Glastonbury Festival 2013
In my last blog post on New
Zealand back in March I mentioned that I would not be travelling for a few
months but would do a post about this year’s Glastonbury Festival in June. Here
it is, with loads of photos at the end.
For those of you who are not
from the UK or those of you who have lived a sheltered life for the past 40
years, the Glastonbury Festival is the most venerable and successful of the
many music festivals which fill up the UK summer weekends and which have proliferated
over the last decade. “Glastonbury” or simply “Glasto” as it is known has been
held more or less yearly since 1970 at Worthy Farm, a dairy farm in Somerset owned
by Michael Eavis, first as a new age, hippy festival in the spirit of Woodstock
in the USA or Isle of Wight in the UK. It still retains some of that atmosphere and
is delightfully free of commercialism. There is no doubt it casts a spell over
every single person who attends. As someone said, it is like Brigadoon or
Sleeping Beauty’s Castle—it appears magically for a few days, gripping everyone
in its spell and then fades away into the ether for another year. Over the
years it has bent and swayed this way and that and transformed and reinvented
itself, seemingly as a self-propelling phenomenon.
I have been five times and each
festival has had a slightly different character but all are equally fascinating
and memorable---and I am not a music fan particularly; I go for the experience,
the atmosphere, and as an intrigued observer of this unique event. That is not to say that the festival does not
offer the very best in popular music experience—look back on the headliners
over the past 40 odd years and there is hardly any major performer or band who
has not appeared at some time or another from a young David Bowie in 1971 to
this year’s venerable Rolling Stones, from Joan Baez to Johnny Cash
to Tom Jones to Tony Bennett to Shirley Bassey to Kenny Rogers to Newton Faulkner to Seasick Steve. Rod
Stewart to Amy Winehouse to Rufus Wainwright to Sinead O’Connor to Gabrielle
Aplin. UB40 to Pink Floyd to Blur to
Muse to Oasis to Radiohead to Coldplay to Jay-Z to Mumford & Sons. From reggae,
to heavy metal, to garage,to folk, to blues, to rock ‘n roll , to modern rock,
to gospel, to pop, to acoustic , to electonica, to ska, to Bollywood, to
country and western, to this year’s focus on African performers and in
particular those from Mali You can see a
list of some of the headline acts over the years on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Festival_line-ups#2013.
But the headliners are only the
tiny tip of the iceberg. There are over 100 stages and nearly 1000 performances—in
tents, on stages, in bars, in food outlets, on bandstands, or just on the grass
in the corner of a field. And it is not
just music. There are circus acts, magicians, comedy stages, puppet shows,
speakers’ forums (Tony Benn is a
perennial), educational workshops, dance
tents, DJ tents, cabaret stages, cinema tents, poetry tents, debating forums, a
Kidz Field for the thousands of children who attend the Festival with their
parents.
And that doesn’t count the
nightlife at the wierd and wonderful Shangri-la and Arcadia and in daytime the Greenfields. The
Greenfields are some of my favourites---and extremely popular on a nice
afternoon. In Green Futures all manner of traditional craft can be tried out,
taught by gentle people who spend their lives at these: making fences and
baskets from bent willow twigs, beating brass, making jewellery, blacksmiths,
stone masons, potters (see photos). And the Healing Fields where you can have
massages, saunas, have your fortune told. Greenpeace (one of the charities
which along with Water Aid and others benefit from the profits of Glastonbury)
has a major presence with a different theme each year –this year was Save the
Arctic. Then there is the Kidz Field with it skate board ramps, puppet shows,
face-painting, dress-up clothes, sing-alongs, and all kinds of traditional children’s
amusements. You can eat excellent organic food, have a proper English Afternoon
Tea with best bone china pot and cups and saucers, take a yoga or Tai Chi
class, or simply “chill” in the Stone Circle Field or enjoy one of the many
charming small “pop-up” gardens created lovingly for the few days of the
Festival.
