‘WHERE THE FUCK IS THE A36!?’
It was 04:30 on some seemingly infinite road in Somerset. The rain started falling about 40 minutes earlier and the 105 mile estimate for the pre Glastonbury cycle has turned into 110 and both Dave and I are running on borrowed fumes to get us to the Beckington roundabout Travelodge. His battle cry ignites my last spark of life that jolts me over the finish line. The cycle itself had been smooth and ahead of schedule. We’d managed 40 miles in just under 3 hours and it was only until a flat tyre and realisation that for about 10 miles Dave had been cycling with his back break clamped on that were the only mechanicals that delayed us. The latter was a relief to solve as for that period I was starting to get concerned at cycling juggernaut that was heavily sweating and struggling to keep pace all the way through Reading. Never the less after over 8 hours of mostly up hill riding I had never been so happy to be laying on a rather uncomfortable child size bed, shoveling nearly 10 quids worth of junk food into my mouth.
The following day we awoke to reports that the heavy rain that preceded this year’s festival had caused the car parks to flood, which in turn caused a 6-hour gridlock, the backlog of which we later cycled passed. Dave lightly taunting and bantering with those stuck in their cars. The traffic was so bad that the police report had requested people hold off arriving at the festival for some time to let the traffic ease up. This meant that my dream of cycling to Glastonbury to arrive to an erect tent and heroes welcome was not to be. But no one was really to blame. The site itself though was a complete quagmire and the effort of having to plough our bikes through knee high mud was almost as exhausting as the 130-mile cycle itself.
This particular Glastonbury had it’s own special flavor of excitement in its lead up. It was my first in 2 years and I was back after my bottling the previous year ended up being a regret that still plagues me to this day. What’s more there was a whole host of newcomers and those who were still new to unique experience of ‘The biggest and best festival in the world’. What this meant was that we were honoured to have a very diverse, intelligent and witty camp. Some of whom I have camped at festivals with before and still to this day can shamefully not remember the names of, despite probably being on the level of mates with. The Boy had made a late return to the frame and typical to his character was able to bring a handful of people with him as he managed to score a cushy bit of graft in return for free entry. So also in attendance for the first time or first time returning was Lily, Toye, Bain, Rachel, Melbourne and her mate Kat, also the likes of Bradders, Dunners and Tommy respectively. Then of course there were my usual festival comrades in Petch, The Woman and Sarah, as well as the familiar friendly faces I previously mentioned and Paya who had managed to get work in the Greenfields again there was never any chance that I was going to get lonely at this years festival.
The Glastonbury Wednesday is never easy, in fact as far as stressful starts to festivals go this one eclipses any other experience offered and that’s even taking into account that I didn’t have to get involved in the alleged 9 hour queues that morning. What was taxing though was the half mile trudge through knee high drying shit, then the guarding of space for an 8 man tent, then the erection of such tent which was assisted by or at least the good intention of assistants was offerd by friends on ketamine. It wasn’t until I saw both The Boy and Rachel wonder into camp that I felt finally at ease, as there is probably no 2 more competent people I’d rely on to help me with such a task. I’d also noticed that despite the tepid temperature and the grey weather, I’d also noticed that I’d been sun burnt that afternoon. The challenges didn’t just take place on Wednesday however. The following day we went to search for the car that happened to be located in coordinates almost polar opposite to where we were camp. To help you gauge such an idea of how far this is in Glastonbury terms, it was a trip that took in total 3 hours to complete – about a 2 mile walk…. However despite how testing this settling in period may be, like most ordeals not just at festivals but life as well, once you’ve buckled down and grafted through it it you almost instantly forget about it and it’s memory is in no way a hindrance to your morale.
Friday morning brought in both the official start of the festival as well as the result of the most important political events of my lifetime – The EU referendum. A tedious, deceitful and monotonous series of debates that I’m sure we are all glad to see the end of in Britain. I awoke from a haze of ketamine dreams to the sound of conversations voiced with uncertainty. I called from my tent to ask for the result. ‘51% Brexit’ The Woman replied. I like the majority of people I knew had voted remain. Personally I didn’t sway to such side because of the facts on offer. As the debate played out it didn’t matter what figure or statistic either side would bring to the table, the other would just debunk it. In the end I voted remain entirely because of the high profile cunts in favour of the leave campaign. I kept repeating that in the run up to the referendum, with the MP Jo Cox getting assassinated and the uncertainty of Britain a reality, it was like life imitating Game of Thrones. I suppose the EU referendum and its aftermath was our countries Red Wedding episode.
