Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood @ Glastonbury 27.6.10

I can’t think of a better time to put this up than late August.

When Radiohead hit Glastonbury it’s huge, summer-defining stuff. The 1997 set is engrained in Glastonbury folklore and 2003 isn’t far behind. So when people say that the best rock band in the world is playing Glastonbury this weekend, you wonder how people knew they were turning up, (well, half; the important half)because they obviously don’t mean Muse.

There are the usual whispers around all Park stage’s infamous guest spot. The most outlandish suggests none other than Paul McCartney is going to show up. That would be nice; it’s just that the memory of waiting for something big – if not necessarily good – like The Libertines or Coldplay to show up last year and just escaping a Klaxons show still haunts me. In troubled nights I can still hear the obnoxious punctuations of ‘DJ!’ (Oh! Oh! Oh!) and air-sirens as I fled past those less fortunate.

This year, spying the stage with trepidation from a casual distance, sharing Twitter intel with others, it soon becomes clear the Radiohead shout has some weight. The quiet corner the Park Stage occupies starts to get awfully crowded; a Gibson EG gets pulled out and set up, followed by a sunburst Telecaster. It’s on.

Eavis comes on to seal the deal and suddenly they’re playing Idioteque as sunlight splinters over Glastonbury and the heat finally relents. It’s a wonderful, euphoric moment you can’t help but grin even after the giddy excitement of the reveal has died down; the enthusiasm is such that a well-versed crowd shows a keen ear and voluntarily fills in Ed’s absent groans in a performance of Arpeggi and launches into the reverie-like refrain of Karma Police (For a minute there, I lost myself) unprompted after a rousing performance, much to Thom’s amusement who seems more than relaxed, playfully remonstrating with himself (declaring ‘Fucking amateurs’ after stumbling over the Black Swan intro) and grinning at the audience.

It’s half a Thom Yorke solo show and on paper they better as Radiohead at Reading last year, but it doesn’t matter. After seven years absence it’s the spectacle of a seminal band reasserting themselves at the start of another decade of Glastonbury that trumps it and produces a spontaneous and truly communal event. The special, surprise nature of the show, taking place in the one of the quietest, sequestered corners of Glastonbury, only adds to the spectacular nature of the proceedings.

Naturally, it’s over too soon and a deliriously happy audience filter back into the body of the festival. Outbursts of song ripple through the crowd and people share breathless reviews over the phone like excited schoolchildren. It’s hard to imagine a mightier Glastonbury performance this year. Furthermore, it’s hard to imagine them more awe-inspiring in ’97 and ’03.

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MP3: Radiohead – Permanent Daylight
MP3: Radiohead – Karma Police

Glastonbury 2010

One of the most instructive things at Glastonbury are the snatches of conversation you catch as you move around the site. It’s like an early beta of Twitter, only less banal. The average festival-goer would do well to have this mind when incoherently explaining that Glastonbury is bigger than the music or how wonderful its vibe is. Like Twitter, these brief bites of semi-formed thought represent a zeitgeist of sorts. I can’t think of a more concise description of the festival than the one offered by a gentleman who cheerfully exclaimed, ‘I’m inside a festival!’ when on the phone to someone outside the festival, presumably.

The guy was intoxicated, like everyone else wandering along the old railway track at two in the morning, but there’s wisdom in it. The Reading equivalent would have soberly noted ‘I’m at a festival,’ merely noting that you’re staying there for a while, visiting it, which is an expected response for a festival where a 24-hour Tescos is within walking distance through a dilapidated industrial estate. At Reading, you’re in Reading. Glastonbury has no obvious connection to society. Glastonbury is huge. Arriving at night is like intruding upon the staging grounds for an invasion, the clandestine excitability of the Wednesday night is palpable; arrive during the day and you’ve stumbled across a fully functioning city unassumingly nestled in the Somerset countryside. A mystical glade where people dance outside wine bars and say things like, ‘I’m inside a festival!’ when on the phone.

Writing a review in parts, with scores and meticulous, somehow remembered, details of each act is a fine way to colour by numbers and give a representation of the festival of sorts, but it doesn’t truly capture the place. Whenever I cast my mind back I’ve few memories related to the music that was put on. Encounter the average Glastonbury refugee and they’ll fumble with their impression of the place, blurt out the well-worn, Guardian-fueled cliché that ‘it’s just so much more than the music,’ before unhelpfully concluding ‘you just had to be there’ or that ‘they can’t really explain it’.

