So, there are some major musical artists performing at Glastonbury. I’ve seen excerpts of Paul McCartney and the Pet Shop Boys.
What exactly is Glastonbury? Is it like Woodstock and you camp out? Or do you leave the grounds every night and have to stay at whatever accommodations you have arranged.
To some extent it is like Woodstock, although it has got more organised over the years. You do camp out there, although some people will no doubt do daily travel, but there isnt a great deal of off-site accommodation in the area.
Glastonbury, well, I went about ten times, but I’ve not went for 17 years now. Partly their decisions. Usually a baffling web site which never works for me nowadays.
But let’s get started.
Yes. Originally like Woodstock, probably inspired by the former. A dairy farmer, Michael Eavis, inherited his farm young (19 years old), and at age of 34 set up Glastonbury as a music festival. It ran a couple of years, then stopped, the hippies sort of threw one in late 70s (it was around summer solstice, and had there was parties around the 'enge man). In the 80s, it became a regular thing, apart from fallow years.
It was a “leftish” festival with such radical concepts as “not wanting the human race to die burning in a nuclear war” (hah, we all fine with this now), and I think Eavis has a lot of sway with the choice of the acts, so it became his sort of festival with his sort of choices, Indie featuring much earlier than other festivals (didn’t really see those until the 90s in Reading festival)…
There was various things which were different from corporate festivals. It was tied to the Campaign for Nuclear disarnament (CND). Travellers got in for free (hippy campers in effect, of their time). Locals as far as Bristol got a free ticket for Sunday. The fence wasn’t really enforced, so it was common for people to break through or jump the fence, and the festival became much busier than it should have been. Some of it was televised (highlights) but it wasn’t that well known. Drug dealers were common selling their wares on the entrances to every field. The police sort of suffered them. The beer was cheap. Firewood was provided to create campfires. Nobody stopped you coming in with anything, so people brought their own beer, often in slabs, and beer was for sale from someone at the side of the road all day and night for a cheap price.
It was a radical place of 100,000 people which existed for four days every year, and seemed to work. The acts ran mid Thursday to late Sunday/Monday morning. Initially it was a hodge potch of starts and acts on Thursday night, but it ended up having some on the lesser big stages. People used to enjoy it (as much as meeting friends from far afield for one weekend as the festival) that they came in Wednesday noon and left on Tuesday. Camping only but since there wasn’t much limits, big tents were everywhere. The campsite was friendly. Unofficial music and things going on seemed to run all night.
Being England, it rained. It often seemed to rain a LOT on that particular weekend, before, or after it. There became mud years, which when not heavy was a celebration, and people writhed in the mud. On the serious mud years that got old quickly, but the campfires helped dry off the mud (I got soaked in 98 and some hippies helped me dry out at 4am).
I think I went 91 for the first time. It was excellent. Very chilled. Got very busy at points. I think there was maybe 20 odd stages at this point. I use to pick up my regular comic from Pete Loveday, an artist who just took a box, and sold between one of the two stages (I think he had a stall later). Naked people danced. Hare krishna roamed in a dancing and singing parade through the festival often dragging several hundred dancing hippies with them. Before phones it was four days away from the world. Rumours used to fly around of radical news. Thatcher had died (which created great celebration) and all sorts of other mad news you could verify till Monday morning.
But it wasn’t just the music. There was circus acts. A poetry field with various tents. Performance acts in the Theatre field (which really was just the comedy field), you’d be accosted by Coneheads on the way to see an act. The comedy tent was wonderful, ran from 10am to 2am, emptied between acts, so you could get a decent spot for most things, and sit there all day and watch comedians, most of which were doing a version of their Edinburgh show which was a couple of weeks later. It had its own atmosphere, running jokes, heckles (a child would be dragged on stage, and the cries would be “BURN THEM!”). Some acts bombed. Some became famous. I watched Bill Bailey a load of times there (he fills stadiums here now).
Another thing as the outdoor cinema. It used to run films all night till 6am, new films, just at the cinema, Cult films. You’d find out great films there. And you’d sit there till sunlight and then sleep till noon after.
I think the change was when Channel 4 televised it, showing the main acts live for Saturday and Sunday. Maybe one year it was fine, and the festival became famous, the second year they stated on one of the broadcasts that “the fence was down and everyone was flooding in” (which was something which people who’d been knew, but you can’t broadcast it on live television). The festival virtually doubled that weekend and was much worse the year after. Crime became rampant. Dealers used to turn up with drugs/false drugs, then rob the tents at night. The year after the place was rammed, the I’d not be surprised if I’d been told the population had tripled, you couldn’t make it into any of the main fields after about 7pm. There was gunfire in the middle of 10,000 people on Saturday afternoon in an argument between drug dealers. The freedom couldn’t last.
As a condition of the license, the fence had to be enforced, built up, security employed. Tickets checked seriously (often the staff was CND volunteers who did it for a free ticket in exchange for working the gates a few hours, so didn’t care). It got better for a while. There were a few mud years, once of which tested the resolve of any of us. They reckon 30,000 people left the festival on Friday night 1998 after a deluge of biblical proportions, I was freezing cold, whole swathes of the camping field had been flooded out (we missed a few bands moving our tents and digging irrigation channels to divert the flood flow). Still people came. It became a thing now that teenagers would “do Glastonbury a the end of their exams”. It became harder to get a ticket, it was paper ticket based, and via the phone, and it sold out every year. But increasingly it was selling out in days over a phone system which was swamped.