The result of Thursday’s democracy in motion had left the festival in a bit of a somber mood; this wasn’t helped by the drizzly weather and the thickening mud under foot. One opinion from the camp that did stand out for me was from a chap who had voted leave on the hope that the notion would get other countries in Europe demanding referendums of their own and in turn this would force the EU to have a major shake up, the result being that in 2 years the EU Britain wants to leave will be completely different which will then lead to another referendum the likelihood of which will be to remain in this shaken EU. I think this is the most optimistic way forward now. The reason I couldn’t back the leave campaign was because it was fueled on the opinion of ‘we can shut our borders and keep foreigners out!’ I don’t think these people even regarded or even cared about the economic implications. To be honest I found the whole period of politics unsettling and monotonous and I hope to never experience another one like it.
I’ve often argued that the Glastonbury lineup is completely irrelevant. I’ve repeated many times how there really is so much more to do then watch bands whilst you’re there. This years lineup though was particularly uninspired, from a headliner point of view of course. Muse, Adele and Coldplay? Adele I can understand, as she is Britain’s most succesful pop star of a generation. But are Muse and Coldplay still relevant? Is this all mainstream rock music still has to offer? And how many times have these 2 washed up bands headlined in past decade or so now? Anyway when I sat at camp and actually studied the lineup I realized that in fact that as usual there was plenty I wanted to see and that actually not having bands to see meant I could get involved with all the other activities on offer. So I started my Friday with a feminist debate at the Leftfield stage. The discussion was chaired by a Guardian journalist and on the panel was a Labour MP, 2 activists from a women’s rights charity in London and another bird from a disability charity who acted as the loose cannon of the debate. The whole discussion was friendly and I nodded in agreement to a lot of the facts about housing and the appalling figures of violence against women in this country alone and how that funding was constantly being cut for such services to protect women in such situations. It wasn’t until the Q&A when a question about sex work and how women in the industry are often vilified by feminist factions and what were the panels opinions on such a matter that I was to get pissed off by the crazy woman’s generalization that ‘The majority of women in sex are usually mentally ill, vulnerable and unable to make the decision to get involved in such situations alone’ Such misguided and poisonous opinions from people who should really know better really do have a tendency to rub me up the wrong way. I guess maybe she could have worded it better, but to label all sex workers with a mental illness as vulnerable and unable to make decisions for themselves is exactly the kind of condescending and vicious view that stops women in such a position from seeking support. Yea a lot of sex workers probably do have a mental illness, but probably no more then the next bird in any other line of work. I really don’t think it’s fair to say that hinders the judgment of their choice. But like I say maybe she just came across wrong. I was then calmed down by one of the birds from the London based charity claiming that as sisters they were all in this together and that their organization supports every sex worker regardless and that they were in discussion to provide more support for women in the industry.
I didn’t have much to do then for the rest of the afternoon, my blower had died so spent a lot of my time just strolling around the now very crowded site by myself, soaking in the atmosphere, chatting to the odd person who acknowledged my Ireland jersey and wanted to chat about the victory over Italy the night before. I do love walking alone at festivals; I find they are the times when the cathartic effect of being at one and in the moment of a community really hits home. Those kind yet throw away hello’s and compliments from complete strangers you’ll never see again and the meaningless 60 second anecdotes and opinions from people whose faces you forget almost instantly after talking to them. As well as the smiles, the laughs, the hugs and high fives. All of these interactions with each other that we wouldn’t dream of having with strangers in our daily lives aint meaningless. We’re not just over privileged hedonists paying a fortune for cider on a farm where we spend 5 days littering and trampling it into several square miles of uninhabitable squalor, it all adds up to something surely?
I had nothing on till 17:00 when Ezra Furman was due on The Park stage. I was a huge fan of Furmans ‘Perpetual Motion People’ record the previous year, so much so I gave it album of the year, needless to say I was excited to see them, so excited infact that I inadvertently dragged everyone up to the stage an hour earlier then I intended too. ‘Better to be an hour to soon then 10 minutes too late’ to poorly paraphrase Shakespeare. The set was satisfying, Furman has a great stage presence and puts a lot of energy behind lyrical tracks with themes of gender identity, hedonism and body image all backed by sax solo’s and wicked guitar licks. I often compare them to a young Neil Young or Elvis Costello. It’s Queer rock n roll basically, I highly recommend you give them a listen if that sort of thing interests you.