The place to be after 10pm until
breakfast time is Shangri-la with its bizarre and louche bars, clubs and its
extraordinarily creative structures and stage sets. These are some of the programme
descriptions of some of the entertainment places within Shangri-la: “NYC
Downlow presents Intergalactic Homosexual Alien Chaos!” or “Block 9--Welcome to
a post-apocalyptic world complete with derelict buildings, trains ---and lots
of music” or “The Seven Circles of Hell—Journey through a new maze of
contemporary sins and punishments with our legendary nano-venues. In these
alleys there is no law but perversity” ---you get the idea... Or visit Arcadia,
a magnificent steam punk spider which roars into life when the last performers
have left the main stages and roars and belches fire until dawn. Or like me,
retire exhausted to your tent.
You see latter day hippies with
dreadlocks, babies no more than a couple of months old, pregnant women,
teenagers, toddlers, grandparents, sisters, neighbours. There are loads of
extended families, people who meet up year after year at Glastonbury, groups of
neighbours, work colleagues, couples, singles.
You hear accents from Newcastle and Surrey, Essex and Glasgow and Home
Counties. Increasingly you also hear foreign languages as Europeans and
Americans discover the Festival. That said, what you don’t see are many ethnic
minorities such as you would see on the streets of so many UK cities. Hopefully
that will also develop.
It is probably true that there
has traditionally been a left wing bias to the Festival. (The Guardian
newspaper is the only commercial sponsor of the Festival and that is done in a
pretty low-key manner), but that
certainly does not mean that the crowds are all Guardian readers or
trade unionists or champagne socialists. Although it is hard to tell from looks
alone (and so many people dress up in costumes –see photos below), you are
likely to see your daughter’s school teacher, your work colleague’s parents,
your plumber, the lady who runs the local florist shop, the bartender at your
local pub, the checkout girl at the supermarket, the station guard at your
local train station, your golf partner: waiters, bankers, civil servants,
retired couples, minor royalty, bus drivers, nurses, lawyers, A/B/..Z-list
celebrities, electricians, students, toddlers, shop keepers, fitness
instructors, truck drivers, insurance salesmen, call centre operators,
construction workers, they are all there and they all mix together very
happily.
It is also a time to dress up.
At least a quarter of the people wear some kind of costume at some time---lots
of cross dressing too. See the photos for some examples. Children are
transported in wagons, pushchairs, three wheeled prams, push chairs, back-packs,
even a converted bathtub (see photos). Despite the rough terrain and mud there
are a fair number of disabled people on motorised scooters.
Glastonbury attracts 120,000
paying ticket holders a year and around 65,000 local people who provide most of
the services. “Attracts” is the wrong word---if all those who want tickets
could get them there would be about 500,000 people. You need to preregister for
tickets in the previous October and then the tickets sell out within an hour or
so when they are put on sale in April. Until about 10 years ago you were
considered a stupid conformist if you actually paid for a ticket, and each year
tens of thousands gate-crashed the site through farmers’ fields. Not only did
this erode the financial viability of the Festival but it also led to angry
confrontations with the local people and councils who threatened to withhold
the Festival’s performance licence. However In 2002 an 8 km 3.5 meter metal
fence was constructed that would do Guantanamo Bay proud. It is dismantled
every year after the festival and then takes 21 days to re-erect the next year.
But it is very effective and has reduced gate-crashers to a small handful. Most
people now agree that the Festival feels safer and more enjoyable without them,
although some still yearn for the wild and free old days of course.
The Festival takes place on the
Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the third or last week of June, but each year
the build up starts earlier and earlier and now the majority of people arrive
on the Wednesday. In fact to have any hope of getting a good camping spot you
need to arrive around midnight on the Tuesday night and spend the night in your
vehicle waiting for the gates to open.
And camping is what you do. It
is one of the few festivals where you camp on-site and spend the full five days
without leaving the site. After years of lugging all our camping gear from the
parking fields miles away and scrambling for a decent spot to put up the tent,
this year we cheated and hired one of the ready-erected tents which in the last
couple of years have become available for hire on adjacent farms. It was a huge
tent but was only reached by a tough uphill climb and zealous security at the gate
in the perimeter fence, and somehow the regimented rows of tents lacked the
quirky atmosphere of chaos and neighbourliness that prevails in the regular
camping fields. We are still debating whether to do it this way again.