Having been there, I like to think they’re picturing moments similar to my Wednesday night encounter with a girl who, perched over a piano in the middle of a field, responded to my drunken inquiry of ‘do you know any Beethoven?’ – a request delivered in an unintentionally facetious tone and a self-satisfied smirk- by busting out Moonlight Sonata at a moment’s notice, a perfect choice from the man’s extensive back-catalogue that captured the spirit of the moment better than most of the weekend’s acts. A touching moment I’m sure you’ll agree and important to note that his Beethoven aficionado wasn’t one of the many entertainers or cabaret acts out in force all over the festival site, but simply a fellow reveler. Over the following days I spy someone grappling with Chopin and another happy to knock out Chopsticks at the same piano. Events like this detail the serendipity and ‘wonder’ of Glastonbury that is so hard to convey, but also, more simply, the altruism the place inspires. It’s a home to the 175,000 guests and despite its busyness there’s never the feeling that you’re being hearded for profit. The site is littered with unnecessary but welcome touches such as hammocks, see-saws and other amenities and there’s a feeling, perhaps born from year after year of muddy squalls that we’re all in it together – and not in a faux ConLib sort of way, but an honest empathy for everyone else at the festival. People exchange chilled, smiley glances and chat with strangers across class, age and, more significantly, music taste barriers. There’s a strong, tangible feeling of goodwill at the place. England-shirted lads chat with Am Appy-hoodied metrosexuals. Crusty veterans share their knowledge with straw hatted, wide-eyed first timers. To my mind, Glastonbury is the only festival that doesn’t have a specific ‘type’. Beyond its hippy roots, there seems to be a reason why darlings of the left such a Tony Benn and Billy Bragg are permanent members of the furniture here: after a century of failed struggle, Glastonbury feels like the noblest remember that a better world is possible. I think the Reading equivalent of moonlight girl would have told me to fuck off or played something barbarous like Muse.

There were of course plenty of barbarous things like Muse at the festival. For example, Muse headlined Saturday night, but there’s always plenty of other music on offer. I manage to catch Rolf Harris, Phoenix, Snoop Dogg and half of Radiohead in one day – as shining an endorsement of the festivals diversity and absence of snobbery as you’re likely to get. You might decide to not even listen to music; the cinema tent or the cabaret field might be for you. For example, the balding men dotted in the Gorillaz audience bearing paunches and negative moods, complaining that Damon Albarn’s cartoon band weren’t U2 could have quite easily have found a band that offered a decent impression of 80s arena-rock juggernauts chasing former glories – just like U2 do today. Even if you are having a less than fantastic time it seems almost churlish to show it. Hare Krishnas, the bane of the Oxford Street shopper, are tolerated, and welcomed here despite the withering heat.

Glastonbury is a festival that’s bigger than any of the acts it books, true, but that’s not to say that the acts don’t matter, it’s just my enjoyment of them is nearly always informed but what else I happened to be doing before, during and after. Watching Vampire Weekend in glorious, relentless sunshine with a pear cider in each hand to beat the queues at the bar having just seen a father lift his infant daughter on his shoulders for her to add to a tower of beer cups to adoring cheers. The growing whispers that it would be Radiohead showing up at the Park Stage on Friday evening, that lead into a conversation with a group of people about Twitter apps and discovering that I wasn’t the only one enterprising (read: stupid) enough to bring an iPhone and a ‘normal’ phone. The pure bliss of the hazy evening that Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood would perform in and the ecstatic happiness of everyone in that packed corner of the festival site as they wandered out of The Park. Serendipitously bumping into a friend of a friend at the front of Beach House identified by the Glastonbury map he was holding made by another friend of friend. Watching Gorillaz with a fellow lost-soul, discovering they live five minutes down the road from me and that we probably share a disgusting amount of mutual friends. A shared grinning glance with someone in the LCD Soundsystem crowd that communicated brilliantly ‘isn’t this fucking brilliant!’ And later peaking too soon during LCD and having no recollection of Stevie Wonder’s set apart from being there and dancing, then walking past an ice cream van and waking up at 6am Monday Morning in my tent. All very personal and individual memories drawn from the same source, it’s easy to see why it’s hard to communicate.

After a thousand words or so what I’m saying is, if you want to really understand Glastonbury you just have to be there. I can’t really explain it. You just have to get inside of it and map it out for yourself.

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MP3: Happy Birthday – Stevie Wonder

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MP3: Karma Police – Radiohead

Glastonbury headliners confirmed?

The rumours of Muse and Stevie Wonder to be added as headliners alongside U2 seem to have been all but confirmed.

U2 are definitely the kind of band I wouldn’t say I like, but would be more than happy to see if they were just there to be seen. Muse I really have grown tired of, as I’ve explained many a time before, but are undeniably a great spectacle band for a festival. If there’s not a suitable alternative like Animal Collective during Neil Young last year, I’ll probably be content to observe their performance. Just feels a bit too soon to be inviting them back, Radiohead declined a slot recently on ‘environmental’ grounds and the fact they’d played in 1997 and 2003 – would be nice for Muse to show a similar reserve, especially in a year where they’re playing Wembley Stadium again.

But the biggest news for me has to be Stevie Wonder. It’s a choice that feels very oddball for a festival that can be unbearably white at times, but the more you think about it, the more it just makes sense for Sunday night. He’s got the hits, he’s got that feel-good vibe in his music. It’ll be a wonderful way to end the weekend. Great news, hopefully he’ll get confirmed.