This was to begin an evening of eclectic live music that only Glastonbury can provide. After Ezra Furman we made our way to the now much larger then previous years, John Peel Stage, where prog-rockers Explosions in the Sky were knocking out their dream like guitar rifts. I thought now would be a suitable time to swallow my evening pill in time to jog back through the mud to the Leftfield stage to catch Billy Bragg headline. Along the way we found some crew who joined us so there was a good crowd of us to enjoy a visibly pissed off Bragg belt out such bangers as ‘It Says Here’ ‘Accident waiting to happen’ & ‘Levi Stubbs tears’ to name but a few. By this point I was rushing pretty hard and starting to overheat so had opted for taps aff. This was the second time I’d enjoy the peak of my pill to a Bragg set on a Friday. Shouting along to love songs like ‘Gretting to the new brunnete’ or the politically charged ‘Waiting for the great leap forward’ whilst shouting along in agreement to Bragg’s political views – especially at a time when the face of British politics was on the verge of a complete uncertain overhaul is a great use of the peak of an ecstasy high and I think it will join acid Saturdays as my newest Glastonbury traditions – Flowered up to Bragg Fridays.
We left the tent gurning our faces off and trudged our way back to the John Peel Stage, for the mighty Sigur Ros. Their hair-raisingly, unique and pioneering, sound scaping sound reverberated splendidly through the packed tent of mostly respectful listeners. The highlight of the set though was Kat, who was not just coming up on a pill but had also never heard of Sigur Ros before. I was jealous; going into what was to be the best set of the weekend on a tasty Gary completely unaware of not just the incredible musical but also spectacular visual show that Sigur Ros perform must have been quite the experience. We all left very satisfied and made our way back to camp to recalibrate for the night ahead.
The after hours area of Glastonbury – Shangri-la or The Naughty corner, whatever you want to call it. Represents everything that is both great and annoying about the festival. The production value of Block-9 and the unfair ground as well as the immersive concepts of both the Heaven and Hell areas (This year the theme was media) are satisfying enough to justify the ever-increasing ticket price. It’s also fantastically debauched, is pumping for 24 hours and the variety of both live music and DJ sets is wide enough to satisfy your whole party. What’s shit about it is that it is always heaving and even if you take the opportunity to head down during the weekend headliners in just an hour or so the place is overloaded with punters, there’s also a long one way system which I personally have never found worth the walk, so much so that I never really found the need to approach the area till Sunday night. From what I can recall Friday was spent in the tent, where I foolishly declared a liberal state of ‘keep your shoes on if you like’ which then turned the entire porch into a very squalid environment. I decided to go for a little walk and ended up on top of the hill where the Strummerville camp was now relocated and ended up sharing a bench and a chat with a wino who got in for free working as a baggage sherper. It was his second time at the festival and was just as spell bounded by the place as before. We got talking about the value of human beings passion. He said football was just millionaires kicking a ball about and was pointless. I said music was just people making silly noises. We managed to come to the agreement that everything in life can be simplified to insignificance, but it takes passion to make it worthwhile and important, regardless of whatever it is. I shared my Buckfast with him, of which he probably drank about a full bottles worth. I left him with a Valium to help him get some sleep…. He must have felt awful in the morning.
Saturday started with an expensive but somewhat lackluster full English breakfast, Infact I’d noticed that a lot of the meal and drink prices had suffered from inflation. Meals averaged out at about 8 quid, burgers at anything between 5-7 and beer or more specifically the Brothers bar (the best quality and highest proof cider available on site) was now up to £4 a pint which considering it’s quality probably aint so bad. There was some stalls offering meals at a fiver a go but I don’t think I came across any. To be honest there is so much on offer and a lot of it is so damn good that I really don’t mind forking out the 20 quid a day for good food. If you want to do Glastonbury on the cheap you can bring in as much booze as you like. Those bags of red wine and cider you can buy stay pretty delicious over the full 5 days and can be drunk warm. It’s also worth bringing a stove with you and just living off tins of beans and instant noodles if you really want to do the festival on a budget. I for one am of the belief that if you have the money spend it on good food, of which there is plenty at Glastonbury.