Regardless of how you camp, you
and 120,000 of your closest friends are using the same toilets and primitive
washing facilities and rubbish bins and bars and eating places and camping
fields for five days. Since showers are not usually practical (there are almost
no facilities for showering and for those few that there are you would spend
most of the day queuing). Add to this the fact that many of the young
first-timers believe it is their obligation to get drunk as soon as possible
and the fact that there is statute called the Glastonbury Wellington Boot Law
which decrees that it must pour with rain at least one day leaving the site a
gleaming sticky sea of mud, and you are no doubt wondering why anyone in their
right minds would even consider going. Well, try it and you’ll see why people
return year after year. It’s that magic.
After earlier years of sometimes
violent and unpleasant conflicts with the local people and police, the Festival
has now been embraced by the local community since it provides welcome
employment for young and old and a huge boost to the local economy. All the
food outlets and clothing and supplies stalls are individual small businesses, many
of them local, or charities---not an advertising hoarding or commercial sponsor
or fast food chain or high street shop outlet to be seen. Prices are
reasonable. The police are present but very low key and unobtrusive and on-site
security and stewards are for the most part young volunteers who get free entry
to the festival when they are not on duty.
It is a vast operation to clean up. Toilets
and litter are always a problem. Recycling and “greenness” are very much in
focus—no wonder since this is a working farm and any piece of litter ingested
by the cows, who are back grazing the fields within three weeks, could be
fatal. But people still drop bottles, cans, paper, food and the bins, of which
there are many, are often filled to overflowing. Armies of volunteer workers
descend each day and in early morning they pick clean the litter-strewn fields
in front of the main stages. By 11 people are lounging on (what’s left of) the
grass and dropping more litter!
Toilets are the main problem.
With 120,000 people living on site round the clock and another 65,000 workers
there most of the time as well, the amount of human excrement produced is
enormous. And you must bring your own toilet paper—fortunately the volunteer-run
information kiosks provide free rolls. Each year Michael Eavis and his daughter
Emily, who now front a smooth unobtrusive administrative organisation given the
huge size and fame of the Festival, seem to come up with a different
“plan”—port-a-loos, compost toilets, urinals and the famous female equivalent
the “she-pee”. This year’s bright idea was the “long-drop” (like the “outhouse”
of old days) which stink terribly and provide very little privacy but are
probably more sanitary and “green” (if that is the right word!) than the
constantly blocked and overflowing port-a loos. Big tankers circulate the site
regularly pumping them out but it seems to be a losing battle.
But despite all that,
everyone—and I think that really IS everyone--- comes to love the Festival over
the five days----I have never seen anyone leaving early no matter how vile the
weather. On the day you arrive it takes you hours to unwind and relax, frazzled
after the long drive and the slog to bring your camping things into the site
and put up your tent, and the place
seems to be filled with “yobs” and excitable young bimbos and chavs who seem to
be only intent on getting drunk. Everything irritates you. But by the end of
the Festival everyone has mellowed and shows their best side.
It is an ideal place for a
sociologist or psychologist to observe human beings and their interactions. Maybe
the yobs have drunk themselves into a stupor after the first 24 hours and are
passed out in their tents but I tend to think that they have been transformed
into happy relatively polite and thoughtful human beings. I have never seen a
fight or a loud argument or aggression at Glastonbury, yet the raw material is
the same you would see in any county, any suburb or any city centre of the UK. It’s magic. I love it and will hopefully be
able to go again.