I think at this point there was maybe 7-8 main stages and about 15 secondary stages.
We did 2004+6 I think, with some friends, which was different (I often went with a couple of people before). It was a little wet at start but decent weather, which was nice. At this point the tickets sold out in hours. There was widespread touting with tickets selling for 1K (they were priced about £150 at this time), so they put in checks, then a full id registration programme which meant your photograph printed on the ticket “to reduce touts”. I dropped out at this point, most Glastonburies for me involved me finding people who wanted to go, getting all the tickets, and some pulling out (broken legs, pregnancies, things which really stopped you going), so I’d be in a position of having non refundable tickets, previously I was selling them at face value the week before the festival to very happy people. I’ve considered going back, but it’s near impossible now, I sit on a Sunday morning at 9am in October, refreshing the screen on 4 browsers, three pcs, phone and tablet, coming in over vpns from different countries and watch the tickets sell out in 25 minutes, wheeras far less technical friends secure them no problem. I’d like to go one more time, I’d not care about the main acts.
Which brings me to the main acts now, they’re irrelevant, and the BBC coverage focuses on them, but I’ve went years where I’d went to the two main fields perhaps once if at all. Theatre Field for me, Dance tent, New bands tent, Acoustic Tent, Avalon (hippy) tent, New world tent (various). The broadcast is a different festival from the ones I attended, I tivo’ed it in 2004 and watched those later, even if I wanted to see someone on main 2 stages televised, there little chance of seeing them in the distance, and the flags… God the flags. I don’t know where it came from (probably a flag stall near the main stage), but you can’t see the bands for the first 30 odd “rows” because people are waving flags in front of the stage. Not sure if this happens other festivals, but it’s a horrible glastonbury thing for sure.
Last count when I looked a couple of years ago, they listed 93 stages there, even back in 2006 there was a “silent disco” one where people danced around in headphones. I’d like to do the festival once more with friends and the wonder of a mobile phone to actually arrange to meet them (there was various rules we had about meeting at the bar in the NME field on the hour till 6pm, then New world stage after that). I’d imagine charging points feature heavily now.
I’m not sure if the US has anything like this, or had it. Glastonbury was the best festival in the world once. Might still be. But it’s not Paul McCartney or the Pet Shop Boys which make it that.
One other thing though in recent years, Michael Eavis is 87 now, and his daughter runs the festival now. I think that lost a lot. There used to be select trusted fans around the country finding new good bands which would make it onto the lineup, and I appreciated Michaels choices. Emily is not a music fan, she’s a mother and wasn’t really involved until it meant someone taking over. It seems as if others make the choices more based on whatever criteria, but the low level standards and choices of headliners are much more “basic” now (ie: the popular choice, Emily: “Hey, I’ve heard of them!” style).
I think that’s about as thorough an answer as anyone could hope to receive. Well done.
I’ve seen some of it on TV. There are always ass hats near the stage who wave flags and banners on long poles, ruining the view of the stage for most of the audience. It seems to be the norm for Euro music fests, judging from what’s on TV. That kind of behavior would never be allowed in the US. Don’t think I’d want to go to a European music festival.
We had a discussion of that behavior years ago on this board. Someone from the UK posted an article on the phenomenon. He/she called the perpetrators “insular, Stella-swigging [word prohibited in this forum]”.
It certainly seems to have become a destination vacation.
Current controversy about Glasto focuses on the lack of diversity; not among performers, but among festival-goers.
Lenny Henry “surprised” by lack of diversity at Glastonbury (faroutmagazine.co.uk)
Certainly the TV cameras struggle to find much of a racial mix in the crowd.
I don’t understand. Are people planning to force black people to like the music, or are they going to change the music and lose the crowd who currently go?
It’s a music festival which are often based around a certain type of music some people like. Nobody is stopping black people at the gate and not letting them in.
Jay-Z played once, it wasn’t a huge success from the fans. One of the few times there was issues selling out.
Ah it’s Lenny Henry, a man who’s initial career was playing exaggerated black stereotypes on television, and has barely been on telly for 20 years. I think he’s probably surprised how few black people live within 30 miles of him…
Not sure how true it is (I haven’t been to either) but based on what I’ve read, and the kind of acts that perform there, many people compare it to the Coachella Festival.
Are these the only two possibilities?
I ’ve seen every festival in every corner of this country and Henry is right – it’s a strange (and often disorienting) world to navigate as a Black artist.
This matters. It matters because Glastonbury is a central, celebrated part of British culture and its whiteness reflects how little communities of colour are considered when we go about defining “Britishness”.
There are so many reasons why people of colour are not attending large-scale outdoor, camping festivals such as Glastonbury. There is the obvious excuse that traditionally Black and brown people don’t camp and are put off by the bleak reality of festival campsites and the outdoors in general. This is a stereotype many people in marginalised communities are battling to break down, whether through countryside rambling initiatives such as Black Girls Hike or the Birmingham-based outdoors group We Go Outside Too.