We (Petch, The Woman, Sarah) totted off to catch the last few songs of Squeeze on the Pyramid stage, it was also where we each lunched on a sheet of acid each. I for one had decided to dress for the occasion, sporting my new summer cut pink suit. I completed the look with a matching trilby and pair of aviators at one of the many market stalls.
Conveniently 90’s psychedelic prog-rockers Ozric Tentacles were due on the Glade stage just in time for us to start lifting off on our trips. We managed to place ourselves in directly in front of the finely tuned Funktion 1 and experience a satisfyingly tight band of hippies batter out an hours worth of psychy, bassy goodness. The highlight of the set for me though was the visuals on offer. Most notably the spinning Ganesh mixing on the decks and the typical hippy organic, colours spinning around in fractal shapes or nature landscapes which would then be abruptly interrupted by a hilariously inappropriate Pterodactyl flying through it.
From there we stumbled across to the West Holts stage where Congolese Synth band Mbongwana star were in the middle of their set. Despite the sound not really doing them justice, the crowd gave them a great reception also by this time we were all pretty jolly from acid so pretty much anything would have kept us entertained really.
I broke away from the gang to see if Paya was on shift, but he weren’t at this particular time. I’d pretty much abandoned my phone for the festival but thought I may as well get Melbourne to stick some charge on it whilst she was on shift, just incase I did want to get in touch with anyone. When I returned to camp I turned it on to a rather curious message from an unknown number asking me to respond as matter of urgency. I then received a call from the number. It was Ian who was to offer me both bad news and a mission…
The bad news was that festival and raving comrade Adam Pritchard had been involved in a cycling accident whilst visiting family in America. Sadly he didn’t make it…. My mission however was to toast a strong one to him on the stone circle that evening. The phone call flummoxed me. I took a short walk to help process the news then burst into tears. I’d done a number of raves, festivals and parties with Pritchard over the years and those experiences with someone can really form a genuine friendship. Every other camp member who had fond memories of the man shed tears, but I had to stay true to the mission laid out by Ian and set out on a bender the likes Pritchard himself would have been proud of.
After pulling myself together I decided to follow a bunch of folk on their way to the pyramid stage to watch Tame Impala. I’m not really a fan of their music but the mix of a beautiful early summers evening, a good company of people who were really enjoying the show and a good performance from the band themselves meant that it was an act worth seeing. I had the option of staying on to watch Adele with Lil, although I’m in no way a fan of her music I thought she’d put on a memorable show, but had already made my mind up on New Order.
We trudged our way through the sludge and followed the current of people shuffling their way shoulder to shoulder to their desired Saturday night headliner. We made it to the clearing of the Other Stage and Petch offered to get the beers in from the nearest generic Glastonbury bar. 4 ciders and a lager was the order, yet after a few minutes we noticed Petch had been stuck in discussion for some time with the barmaid, then another member of staff joined the discussion, then he seemed to have a whole team congregating around him. Wondering what the problem was I thought I’d pop over and defuse the situation, whatever it was. Turns out in his tripping state Petch had thought he’d wondered up to a boutique cider bar and was requesting to sample all the different wears on offer, when in truth all they had was either Tuborg or Gaymers. ‘Sorry love 4 cider, one beer… Petch you give her the dough, I’ll take the ciders, you get the lager’ I apologized to the bar maid and reassured her that he was wasted ‘I kept trying to tell him we only sell shit’ she responded. I noticed the bar maid was a pretty number that I clocked in the green fields a few days earlier. I told her I recognized her, she asked me if I worked with her the day before. ‘No I just never forget a pretty face’ I said. She just grimaced.
We managed to squeeze to the front centre of the Other Stage, the pill I swallowed had started to take effect and I needed to take the obligatory come up shit, my real heroics however were making my way to the nearest toilets several hundred yards away and getting back in the 15 minutes before New Order were due to start, luckily I’ve mastered how to work the Glastonbury crowds, or any big festival crowds for that matter. Attack from the side and apologies along the way, also always give yourself several landmarks. The abundance of flags at Glastonbury are very useful for this.