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MP3: Stevie Wonder – Superstition
MP3: Muse – Knights of Cydonia (Live @ Wembley Stadium ’08)

Glastonbury Roundup – Sunday

Previously on Misspeak…
Glastonbury Roundup – Saturday
Glastonbury Roundup – Friday


Sunday



Music From The Penguin Cafe – Acoustic Cafe

Late start due to catastrophic/lulsy/bewildering/unknown events of the previous night and a return to the acoustic tent. Quite a bit better than Jason Mraz, but it’s all a bit advertish, isn’t it? I don’t know whether that’s whether because the music has an inherent quality that makes it sound like it belongs in the Sims building menu, or whether it’s just because it’s been appropriated by so many Ikea adverts or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. It’s quite a bit better than Jason Mraz. Quite a bit.

5/10

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Other Stage

Somehow turned up to this late despite intending to and arriving in time for it (did anyone else? Was it pushed forward or something?), so missed the first quarter or of the gig. Bummer.

But they put on a good show of what I did see. Karen O is dressed as extravagantly as ever, wearing what appears to be the deranged fusion of an overly enthusiastic pre-school teacher and a Sioux Indian Chief, which of course, is a look only she can pull off. Whilst she stomps around stage to the New Wave strutter of Zero, a massive inflatable eye is released into the crowd and mysteriously disappears…somewhere. And guitarist Nick Zinner yanks a handheld camera that is suspended from the roof of the stage on a piece of elastic, and records the crowd, the other band members, and whatever really…it’s quite a bizarre spectacle.

After storming through the fan-favourites of Zero and Turn Into, the gig hits a slight bump as a couple of slower songs are rolled out, not necessarily weaker songs, Skeletons and Soft Shock are perfectly nice songs, but they lack that festival feel and being new had little sway on the audience like, say, Maps did. I’ll admit to yawning and feeling the eyelids droop a little during the Celtic melodies of Skeletons, more down to the escapades of the night before and being at the end of a very long, very eventful week more than anything, but still, performers should bare such things in mind when they’re playing the last day of a festival, right? Especially a band as riotous and raw as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Still, the performance ends on a high, brought back to life by a skilled exhibition of the many sides of the band. In a four song flurry we get glittering New Wave pop, grimy, punkish garage rock and bittersweet post-punk. As the distorted reverberations of Date With The Night, a song much better suited for a bleary eyed festival Sunday, I surge forward for another female songsmith who’s going to look strangely under dressed in the wake of Karen O.

8/10

Bat for Lashes – Other Stage

Right at the front for this one, thanks to my awful timekeeping, my self-awareness, reserved, English nature and the crushing sense of guilt that I get from barging past people at gigs (probably the hair), it was probably my first time at the very front of any gig. So front and centre that I appeared on television coverage of the set, according to friends watching at home, not me, obviously.

Anyway, despite having some of the best seats in the house, I was disappointed by Bat for Lashes, again. I saw her (nearly) exactly a year ago in support of Radiohead at Victoria Park. The large, outdoor, festival stage didn’t suit her introverted, delicate sound then and it doesn’t suit it now.

A few of her bigger anthems get the crowd bumping along nicely, Glass, Horse and I and Daniel all do a decent job of involving the audience and it’s all very nice on the ears, but at a festival you always need something more than that to make the blisters, sore eyes and below satisfactory hygiene conditions worthwhile.

Essentially, Bat for Lashes is headphone music for night-time listening. The imagery she crafts in her music is all very involving and vivid when you’re sat at home, but in a huge field, it’s alienating, even if you are on the front row. I’m sure she’s great at the Hammersmith Apollo or whatever; I hope I get the chance to find out, but it’s two from two on the disappointment front so far. Merely Ok, rather than great. Which is a shame when you love her music as I do.

6/10

Another break, another failed attempt to get into the JazzWorld field. This time it was crowded out by Roots Manuva, someone I’d wanted to see with a little more earnestness than Rolf Harris. Disappointing. Glastonbury organisers: sort it for next year, yeah?

After some more lulsy liaisons around the now infamous Orange Chill’n’Charge tent, I go to the Pyramid stage for the final time.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Pyramid Stage

Once again I found myself in front of the pyramid stage after failing to get elsewhere. I wonder how much of the stage’s audience over the weekend are only there for similar reasons?

Not a huge fan of Nick Cave, really. I’ve always found his lyrical style a little…rambling and overly verbose, but I had to be near the front for Blur who were the band to see, for me at least.

I eeek my way forward in the crowd, my previous good-manner nature is fading away as, quite frankly, I’m going to be on my way home in less than 24 hours and I’m never going to see any of these people again – at least no until next year. My Glastonbury goodwill is fading away.

Perched just behind the anti-crush barrier, I have my first celebrity encounter of the week; as I turn around to judge the number of losers standing behind me, I double-take and realise that none other than (former) Countdown math supremo Carol Vorderman is behind me. Holy shit! Does it get bigger than that?

