling Stones and parental bonds and Club Salvation born prejudices simply dissolve.

Friday, the first full day of music, saw The Hives put on a balls out display of arrogance to open The Other stage; their lead singer opting to jump into the crowd because the stage wasn’t big enough to hold his ego before swiftly demanding a ‘fucking stepladder.’ Later in the same venue Tame Impala, Alt-J and Foals covered every corner of guitar driven indie music across a sublime 3 hours highlighted by Alt-J’s mashup of Kylie’s ‘Slow’ and ‘Still Dre’. The mass exodus following the sunset slot allowed me and my brother to wend our way to the front of the crowd in anticipation of Portishead. Beth Gibbons was incredible and the set was an absolute highlight of the festive. Whilst the drunk man standing behind me’s insistence that the sound was ‘quadrophonic’ sounded dubious, being slabbed between ‘Machine Gun’s’ wall of sound help me understand what he meant; the raising up of a 30 foot effigy of David Cameron’s head with lazer beam eyeballs however, was beyond explanation. The day was concluded for me with a stroll around the Green Fields with my parents and a man we met called James, who’s life story and veracious interest in talking genuinely endeared us all.

The Saturday was for us a relatively quiet day in terms of music to be seen. Following a Pat Butcher dedicated baguette we assembled at the Sonic Stage and were taken in by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Consisting of 8 brass playing brothers and cousins and a drummer, they stirred a slightly groggy crowd into a shuffle stepping melee before a desire for the leftfield took us away and past a dubious sounding Azealia Banks. At the West Holts stage we enjoyed Brother’s Cider in the sunshine and on the now dried ground and watched Fatoumata Diawara spin around and do world music. At this point of the weekend I was yet to see anything at the main stage, which is either a testament to the hundred stage deep enormity of Glastonbury or my carefully tailored, eclectic taste.  At around 8 o’clock that evening this changed as we wandered down to The Pyramid in anticipation of big crowds. Despite such expectations being fulfilled, our willingness to stand through the grim faced Primal Scream wasn’t shared by others and we managed to get to the middle. Although our wait was long and stretched beyond the 21.30 billing, The Rolling Stone’s surpassed my expectations. Mick Jagger is still a rock god, the drummer was suitably uninterested and the stage show climaxed with a 30 foot flaming phoenix above the stage.

Sunday broke with another familial breakfast and a dizziness that wasn’t abated by my dirty skin or unkempt hair. Vampire Weekend were good, badbadnotgood terrible and Smashing Pumpkins a little mixed. Whilst Croogan relented towards the end of the set with ‘Tonight’ and ‘Disarm’, the beginning was a little grey and punctuated with slightly outrageously drawn out endings. Towards the end of the evening and following an ostrich burger we convened at the hammock store, had a pint of milk and settled into a slightly sparse crowd for Bobby Womack. Split into two halves, the first showcased his recent album ‘The Bravest Man in the Universe’ with the help of Damien Albarn and the second his earlier, soul infused funk outs. Having never been able to pry myself away from the main two stages for headliners, the decision of Michael Evis to stage Womack, The XX, Mumford and Sons and Cat Power on the sunday opened up the site and made for tough decisions.

With Womack put away, my bag packed and my weary self trudged up a hill to E9, Glastonbury was over. Although I am no longer feel as sanctimonious when it comes to singing its praises nor as inclined to come year on year, Glastonbury still stands tall when it comes to UK festivals. Amidst grumblings of commercialisation, whispers of dissent at the lineup and the ticket price and a growing preference for smaller, local festivals, a certain superiority complex drifts through the increasingly diverse crowds and emerges in the sweetest, most communal of ways.