New Order started with a slow half of new stuff which I hadn’t heard yet and old tracks that I didn’t know too well, the second half of the set however was filled with hits and classics, ‘True Faith’ ‘Bizzare Love Triangle’, the version of ‘Tempation’ that I really like and ‘Blue Monday’ of course. Even ‘Waiting for the Sirens call’ off their record before they went into hiatus, I always liked that track. But despite the greatest hits set list the performance was incredibly lack luster. Bernie Sumner looked so much like he couldn’t be arsed he appeared lost and some of the re workings of the old classics just didn’t really sit right. Luckily the crowd were well up for it and I got chatting to a very friendly lady next to me who was there just because her boyfriend was a fan and her good time was rubbing off on me. They closed with an encore of ‘Love will tear us apart’ which again was delivered like a karaoke version of it’s original. I left feeling like I really should have gone to see Adele.
True to my promise of honoring Prichard’s memory, I decided to go on a bender that he’d be proud. As soon as we got back to tent we had a round of balloons and cracked out the Heisenberg, The Boy offered us mushrooms on arrival, which trying to swallow with a mouth dried from the side effects of methamphetamine was a challenge I wouldn’t be quick to undertake again anytime soon. Everyone else had their own plans for the evening and I was chuffed when The Boy said he’d join me on a loan adventure to the stone circle. I never really get to have alone festival time with The Boy these days, so anytime I do I always find it special. It’s not so much I find it as a comfortable time to open up about things that I wouldn’t talk about with other people because that’s not what we do. Instead I always have a feeling that everything is alright, that God is in his heaven and that all of life’s troubles don’t really matter. There is no anxiety and there is no worry when I’m with him, which is a solitude I don’t get when I’m around anyone else…. This is how I know I love him.
We sat near the top of the stone circle mostly in silence, listening to the beat of the drums and the laughter of others, as well as the chorus of scouse dealers declaring their wears ‘Pills! Coke! Mushies!’ It must be a song that has been heard on that same hill in England at that same time every year now for over 40 years… And may it always be that way. We chatted about whatever random shit came into our heads, shit we’d seen whilst at the festival, what our favourite detail of the Leicester city story was etc. Then The Boy decided to call it a night, and as I left someone who took a disliking to my pipe smoking shouted in my direction ‘Yea good, fuck off you crack smoking cunt!’ I smiled politely at them and then we descended the hill with our lit flairs in hand and watched as the sun rose over the horizon of the temporary metropolis and the cheers of the crowd erupted around us, then at the bottom of the hill I happened to bump into Paya who was with a friend and I knew that although my night may have ended, my morning was only just beginning.
I’d never pulled too many all nighters at Glastonbury, probably because I’m usually always knackered come 4am due to the relentless walking or exhausting effects of acting like a twat, dancing like a maniac and laughing constantly all the time. With a brain full of psilocybin and a blood stream full of crystal meth however I was not only wide-eyed and bushy tailed I was on total fire in terms of my chat. We reached a point where we were sat round the dying embers of a fire as I held court with a load of wired strangers who were eagerly listening and laughing along to whatever bollocks was pouring out my mouth. We stayed until the fire finally died and we went for a quick walk around the Green Fields.
Now many festivals have their witching hour where all the weirdo’s seem to finally make an appearance. These times of day can often go either way if I’m feeling too strung out and tired or just not in the mood to converse with lunatics. The Green Fields in the early hours of a Sunday morning is like a safari of nutters. A beautiful mix of space cats, wizards, junkies and cosmonauts. One of the modern flaws of Glastonbury is that it often feels as if just like the rest of the country it has been struck with the plague of gentrification and has had it’s soul diluted by a hoard of Tarquin and Gemima’s who only started going to the festival since they landed a job in advertising, record every set they watch on their Iphone whilst standing completely still for the duration, take up masses of camping space with their massive Bell tents for one, dress in their finest ‘festival chic’ and call the festival ‘Glasto’. I’d sometimes here some more long in tooth festival goers comment on how you don’t see many people totally fucked up on drugs at Glastonbury anymore, to those people I say walk around the Green fields between the hours of 6-9, I met some truly wonderful specimens. From a geezer speaking in tounges, to a one man band who kept falling over his equipment and getting stuck in the mud. I left Paya to return to his enclosed work camping area and walked to the railway track with his mate… ‘Thank you for really making me laugh this morning’ She said as gave each other a goodbye hug. Satisfied with that compliment I thought I’d try and get some sleep. I necked a handful of vallies and made my way back to camp. By this point the sun was too high in the sky to realistically get any sleep in the tent, so I shut my eyes in a chair under the event shelter, until more people started to wake up.