Carol Vorderman. A Nick Cave fan, or at least a Blur fan wanting to be near the front. Who’d of thought it? I always had her down as the sort of achingly upper-middle classed type who only listens to Vivaldi and The Beatles.

Amazing. Nick Cave finishes his set and I’m still star struck.

Carol Vorderman/10

Blur – Pyramid Stage


Ok, here we go, the main event. Let me start, as I have done with most of this sham of a ‘review’, with something largely unrelated to the performance. I wasn’t the only one excited at the prospect of Blur, nor was I the only one whose Glastonbury spirit was waning. I wasn’t really around when the band were at the peak of their popularity during the whole Oasis beef, though the video for Coffee and TV was one of my first memories of being enthralled by a music video – behind Thriller, obviously – and the Gorillaz would be amongst the first wave of bands that I would appropriate to forge some sort of identity at secondary school as younger teenagers are wont to do. Being more familiar with the ‘artier’, pre and post-millennial stages of the band, I was a little shocked at the clientele that were being drawn to the Pyramid Stage for this last hurrah. I’m not too much of a snob, but, at least in my part of the crowd, the people were not your typical Glastonbury punters. Infact I hadn’t seen any of these kind people for the past five days. More Daily Sport than Guardian, polo-shirts, casual racism -a little bit, maybe – beer rather than cider and chucking bottles of what I sincerely hoped was water, or, in a worse case scenario, lemonade.

Presumably these were the children of Brit-Pop, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I just always imagined that the Blur crowd would be a bit more erudite and bourgeois; these were the people that Pulp rallied against in Mis-shapes. This isn’t what I expected. This was more like what I would imagine an Oasis crowd would be like, not a Blur crowd. Not the Blur that went to Goldsmiths, that wrote Caramel and whose members have since moved on from mere pop music to become Labour Party candidates, connoisseur cheese farmers, write operas based on ancient Chinese mythology and wear thick-rimmed spectacles.

Regardless, these big and intimidating people were pushing me to the front. In a way, it was the perfect situation. As I rammed into Nick Cave fans attempting to leave or trampled over others attempting to the front, I could earnestly smile, flash my eyebrows, mumble ‘sorry’ , nod my head and roll my eyes back at the lads on tour that were pushing me through. They weren’t going to protest too much, really.

After riding the crowd surge forward I found myself very near the front and at the centre. Excellent. The moral of this story: Burly, middle-aged, thugs can be used to gain preferential positions at gigs for 90s Britpop bands!

During a pre-kick off crush which I was certain that someone was going to get trampled to death in – a girl did throw up over herself, but that was it – I had my second, and last, celebrity encounter of the week, none other than famous children’s television entertainer Richard McCourt! I wasn’t surprised that he was a Blur fan, really. I could see it in his eyes during all those episodes of Dick’n’Dom In Da Bungalow.

So, the music…as you already know, the gig was amazing, magical, thrilling, the best Glastonbury headliners in years etc etc. I can’t really add much beyond that. It was pretty, pretty, pretty good. Apart from a brief wander into territory too ‘arty’ and too obscure with Popscene and Advert, during which my mind would wander during a lesser gig, but in this instance I merely used to have a breather, it was a perfect setlist. All the hits from all periods of the band’s existence, everything from There’s No Other Way all the way through to Out of Time. The band indulged in all aspects of their career, even Country House got a run out, a song that the band had less than kind feelings towards in their later iterations, much to the crowd’s delight.

The highlight, though? Despite the presence of blockbuster, band and era defining hits like The Universal, Song 2 and a Phil Daniels backed Parklife, and, despite being sandwiched between the heavyweights of Country House and Coffee and TV, the surprise highlight was Tender, which enjoyed a spontaneous extension of the song’s closing refrain from a crowd that was now eating from the palm of Blur’s hand. A song that had never really clicked before tonight and was never a big hit on its release; the band too seemed taken aback and Damon in particular seemed overwhelmed. The sense of occasion was palpable; you could tell there and then that this would be the soundbite, the image that would be used to sum up this year’s Glastonbury.

I guess that’s what makes festivals, or at least, festivals like Glastonbury, so special. They’re spontaneous, slightly anarchic and always exceeding expectations. In retrospect, it made sense that such a bleary eyed, reflective and liberally refrained (Come on, come on, come, come/oh my baby, oh my baby. Oh why? Oh my!…etc) should be the anthem for the closing credits of a memorable festival as darkness descended over Glastonbury for a final time. It was the right song at the right time. Such a well timed execution was a lesson that many of the performers over the weekend would do well to learn and exploit, many tried, but Blur nailed it.