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| This year's tent---a bit of a cheat; we rented one of the pre-erected ones this year rather than slog in miles from the parking fields carrying all our gear to fight for a campsite. See later photos for what the normal campsites look like!. In the picture from left to right are my daughter-in-law Estelle, my son Ken Okumura and our friend Gaby Ramero |
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| Our campsite |
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| Huge tent with lots of space for our gear and three sleeping pods leading off. |
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| Me kitted out for a long day in the Festival fields |
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| Our camp site overlooking the Festival site. A bit regimented with row after row of neatly erected identical tents |
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| View over the Festival site from our campground |
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| Looking down the steep slope we had to climb from the Festival fields. Hard work! |
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| The famous 8 km perimeter fence in the foreground. See blog |
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The Tipi camping fields |
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view from the slope above The Park, over the Tipi fields and into the vast camping fields beyond |
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| The Tipis. You can rent these ready-erected but they are very expensive, have no floor and no privacy. I'm not sure why they are popular. |
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| And THIS is what the ordinary camping sites look like. Total chaos, but with a certain atmosphere and camaraderie that makes them very appealing. |
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| The sun sets on the Wednesday night on the already-packed ordinary camping fields |
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| view from the tower in The Park---this was taken on the Thursday so before any entertainment had begun |
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| Again taken in The Park on the Thursday before any of the entertainment had begun |
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| Another Thursday picture---the crowds wandering through the Stone Circle fields |
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| Friday morning and the crowds on the move towards The Other Stage |
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| a very very rare sight---an empty Pyramid Stage |
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| A more normal view of The Pyramid Stage---for an ordinary afternoon with no headliners performing |
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| The Pyramid Stage on a late morning before most people are up |
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| The Pyramid Stage getting a little busier. But still nothing like the crowds in the evening. |
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| The crowds begin to gather at The Other stage |
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| Typical of the view that I would normally get of a performance!!! |
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| The crowd at another stage---remember that there are 100 stages! |
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| And then of course there is eating and drinking to be done... |
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| Relaxing in the Greenfieds |
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| Relaxing in The Park |
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| The morning after the obligatory downpour |
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| Ditto |
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| The delightful Greenfields on a lovely afternoon--see blog |
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| The Greenfields--see blog |
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| Ditto |
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| An entertainer in the Greenfields. When not in use there is a sign on the piano saying "No Chopsticks" |
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| Crafts in the Greenfields |
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| The Healing Fields where you can get a massage or have your fortune told or take a yoga lesson |
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| More crafts in the Greenfields |
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| Learning circus tricks in the Circus fields |
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| More crafts |
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| more crafts |
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| Lounging in the Greenfields |
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| Hammocks in The Park |
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| The Stone Circle |
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| ditto |
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| Innovative baby transport |
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| More kid transport |
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| Travel in the Circus fields |
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| More baby transport |
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| These ones wished they weren't too big for kiddie transport |
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| More transport |
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| Ordinary prams suffer on the rutted post-rain terrain |
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| not going anywhere |
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| One of the many creative structures around the site |
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| there is very low-key policing on site |
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| No need to ignore your make-up and hair at Glastonbury |
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| Very nice cream teas with bone china |
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| or tea and toast |
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| The ever-popular Cider Bus |
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| Wood fired pizza ovens in The Glade |
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| The phoenix atop the Pyramid Stage (Kenny Rogers performing as you can see in the giant screens on either side of the stage) |
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| Rufus Wainwright I think |
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| Throughout the site there are small stages and small groups of performers or even solitary singers like this one in a corner of a field |
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| impromptu dance |
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| Another small group of performers |
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| Circus performances are a big feature of Glastonbury these days |
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| Another small venue |
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| Listening to a performance in one of the many tents, large and small |
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| A roving band |
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| Another small stage |
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| And probably the smallest of all... |
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| Festival opening night (Wednesday) bonfire |
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| Bizarre sights in Shangri-La (see blog). The place to be after dark |
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| The steam-punk spider in Arcadia (see blog) |
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| It always rains at least one day at Glastonbury--it is the law |
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| Ken and Estelle (right) and our friend Gaby, kitted out for an evening out in the rain |
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| Yes that is pure mud gleaming in the light |
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| View over a rain-sodden Festival site |
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| the wellie parade the day after the rain |
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| the ordinary camp sites after the rain--not too bad this year, often they are six inches deep in mud |
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| Me kitted out for the mud on the morning after the rain |
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| My son, Ken, in the rain |
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| The queue for the portaloos in our campsite (see blog) |
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| Queue for portaloos in the Festival fields (see blog) |
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| ditto |
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| the volunteer clean-up crew at work throughout the Festival |
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| The female equivalent of the urinal |
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| At least 25% of the crowd dress up in costumes --lots of cross-dressing too |
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| This must have been a tough costume to wear for long |
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| More costumes |
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| These monks are the real deal--these are not costumes! |
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| The Hare Krishna are still going strong at Glastonbury |
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| More costumes |
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| Animal costumes were big this year |
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| A fine sight, no? |
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| Wedding attire was also big this year |
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| A fine back-view |
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| More costuems |
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| he looks a bit fed-up |
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| I love this one |
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| And bringing up the rear... |
