Glastonbury Festival 2013

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.

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

Our campsite

Huge tent with lots of space for our gear and  three sleeping pods leading off.

Me kitted out for a long day in the Festival fields

Our camp site overlooking the Festival site. A bit regimented with row after row of neatly erected identical tents

View over the Festival site from our campground

Looking down the steep slope we had to climb from the Festival fields. Hard work!

The famous 8 km perimeter fence in the foreground. See blog

The Tipi camping fields 

view from the slope above The Park, over the Tipi fields and into the vast camping fields beyond 

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.

And THIS is what the ordinary camping sites look like. Total chaos, but with a certain atmosphere and camaraderie that makes them very appealing.

The sun sets on the Wednesday night on the already-packed ordinary camping fields

view from the tower in The Park---this was taken on the Thursday so before any entertainment had begun 

Again taken in The Park on the Thursday before any of the entertainment had begun

Another Thursday picture---the crowds wandering through the Stone Circle fields

Friday morning and the crowds on the move towards The Other Stage

a very very rare sight---an empty Pyramid Stage

A more normal view of The Pyramid Stage---for an ordinary afternoon with no headliners performing

The Pyramid Stage on a late morning before most people are up

The Pyramid Stage getting a little busier. But still nothing like the crowds in the evening.

Ditto

Ditto

The crowds begin to gather at The Other stage

ditto

Typical of the view that I would  normally get of a performance!!!

The crowd at another stage---remember that there are 100 stages!

And then of course there is eating and drinking to be done...

Relaxing in the Greenfieds

Relaxing in The Park

The morning after the obligatory downpour

Ditto

The delightful Greenfields on a lovely afternoon--see blog

The Greenfields--see blog

Ditto

An entertainer in the Greenfields. When not in use there is a sign on the piano saying "No Chopsticks"

Crafts in the Greenfields

ditto

ditto

ditto

The Healing Fields where you can get a massage or have your fortune told or take a yoga lesson 

ditto

ditto

More crafts in the Greenfields

Ditto

ditto

ditto

ditto

Learning circus tricks in the Circus fields

More crafts

more crafts

Lounging in the Greenfields

Hammocks in The Park

The Stone Circle

ditto

Innovative baby transport 

More kid transport

Travel in the Circus fields

More baby transport

These ones wished they weren't too big for kiddie transport

More transport

Ordinary prams suffer on the rutted post-rain terrain

not going anywhere

One of the many creative structures around the site

there is very low-key policing on site

No need to ignore your make-up and hair at Glastonbury

Very nice cream teas with bone china

or tea and toast

The ever-popular Cider Bus

Wood fired pizza ovens in The Glade

The phoenix atop the Pyramid Stage (Kenny Rogers performing as you can see in the giant screens on either side of the stage)

Rufus Wainwright I think

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 

impromptu dance

Another small group of performers

Circus performances are a big feature of Glastonbury these days

Another small venue

Listening to a performance in one of the many tents, large and small

A roving band

Another small stage

And probably the smallest of all...

Festival opening night (Wednesday) bonfire

Bizarre sights in Shangri-La (see blog). The place to be after dark

ditto

ditto

Ditto

Ditto

ditto

ditto

ditto

ditto

ditto

ditto

The steam-punk spider in Arcadia (see blog)

ditto

ditto

It always rains at least one day at Glastonbury--it is the law

Ken and Estelle (right) and our friend Gaby, kitted out for an evening out in the rain

Yes that is pure mud gleaming in the light

View over a rain-sodden Festival site

the wellie parade the day after the rain

the ordinary camp sites after the rain--not too bad this year, often they are six inches deep in mud

Me kitted out for the mud on the morning after the rain

My son, Ken, in the rain

The queue for the portaloos in our campsite (see blog)

Queue for portaloos in the Festival fields (see blog)

ditto

the volunteer clean-up crew at work throughout the Festival

The female equivalent of the urinal

At least 25% of the crowd dress up in costumes --lots of cross-dressing too

This must have been a tough costume to wear for long

More costumes

ditto

ditto

These monks are the real deal--these are not costumes!

The Hare Krishna are still going strong at Glastonbury

More costumes

ditto

ditto

Animal costumes were big this year

A fine sight, no?

Wedding attire was also big this year

A fine back-view

More costuems

he looks a bit fed-up

I love this one

And bringing up the rear...