The gig didn’t peter out after that, of course. Blur were spectacular for the second half of the gig too, but it’s well, all a bit of a blur after that (sorry). There was a lot of moshing, a lot of singing at the top of your lungs and then the dream like amble back to your tent, smiling at strangers in the darkness and humming half-remembered melodies to yourself like a drunk (I wasn’t drunk). Therein lays the irony of going to such events; people will always slightly patronise you, harassing you to go, telling you rather vaguely and wankily that you have to be there to truly ‘experience’ the ‘feel’ and ‘spirit’ of the place but, when you do go, the memories will usually be too intense, too vivid to really survive in any salvageable sense once you’re back in the real world. Infact, they’ll probably have completely faded by the time you awake for that depressing Monday morning start where the tents are being packed away, litter is strewn everywhere and the muddy quagmire doesn’t look quite as ‘romantic’ as it did last afternoon.

I couldn’t have written any of these pieces without the help of aide memoirs such as the BBC’s excellent coverage, setlists on other, more efficiently updated, blogs, youtube videos and other media outlets. Anyone who has read all of this (well done on getting this far) will notice that quite a number of my reviews have been a little hare-brained and loose on details, well, that’s because I really can’t remember that much, or at least I can’t communicate it.

All I can really say for certain is that Blur were excellent, flawless. And the Festival was very, very good and you should definitely go there yourself. It really is the only way you can hope to experience the feel and spirit of the place. Television just doesn’t do it justice.

10/10

MP3: Blur – Song 2

MP3: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Black Betty

MP3: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

Glastonbury Roundup: Saturday

Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel?
Or just twenty thousand people standing in a field?

Saturday

Eagles of Death Metal – Pyramid Stage

After failing to get anywhere near the Jazzworld stage for Rolf Harris I settled for the familiar Pyramid Stage and some rock’n’roll. I’m only peripherally familiar with their music via Queens of the Stone Age, unfortunately they don’t have the tunes or the live show that Qotsa have. Thought In fairness, I was never going to get into it so early when I knew so little, so there was always going to be a limit to my enjoyment, but once again the size of the stage and the scale of the audience sort of hampered my enjoyment. Definitely a band that would be better in a sweaty club somewhere.

4/10

Due to growing frustrations with the festival’s biggest asset and hinderence, it’s scale, and having overdosed on too much white rock music over the past 24 hours, I escape to the Park Stage for something a little different.

Easy Star All Stars – Park Stage

Ok. A band that does Reggae covers of white rock artists wasn’t the clean break I was imagining, but I was tired and wasn’t going to walk around too much, plus, they were doing Ok Computer one of my favourite albums, so I stuck around.

And I wasn’t disappointed. I was familiar with the band, but not familiar with their covers. I love reggae, my first memories of music was Bob Marley being played non-stop in the house, a memory that I’d like to proudly attribute to my strong Jamaican cultural heritage, but it was Bob Marley and everyone listens to Bob Marley. Regardless it’s a genre I’ve always liked, the dubbier the better and as they ran through their off-beat covers of perhaps the definitive album of the 90s (If not the 20th century!!11) I began to really enjoy myself.

The Park Stage is wonderfully intimate, but not small. The stage is at the bottom-centre of a horseshoe hill so it has a nice amphitheater effect with everyone getting a nice view of the stage, no large haircuts, freakishly tall people or annoying, sometime topless (but still annoying) women on men’s shoulders blocking your view, plus as it was quite quiet – which was surprising considering the special guests that were rumored to be playing on the stage in a few hours- I chilled and had a little dance to the music genre invented for easy dancing.

Their covers are inventive and put their own unique mark upon songs that are incredibly hard to put a mark on. Ok Computer is very much an album’s album, it’s a complete song-cycle about a large number of subjects, it wears its theme’s on its sleeve and it has some awkward time-signatures, signatures that almost definitely don’t appear in Reggae music, so the prospect of any performance built around covers of Ok Computer should fill someone with dread, let alone covers in a genre committedly stuck in 4/4.

The Easy Star’s are not a typical cover band though and by adding some brass, extended bass solos and a guitarist who does a surprisingly good job of aping Jonny Greenwood they take it in their stride; the crowd, half white rock fans looking to get away from white rock music for a while, but only half-suceeding, and half white faux hippy Rastafarians that have adapted their long dreadlocks into a pseudo-religious, cultural statement (when really its just poor hygiene), are appreciative.

Saturday is off and running and I’ve finally found another stage to enjoy!

8/10

Shlomo and Guests – Park Stage

Jarvis Cocker!

The Glastonbury line-up tells me Horace Andy was on between these two artists but I definitely didn’t see him and I don’t remember what I did between seeing this and Easy Star so the line-up might be wrong, anyway…

This was really quite good. Quite novelty, not something I would indulge in outside of a festival and definitely not something I would listen to at my desk, but a great hour or so’s entertainment.

Shlomo is basically a beatboxer/voice-manipulation artist, a less famous, popular Beardyman if you will. Though browsing through his resume on Wikipedia I was probably a lot more familiar with his work than I realised at the time.

