For me I always thought Glastonbury was supposed to be counter cultural, edgy, or at least pretend to adhere to those principles. When I watch it on the BBC, it just seems to be a watered down pretentious festival of middle class bores and insincerity, like it’s not really about music but the status of being there. I’m not one to judge peoples musical tastes, it’s really not about that, however there just seems to be something off about Glastonbury as a venue, and as a festival, and the types of people it attracts, which grates on me. Can anyone give me an opinion of what it’s like there? Am I wrong?
I haven’t been for over ten years, but TV coverage of a few of the larger stages doesn’t really give a flavour of the thing at all. This year there are over 100 venues - the thing is massive - and you can find whatever kind of festival you like on Worthy Farm.
I’m a little bemused by the “middle-class” accusation in recent years, it’s always been a bit like that, to be honest. One of the co-founders was Winston Churchill’s grand-daughter Arabella, after all.
I’ve always thought the festival scene in general was a bit rubbish, to be honest. You basically pay the same as you would for a week in a villa in Tuscany to sit in a muddy field with your mates drinking warm beer, eating undercooked burgers while a bunch of bands play their greatest hits a quarter of a mile away. Any time I feel nostalgic for the “Festival Experience” I just get my mates round for a barbecue and listen to X-FM. It’s close enough, and at least I can use my own toilet.
And Glastonbury has always been dreadfully up it’s own arse, both as a festival and as a town in general. It’s the kind of place where being a Reiki healer qualifies you for key worker housing. That said, it’s better than Reading.
It’s been ages since I went, but I barely watched any of the headline acts, and had a brilliant time. Sure, there’s plenty of people who just do go to the main stages and dance tent, but the tiny stages have all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff on, and there are so many of them that I couldn’t find more than an estimate of the number when I was there. It’s far from just music, too.
I have heard that the focus has been changing in recent years, and it’s ‘not as good as it was’, but then I can’t think of much I haven’t heard that about.
I’ve been to quite a few Glastonburys over the years, though the last one I went to was maybe ten years ago. It’s certainly a lot ‘safer’ than it used to be which is actually a good thing in some ways as the low level crime was pretty bad at times.
A lot of people look back fondly on the days when it was much more counter culture, where you could get in for free should you wish. In my experience that tended towards roaming gangs of scallies and new age travellers nicking stuff from tents mind you, but it did used to feel less corporate if that’s the right word.
I’m not sure when Radio 1 and the BBC in general started doing seemingly wall to wall coverage but it felt like Glastonbury became an event rather than an, admittedly pretty good, festival. It’s a weird one as a sort of agree with you OP but at the same time I’d love to be there now wandering about the smaller stages.
2000 was the year that really changed things. The festival had been getting BBC coverage for a few years at that point I think, and an extra 100,000 or so people turned up without tickets, and most of them got in over or under the fence. Some of my friends paid a tenner a head to a nice gentleman with a set of ladders, and luckily he had some pharmaceuticals and herbs for sale too! But the festival was totally jumping that year, if a tad overcrowded, and the weather was great. Also Bowie on the Pyramid stage was immense.
Anyway, hazy recollections aside, the local authorities had to insist from then on that a huge fence had to erected, and properly monitored. That changed the festival quite a bit, but there was nothing Michael Eavis could do other than comply if he wanted to continue. I remember reading an article with an account of the only person who had got over the wall after that, and he was basically in a gilly suit with infra-red goggles.
Yeah, I remember that one well. Sort of, I was definitely there but you know how it goes. I think the last one I went to was around 2004 so it’s probably very different now.
I haven’t been since the very early 90’s. Do you still walk past a gaggle of drug dealers every time you walk between an area.
I only went twice after the big fence was put up post-2000, and the dealing was much more discreet then.
Didn’t need to get over or under- there was a section down by the time I got there on the friday :rolleyes:
I’ve done the festival 92-98, 2000, 2004 and 2005.