The weather on Sunday was nothing short of miserable. Grey an drizzly and the mud was thicker then ever and by this point was only going to get worse. The legends slot this year was filled by E.L.O, with everyone hoping that the clouds would party just in time for the inevitable climax of ‘Mr Blue Sky’ the Pyramid stage was rammed and the drizzle bitter and cold. I got pissed off and left only a few tracks in and made my way over to the acoustic stage where I had agreed to meet the others for The Bootleg Beatles. On before them however were Fishermans Friend, an orchestra of sailors who sing sea shanties, I quite like them and for parts enjoyed singing along to the songs I knew. When they finished however I got myself a Guinness in from the only bar that sells a decent pint which is located right next to it, sat in the now pissing rain feeling absolutely dreadful, the acoustic stage area was the busiest I’d ever seen it and I began to think that I wouldn’t find the others for the rest of the day. I swallowed down my beer and got another one, sat in the same puddle on the same bench and started to wonder why I do this every year.
Morale was quickly raised when the band took to the stage and began with a setlist filled entirely of the most up beat Beatles songs. I quickly jogged out after ‘I wanna hold your hand’ to go for a piss, on the way back I bumped into Dave who told the rest were to the left of the stage and there they all were. Bain, Toye, Lil, Kat, Melbourne, Sarah, Petch – I don’t think I’d ever been so please to see them all. The Bootleg Beatles are a fantastic tribute act too, apparently they’ve made a fine living pretending to the fab four and fair play to them, they look and sound the part and the set list was tight and filled with bangers climaxing with ‘Hey Jude’. When we came out of the tent the weather had cleaned up and everyone was in a good mood, all of a sudden that gnarly comedown I was suffering from had melted away.
Whilst everyone walked to their respective headliners I was left wondering around aimlessly. I had planned to meet Paya again at a bar in the Park stage but with no phone and the conditions the way they were, meeting anyone at a specific time was always going to be hard. I ponder a few stages, even poking my head into the cabaret tent to watch a few tracks of Grace Petrie’s but I just couldn’t get settled. I wondered back to camp knowing that people would most likely rendezvous back there before going out for one last cain up. I sat listening to the end of LCD Soundsytems set and kept thinking aloud ‘That’s a tune…. And that’s a tune… Hold I really like LCD Soundsytem why aint I there?’ This happened earlier in the weekend when The Beautiful South were playing on the same stage, I guess I just wasn’t as spontaneous as I usually am this year. No regrets though. A host of folk returned from their respective headliners and we all made our way to Shangri-la
With the rest of our drugs in our pockets and whatever booze we had left in our hands we set out for one last hurrah. Of all the festival Sunday nights I find the Glastonbury one feels exactly like the last Sunday of summer holidays before you go back to school, despite it actually being the first huge festival that kicks off the summer time. Also by this time I am on my last legs, knackered from the marathon of the 5 day bender, but again I thought of Pritchard and remembered how he never seemed to sleep at Glastonbury. Again we made our way to the Stone Circle and sat to the same chorus of scouser’s shifting their gear whilst we all took turns on the pipe and smoked change and DMT spliffs whilst sucking down balloons. A geezer with a guitar and harmonica came by and offered us a tune I requested Neil Young’s ’ Heart of Gold’ and he sung a couple of verses. It’s something that on paper sounds really gay but in practice was really beautiful. When you look over the site of that hill on a evening and see the groups of friends huddled together over fires and flares laughing and bantering with each other, you realise no other festival offers anything like that.
Sunday nights at Glastonbury are historically early nights for me. The exhaustion of the week tends to catch up on me by around 1am and I declare game over. However this year considering the circumstances I decided to long it out and carry on dancing. I thought there be no better act to do this to then DJ Producer in the Unfair Ground. The security on the gates of Shangri-la were letting people through the back entrance, although one of them took a good look at me and asked my friends to look out for me whilst I was in there. Did I really look that fucked? We walked into the tent to the unmistakable sound of kick drums banging away at 180BPM. The crowd were as rowdy as if it was still only Friday evening and I very much enjoyed shaking my fists and stomping my feet for one last hour whilst I patrolled the dance floor bumping into people that I knew. As Producers set ended I split from the group and decided to have one last walk up to the stone circle, by this point though my knees were shot to bits and I was also completely wasted. But then the calvary in the form of Amy and Kat came bounding over the hill and help carried me to the top where we sat until the sun rose, then they carried me back to camp where the remaining ravers were sat around in a circle struggiling to string sentences together in the warm dawn sun. Our only remaining energy devoted entirely to passing a joint around in a circle, even Tommy who’s energy and vibrance sometimes feels bottomless could only seem to muster a few grunts and groans. We were partied out and I decided to get what hours of sleep I could before it got too hot. 48 hours on the sesh. Had been a while since I’d done one of those, Pritchard would have been proud.