So basically, we get a lot of covers. Him and his vocal choir of fellow beatboxers are amazingly skipped and throw together a few interpretations of songs using only their voices (obviously) it’s not amazing, but it draws a smile and makes you laugh. A perfect afternoon ‘matinee’ act. During this process we get guest appearances from Imogen Heap, DJ Yoda and Jarvis Cocker to name a few. Shlomo and the vocal orchestra collaborate with Imogen and Cocker, performing a few of their songs and have a ‘battle’ with DJ Yoda, in which he spins a few sections of records and challenges the orchestra to replicate it on the spot, they succeed of course and the crowd are won over. I decide I really want to see Jarvis Cocker instead of Bruce Springsteen. History is made!

7/10

Special Guests…The Klaxons – Park Stage

Ahhh crap, this was supposed to be Muse or something big! I hurriedly clamber through the crowd and leave the Park stage shortly after a keyboard is wheeled out and some obsessive fan behind me overexcitedly tells his mates that ‘that’s the bass that *insert relevant band member’s name* uses that is’. As I leave the opening, inane strains of Golden Skans echoes in the wind. A close shave.

Dissapointing/10

After some rendezvous making hi-jinks and time spent in the horrible, sweaty, orange and nauseatingly titled Orange Chill’n’Charge tent (which, as well as being a venue to ‘chill’, charge, and presumably do anything else alliterative that comes to mind, is also a mini-venue for music too awful to be put on anywhere else) that comes about as everyone’s phones, including my own, are dying due to failing batteries, I end up back at the Park Stage albiet briefly, first for some dinner (Falafel, lovely.) and then for…

M Ward – Park Stage

Only stayed here for a few post-falafel songs. Seemed nice. Not really aware of his music outside a few namedrops in Pitchfork and the like, a nice sound-down act, but we had to get moving for…

Jarvis Cocker – John Peel Tent

After another little wander around the site which includes a perilous journey traversing through the nether regions of a packed Bruce Springsteen crowd – One thing you never see on television coverage is that behind the flags and the darkness is a sizeable seated audience on the hills at the rear of the field, some barbecues even, and they don’t take kindly to outsiders passing through their property – we arrived at a fresh venue, the John Peel Tent.

Bruce was my least anticipated of the headliners but I had intended to see him. I love Born to Run and was aware of his live reputation but seeing Jarvis pop up at Shlomo I had to give in. I like his solo stuff, love his stage manner, and I thought there might be the outside chance he’d play some Pulp stuff.

He didn’t.

But still, great show. A marginal amount of the audience obviously had similar hopes to me as they left the tent when it became clear he wasn’t going to be offering a repeat of 1995, but oh well, more room for me.

The sound in Peel tent was pretty bad, a world away from the surprisingly crisp sound at the Pyramid and Other stages, you’d think it’d be easy to sort out the sound for a smaller audience but clearly not. The whole stage is also in complete opposition to the wonderful placement of the Park Stage in relation to its surroundings; the centre of the John Peel Tent is a slight hill, which means that you will have a harder time getting a clear line of sight unless you’re quite near the front. Sucky stage.

Anyway, back to Jarvis. He’s a hell of a performer, that right hard is completely unrestrained, hypnotic even…

The songs are ok, his solo stuff doesn’t really hold a flame to the heights of Pulp’s excellence, but his performance, the anecdotes and the general Glastonbury goodwill he has earnt over the years sees him through. He’s one of the few artists who you would happily hear simply talk for hours, it’s almost a disappointment when he reigns in one of his musings to perform another song…when he’s not playing Pulp songs, at least.

8/10

Show over, I head off into the night. Festival fatigue is starting to show and I mysteriously lose half of my belongings during the night, including, somehow, my trainers.

I arrive back at the campsite at 6AM for a quick sleep before the final day begins proper.

MP3: Easy Star All Stars – Airbag
MP3: Jarvis Cocker – Slush
MP3: Pulp – Sorted for E’s and Whizz

Glastonbury Roundup – Friday

Yeah Yeah, it’s been a week, but I’ve been recuperating from the festival itself, trenchfoot and a nasty cold that may or may not be Swine Flu. There might be a mild exaggeration in that sentence, but I haven’t really been up to this.

So, it was good, very good, excellent even. Rather than delivering why this was the case in a long, sprawling and unfocused essay, I will be doing mini-reviews for all the acts I saw over the weekend. Diverging all my extra curricular activities as well would be a little too thorough and, er, potentially embarrassing and libelous.

Friday

Regina Spektor – Pyramid Stage

Maximo Park‘s opening of the festival at the Queen’s Head the previous day was completely packed and recounting my time at the Silent Disco will not make for riveting reading so we start here, Friday.

So, Michael Jackson‘s dead and it’s raining. Quite heavily. A heavy squall prevents me from venturing out of my flimsily erected tent to enjoy the novelty of Bjorn Again or finding out if the rumours of an appearance by Kanye West in support of Mr Hudson on the Other Stage are true so I find myself at the Pyramid stage with the comely Regina.