Yes, its changed. I think around 95, someone shot someone else in the one of the fields between the main and nme stage. Yes, there was dealers everywhere, and robbery was common. I think Channel 4 did the coverage back then, and they lost the right when they announced the fence was down one year. It was inevitable that the fences would have to be sorted, I guess it was lucky nobody died in a crush before that happened.
What has completely changed now is the registration process and inability to resell the tickets mean that you have to commit to 200-400 pounds (depending if 2 of you going), over 6 months before the lineup has been announced. The year of Jay Z, they didn’t even sell out though, but that was before the registration. Now they’ve locked you into the tickets well before you even have a chance. I used to post rumours of the bands on usenet back in the 90’s, you pretty much knew most of them before the tickets went on sale, so was good. Now, it’s a shot in the dark.
But the BBC coverage does not do justice to the festival. I’ve attended and tivo’ed the coverage, then watched the coverage when I got back (and fast forwarded past a few), because that’s not part of the festival I go to. I barely ever went to the main stage, and the other stage coverage usually amounts to a song from one band headling the night. Nothing from the rest though.
This year though, the lineup seems pretty weak for the main stages, but my festival was wandering the acoustic, jazz, avalon, dance, john peel and the rest. Not forgetting the poetry, circus and cabaret stages, late night films as well. The cabaret stage alone is pretty much like the Edinburgh festival . And now?
I count near 90 (yes, 90 venues, probably 10 are kids though). 20-25 of those are big ones, but there’s still a LOT on, and it never has got coverage…
Oh, and when people say “It’s just another festival”, it isn’t. You’ll get better quality and fare more eclectic food there than any mainstream festival, the beer is real ale (if you want it), and not that badly priced (compared to the likes of V or Carling) and it goes ALL night.
If only it didn’t rain as much for that weekend of the year…
I don’t know much about Glastonbury since it’s a festival that the likelihood of my ever attending is nil to none, but my friends Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band played there yesterday, and as someone who’s known them from before they sold all their stuff, bought a van, and started touring like demons, this picture thrills me to no end. (that’s a facebook link but it’s Public so everyone should be able to see it)
That’s pretty cool - looks like a decent sized crowd for the West Holts stage at lunchtime! They get a shoutout in this Telegraph article, and it seems they had another gig in the Acoustic Tent too.
Dunno if “wacky” is the right term. They play Country Blues with Punk energy, sort of how the Pogues or Flogging Molly revved up Celtic music.
The coolest thing about them playing Glastonbury is that their contract didn’t have an exclusivity clause, so they are traveling all over the UK and Ireland playing other festivals before and after. So they’ve gotten quite a bit of buzz before they got there. Today, they played the Grillstock Festival in Manchester, and Breezy entered a chili pepper eating contest, and according to their Facebook page, she was the only one not to hurl. I guess all those years of road food have finally paid off.
I doubt Glastonbury has anything like exclusivity clauses in the contracts. It almost always sells out before the customers know who is going to be playing, and, well, it really is a family run thing by a very eccentric farmer, and nowadays his daughter too.
Ah, OK. They’ve played other festivals and that has been an issue before. It’s been a wonderful thing for the band, as they can get the attention and prestige from Glastonbury and actually make money on the trip from doing all these other shows.
I can’t imagine a more enjoyable way to spend a summer 
That’s a funny article, but features a lot of interesting-sounding bands.
You knew what stage they were playing on just by the picture? That’s impressive!
This seems like a helluva thing. The organization of it boggles my mind.
I agree with this - I went a couple of times in the nineties ('97 and '98 perhaps) hitchhiking down from Yorkshire and walking through the ‘fence’. This was clearly unsustainable for the organisers but there was a feeling of scuzzy danger, and the place abounded with pharmaceutical pedlars, and lowlifes of all stripes.
And I went again 8 or 10 years ago when the Superwall was up and found the deadbeats had been replaced with Stella-Artois-swigging Londoners, while the Glastonbury crystal-healing types remained, and found it rather pedestrian.
The abundance of small stages remained great in each case, but you’re better off going to smaller festivals if you don’t want too much ‘glamping’ awfulness, I’d suggest.