More importantly, people of colour in these spaces have been made to feel at best an afterthought, or at worst unwelcome.
Me: I’m a British WASP. I’ve never been to Glastonbury Festival, although I only live ten miles away and know the village of Pilton very well. My kids went to Glasto in their time, and lots of friends too. I’m not keen on the practicalities of festival-going, and the music doesn’t generally float my boat.
But it makes me uneasy to see the crowd clips in the TV coverage. I know the BBC is keen and effective in promoting diversity (some may disagree); they seem to struggle to find even a few non-white faces in the audience,
My kids have also gone for several years to the St Pauls Carnival in Bristol (to be compared with the Notting Hill Carnival in London). No lack of diversity there!
I’m not sure what other opportunities there were for Lenny Henry in the '70’s. And aside from his career he’s been a powerful advocate for diversity in entertainment (not least in the BBC, where he’s been a big influence). And yes, he’s lived in Berkshire for years. So what?
This video give a brief look at this year’s festival:
There’s a massive assumption, and I’ve restated this before. Only a certain type goes to the main stage (and you often don’t see the crowd on the second “other stage”, they tend to only ever play the after dark headliners). So even with this, you’re only talking of the television coverage which covers one of the 93 stages.
I state this because I’ve not been in 17 years, so I wouldn’t be able to tell if there was any sea change. You’re seeing the front of a 25,000 people stage field, in a festival of 142,000 people. So yet again the festival’s judgement is based on probably seeing 5,000 near the front less than 3% of the festival. But you see it because it’s televised.
Also, there seems to be a number of black acts in there, and it’s not short of world music (the new world stage will have a lot of that, but I think I’ve only ever seen one NW Stage on television), I’m no expert (I don’t know some of these acts), but this year: Diana Ross, TLC, Kendrick Lamar, AJ Tracey, The War and Treaty, Burna Boy, Megan Thee Stallion, Herbie Hancock, Ziggy Marley, Yola and Celeste. This isn’t covering the hundreds of acts in the other stages, just popular names.
And as for Mr Henry, who would have absolutely went down a storm doing a standup comedy act in the Theatre field even 30 years ago, his comments are also based on watching it on the telly, it doesn’t appear if he’s attended, and that was a throwaway comment stuck out as he’s promoting his new documentary.
St Paul’s Carnival? Was it £1 or £5 you paid to get in? That hardly seems to be a comparison to the £280 to get into Glastonbury. Notting Hill is free too. I think I also remember why I stopped going, thinking £125 was too much. Who’s going to that?
And as for the writer writing that article, I don’t know what’s she’s whinging about, A “black feminist punk band”? I can’t think of anything more up Glastonbury’s street (and anything less likely to attract a main stream hip-hop fan) that that description.
And finally, to give this context, here’s 2009’s poster. See if you can work out who’s playing. I tried to find one of the last ones I went to, headliner James Brown in 2004, but I couldn’t find the poster. So here’s 2009’s which is pretty typical amount for most years in the last 30 odd.
2009 lineup. I’d take a shot there’s at least 150 acts in there.
Not much to disagree with here.
Further points to the OP:
Ask the people of Pilton (the quiet English village taken over by the ‘Glastonbury’ Festival nearly every year). You’ll get (at least) two sets of answers. Anecdotally, many people leave town for the week.
Did anyone ever ask Max Yasgur’s neighbo(u)rs what they thought?
Of course, it’s called ‘Glastonbury’ because the town of Glastonbury has been super-cool for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years. But it’s 7 miles away. I’m sure Glastonbury businesses get major commercial benefit, as does Frome (near me). Pilton, not so much.
Declaring a (minor) interest: I worked professionally some years ago on a major heritage construction project in Pilton that was funded by Mr Eavis.
Yeah, even back in the 90s before it became big, it looked pretty awful for the locals. Castle Cary runs a bus which dumps you with a half an hour walk down and up hills to the gates, and it looked like a nice little village basically full of tens of thousands of people walking through it, drinking cider and taking rests and indeed passing out in their garden…
I think when it became bigger I heard that Eavis was going to provide security and various organisational things to help the locals, but we drove the last few times, so never saw those changes.
Many years ago Eavis pushed in front of me at a Little Chef, so consequently I never went to the festival despite living nearby.
Re: Lenny Henry, according to the link below the percentage of the UK population who are black is 3% I bet there were at least 3% in the audience, what was he expecting?
Kanye West played Glastonbury one year; I only know because it came up on Mock The Week.
2015, a year with Lionel Richie, Pharrell Williams, Gary Clark Jr., Mary J. Blige, Chronixx, one lesser stages so likely not shown on TV: Grace Jones and The Mothership Returns: George Clinton, Parliament, Funkadelic & The Family Stone (not sure if Rudimental counts, mixed lineup).
People bring up the objections to Jay-Z as some sort of “they hate black music” controversy. The objections seemed to be not really liking lyrics such as “99 Problems and a B*tch aint one”.