As my previous posts on this quirky songsmith would suggest, I was less than entirely ecstatic in the build up to this start to the weekend, but compromises had to be made and, to be fair, she was a fair bit more appealing than the achingly generic NME Indie bands that were playing on other stages, plus, as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know (…hello?) I find her quite easy on the eyes, which is a plus.

With such low expectations it’s probably not that suprising that I quite enjoyed her set. I don’t own or really know any of her stuff, but she is a very captivating performer. Her idiosyncratic nature is disarmingly endearing in the flesh, rather than slightly grating or irritating as it often is on record. Her stodgy new material gets a good airing and is fairly received, even the awful Laughing With sounds vaguely acceptable in the dreary drizzle of the Glastonbury afternoon, a place which isn’t exactly adverse to a bit of schmaltzy spirituality.

Live, she doesn’t do anything markedly different with her songs to make them shine, instead the vocal gymnastics and quirky left turns that litter her tracks become quite infectuous in a live setting and are willingly lapped up by her adoring fans. Sure, her music is often unapologetically saccharine and trite, but when you’re at Glastonbury standing in the drizzle with a few Ciders down you, you don’t really care much when she structures a chorus entirely out of ‘eets’, and she hits a wooden chair with a stick at one point, what’s not to like?

Plus she’s quite easy on the eyes.

7/10

Fleet Foxes – Pyramid Stage

After a short detour during a peculiar set by N*E*R*D in which I was lucky enough to be in earshot to hear Pharrel express his pride at performing to 200,000 people, an impressive feat considering that number was 20,000 people more than were actually on site, and then witness him getting his mic cut shortly after he rebelliously claimed he didn’t give a f*ck about how many minutes he had left, we returned to the Pyramid stage for an alltogether less bellicose act.

Fleet Foxes are a band that I like a lot, their debut was one of my favourites of last year, but as I said on my end of year album list, my enjoyment of their music seems strangely tied to the weather I listen to it in, so the pervading overcastness of the day didn’t help. Nor did the amount of material they performed off the Sun Giant EP, a good EP, but something I’m not as familiar with. Something can be said of the size of the venue overwhelming their sound, as impressive (and as loud) as the Pyramid stage sound system is, it’s not always tight, and some of the finer vocal harmonies sort of get lost in the wind. The same could be said for Regina Spektor, but here the performance is more nuanced, less loveable and less crowd pleasing (and less easy on the eyes).

So sound problems and the understated quality of the Sun Giant EP material that they indulged in meant it took a while to get going, but once Ragged Wood,Your Protector and Olivier James were wheeled out to the fold they began to pick up pace, a real festival band, a real Glastonbury band, Hippy harmonies and all. In fairness, I could put the underwhelming aspects of their performance down to my state of mind and my weird climatological prerequisites, but still it lacked something that was partly down to the venue, but mostly down to the band.

6/10


Jason Mraz – Acoustic Stage

Ugghh, I really don’t remember much of this. Even my friend who was a fan decided to leave before the end, whether that was because I did a poor job disguising my mind-numbing boredom on my usually miserable looking face or because he was just a bit rubbish I don’t know (Sorry if you’re reading this). This guy made about four/five appearances during the weekend, not sure how or why, but it was nice to get away from the Pyramid Stage and explore another part of the festival though, I guess. Fleet Foxes would have been a lot more at home here.

2/10

Neil Young – Pyramid Stage

Short break for Dinner then back down to the now familiar Pyramid Stage. I’m not a huge Neil Young fan and the lure of Q-tip, Bloc Party and Animal Collective on other stages in what is perhaps the most ridiculous of line-up clashes in festival history, was strong but, Neil Young is just one of those iconic artists I wouldn’t normally choose to or get a chance to see again; I’d already seen Bloc Party and Q-tip and will see Animal Collective later in the Summer, so Neil Young it was.

Now I just had the small issue of enjoying the gig. Being ‘not a huge’ Neil Young fan meant that there were gaping holes in my familiarity with his stuff. I had the ‘classics’ as prescribed to me by the trusty Allmusic, After the Gold Rush, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Rust Never Sleeps and a smattering of hits not covered by these albums, Heart of Gold, Like a Hurricane and Rockin’ in the Free World. Regardless, having seen Prince, (twice), another artist with a huge, expansive backcatalog of hits littered through a long career, I was more than aware that I could find myself half-knowingly humming songs that I sort of know from that advert I once heard, or was it on the radio um, yeah. I was also aware of the fact that, like Prince, Neil Young was somewhat famous for his belligerent, uncompromising attitude when it came to his live shows, so I wasn’t holding my breath.

Thankfully, he opened with one of his bigger hits and one of my favourites the (literally, and figuratively) electric, Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black). Anxiety cleared.

What followed was a set thankfully low on recent material that he could have easily plugged, and high on the classics. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Cinnamon girl, The Needle And The Damage Done, Heart of Gold and an epic, much extended Down by the River that featured half a dozen guitar solos, well half a dozen more guitar solos than his other songs.