So this year will probably be remembered as one of the more challenging Glastonbury’s that I’d taken part in. What with the 100 odd mile cycle there, the mud, miserable weather, death of a friend and a few other first day stresses. But it’s testament to the experience that despite all this I still had a great time.
I think my highlight though had to be the amount of warmth and love I felt from my friends over the week and the great pleasure I took from watching them having such a good time. I asked Toye and Lil if they had enjoyed their first Glastonbury and if they’d consider coming back, the answer was a resounding yes, which I was surprised with considering the mud, weather and scale of the place really is a challenge. At some point in the weekend whilst walking our way back to the tents, Dave had one of his rare vocally loved up moments and announced to me ‘I’m really glad I know you’. Then there was Sarah taking me by hand as we walked through the Green Fields to the Stone Circle, giving me a kiss and telling me how much she loved me. Even looking back to the Wednesday when me and Bain went for a walk around and ended up buying each other friendship bracelets and ceremonially tying them to each others wrists. I even thought back to the Thursday when Tommy had come back to camp and was humored by the site of me drinking a tin of beans ‘Don’t ever change’ he said with a wide smile. ‘I don’t plan to’ I responded. Amy saying that she felt like this festival felt like the beginning of her new life or feeling Kats vibes as she came up hard to that incredible Sigur Ros set. Or when news broke of Pritchard’s passing, how everyone simply just put a hand on my shoulder and said ‘sorry’… which was all I needed. I dont find many other tender moments with friends in many other places in life. Yea you may confess your love for each other whilst gurning your faces off at a rave or during a drug night on someones sofa but it’s just not the same. The Glastonbury experience really makes you feel like you’ve achieved something with your loved ones, it can really be a transcendent experience even when it’s as ugly and difficult as this year was.
So yea a challenging and a messy one. A long way off a classic but it certainly had it’s merits. My problem is I’m well and truly addicted to the experience. Yea it’s over priced, really big, a nightmare once the weather turns bad and filled with cunts who just trash the farm to an embarrassing squalor but it’s that grand scale and potential for an epic adventure every day that give you the sense that unlike most British festivals this aint just a load of middle class wankers having an boozy, E’d up camping session whilst listening to Coldplay…
The sun woke me up on the early afternoon of Monday morning, a lot of our camp had already left and after gazing over the rest of the site of abandoned tents, broken camping gear and left rubbish I felt as if I may have just slept through the apocalypse. I went to the lock ups to collect my bike only to be told my bike had been moved to another lock up at the other end of the site. So after the best part of an hour of squelching through the hell scape that Worthy farm now resembled weighed down by several bags I found the lock up that apparently had my bike, only to be told that it was at another lock up. But before I had time to lose my patience the bird on the desk said ‘Actually hold on, I’ll call them and get them to bring it here’….
So as I flew down the A36 onto the A4 on that perfect summers evening I suddenly had a moment of clarity. A moment where I suddenly realised that I wasn’t reflecting or recovering from the madness of the previous week. Nor was I anxious or excited about the huge adventure that was to be my summer commencing in just a few days time. Nor was I admiring the latest Radiohead record that was playing through my headphones and thinking of the lovely meal that The Boy would have prepared once I arrived at his house in Hungerford. I realised whilst flying through the stunning setting of the Fyfield Down nature reserve as the sky started to turn to dusk I felt as if nothing else in the world mattered. Then as I was melting into this meditative state I thought of Pritchard and how his final moments were also doing what he loved. To my knowledge he had taken a sabbatical to get his head together and sort a few things out and I took great comfort in the thought that in those final moments he too had found that moment of peace and clarity and a place of solitude… I smiled to myself, tucked my head in and carried on peddling.