There were a few missteps. As mentioned, every song did see to feature at least two breaks and a long, distorted, messy outro which does begin to wane after a while. I’m all for whiny, atonal, dissonant guitar playing, but Neil Young often toes the line towards mere noise more often than he does sweet, soaring Hendrix platitudes. Secondly, there were quite a few duff song selections that broke up the momentum of the classics, for example, Mother Earth is a remarkably trite eco-ballad with cringeworthy lyrics of the highest order and whilst it’s always nice to hear The Beatles, especially the untouchable A Day in the Life, it’s perhaps not the best time to hear it when you’re at a Neil Young gig and he hasn’t played some of his classics like Tell Me Why or Like a Hurricane.

Also, the number of refrains tacked on the end of Rockin’ In The Free World was a little ridiculous and unintentionally funny. It’s always been a song that I’ve had a hard time enjoying unironically, sure there’s a very serious message behind the song, but the refrain is just so ridiculous and it’s a song that’s just so un-Neil Young.

As he dismaintled his guitar at the close of A Day in the Life, perhaps as a means of signaling to the audience that there would be no more encores, extended outros or even a zombie-like ressurection of Rockin’ In The Free World from out of nowhere, the audience left mostly happy and contented – despite his slight infractions – at the close Day One of Glastonbury proper. An excellent start by the ‘weakest’ of the three Pyramid stage headlines, and a thankfully dry end to the day after the initial squall. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t play Like A Hurricane?

9/10

As Friday melds into Saturday, I wonder off with the crowd and sample the nightlife of Glastonbury for a third night. Trash City beckons and Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World is lodged in my brain.

Tune in next time for my continuing adventures at Glastonbury. Coming…sometime soon

MP3: Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
MP3: Neil Young – Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
MP3: Regina Spektor – Pound of Flesh

Glastonbury 2009

I wanted to do a more thorough, comprehensive and excitable post about this with a 20+ song playlist to get you in the mood, but as I’m going there in a matter of hours, have only just packed and need some sleep before the big day, I won’t be. The lovingly crafted spotify playlist by the kind people at eFestival forums have already provided a pretty comprehensive taste of the weekend – so I would have been silly bothering anyway.

So yea, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Blur. Special guests rumoured to be anyone from Kanye West to Muse (Despite being based on this, admittedly suspicious tweet by Michael Eavis, famous technophobe, My money’s on Muse to play Park Stage or at least some big rockers…possibly), N*E*R*D are another late addition, The Dead Weather look very, very, very likely to join them as one of those mysterious special guests.

Anyway, regardless It should be pretty good I reckon. Treat yourself to some music from the headliners that you probably already own if you have the most passing of interests in them, and enjoy yourself however you’re enjoying the weekend’s proceedings!

MP3: Neil Young – Tell Me Why

MP3: Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run

MP3: Blur – Coffee and TV

Spotify: eFestivals Glastonbury playlist

New Kings of Leon song ‘Crawl’ available today!

I’m not sure when Kings of Leon got so big. Big enough to warrant headlining Glastonbury at least, but maybe that’s more down to what was a weak Glastonbury headliner wise, rather than as a statement of their world conquering popularity.

Regardless Kings of Leon are definately making the most of their new found ubiquity. After releasing the admittedly excellent ‘Because of the Times’ last year they look set to follow up that success in the studio with another album ‘Only By The Night’ due out – with Arctic Monkey style quickness – on September the 22nd.

And as seems to (thankfully) be the trend this year, they are releasing a taster of that forthcoming album as a free download. ‘Crawl’ will be available for download from NME.COM beteewn 3pm and 5pm GMT time. I’m not sure why NME are only offering it for download for 2 hours, they can’t be that niave to think that people will only be getting it from them. Anyway, if you miss that small window I’ll be uploading the song here sometime this evening along with my initial impressions.

MP3: Kings of Leon – Charmer

Jay Z’s Intro Video at Glastonbury

This is the video montage that was played before Jay Z’s enterance at Glastonbury. Nice to see a little more ribbing of Noel Gallagher and Oasis.

Jay Z makes Noel Gallagher look like an irrelevant cunt. Amy Winehouse punches people.

As promised here is the opening slice from Jay Z’s Glastonbury headlining set, a nice little ‘fuck you’ to Oasis and imparticular Noel Gallagher. In a sort of “I’m in your stage, playing your songs, stealing your audience” sort of way. He followed up immediately with AC/DC fueled 99 problems, apologies for the fawning cunt that is Zane Lowe at the beginning but it’s the best video I could find.

The rest of the setlist along with other Glastonbury highlights, of which there were many are all over Youtube. Here’s another one that has provoked quite a lot of “discussion”

Michael Eavis defended her by suggesting that someone had “grabbed her boob” but from the video I can’t really seen any boob gropage. Her whole performance was a little harebrained and all over the place, so maybe she though someone looked at her funny.