What have I done?
I'm going to the Glastonbury Festival. I have bought and paid for my ticket. It's got my name and face on it. What was I thinking? I've bought a tent. Next, I'm going to buy a sleeping bag. And a little fold-up chair. For five nights, I am going to be sleeping outside. During the day, I am going to be watching bands play. I haven't done this for 14 years. It's all my brother-in-law's fault! He and his friends have been going for the past few years and creating a kind of male midlife crisis village, and they invited me along. I said yes. (I was drunk. It was a Christmas party.) There's something appealing about going back. I know it's changed. I know it's more civilised now. People didn't even have mobile phones when I last went. That's a paradigm shift in itself. You can now watch it on telly, all weekend, as it happens, on various platforms, which I do, happily, every year. There's no need to actually go! But I'm going anyway.
My first Glastonbury was 1989. I was a 24-year-old cub reporter at the NME. I had already bought my ticket when I was asked to sit in on the Glastonbury meeting, and when this arose, I was seized upon: how quaint, an NME employee who'd paid for a ticket! I was commissioned there and then to write a piece about what's like to be "an ordinary punter"! It was, as anybody's first festival experience should be, a mindfuck. This was the year the NME inaugurated its first ever branded merchandise stall, and I put in a few hours behind the trestle table, selling cassettes and t-shirts with the rest of the staff. I camped. The sun shone. Suzanne Vega was not shot, despite a death threat. I ate vegetarian food, as I was a vegetarian, and was photographed for the paper in a vest and sunglasses.
I was a convert. Never having been camping as a kid, I enjoyed being under canvas far more than I expected, and the food was just lovely. In 1990, I stopped paying for Glastonbury tickets, and was sent my first car pass. That year, I was charged with reviewing the Comedy Tent - the first one? - all weekend, and because it had rained, I didn't even pitch my tent, preferring to sleep in the car. Because of my comedy duties, I missed the Cure and Happy Mondays, but was happy to have such a cool job.
There was no festival in 1991.
In 1992, my last as an NME journalist, it was sunny all weekend, but I was working. Working really hard. This is all told in detail in That's Me In The Corner, but in order to turn the copy around "overnight" (ie. deliver it by Monday morning in time to go to press), for the first time ever, the reviewing duties for the entire three-day event were split between myself and David Quantick. We had a good time, but had to stay up all night on the Sunday at my flat, deciphering our notes and typing it all up. The coverage, in glorious black and white (you couldn't print colour at that stage in the olden days), was impressionistic, to say the least. It almost got our editor sacked, because Select, new kid on the block, managed to turn around a full-colour supplement within a week. It made us look like amateurs.
In 1993, I was working for Select. Again, I was involved in covering the entire festival - from Velvet Underground to Lenny Kravitz - and we were all at our computers by Monday, laying it all out, but it remains one of my favourite Glastonburys, not least because Stuart Maconie, who was there to review the food, hightailed it out of there in the back of the Tansards' minibus after one day on duty, with half his face sunburned and the other half under his famous fringe. I felt like a real old veteran, who could handle anything. I slept in a hire car backstage, now my preferred VIP method of camping.
In 1994, another hot one, we had a great weekend, watching Manic Street Preachers, Orbital, Galliano - although I gave the editor of my new employers Q a fright when I appeared, live, on Channel 4's inaugural TV coverage, very late at night, and gave a "refreshed" interview to Mark Radcliffe, during which I asked him to touch my hair. Fortunately, they captioned me as "Andrew Collins, Radio 1" and not Q. Not my finest hour.
In 1995, the weekend was dominated by Pulp's magnificent appearance on the Pyramid Stage, replacing the Stone Roses. By now, I'm afraid to say, I was spending the majority of the time backstage, in the ever-friendly paddock, where Robert Sandall of the Sunday Times would have his picnic basket, and a jolly time was had by all. No rain. Slept in the car again.
And that's it. There was no festival in 1996, which was probably a good thing for my health, as Glastonbury can be a punishing experience; I was in my thirties now, and ready for retirement. I felt I had done my time by 1997 - six Glastonburys in eight years, and a number of Readings - and opted not to take the usual free ticket and car pass. And it pissed down that year, the first of the real horror stories, so I must admit I was relieved to be sat in front of the TV.
And now, 14 years later, I'm going again. Voluntarily. Part of me is looking forward to going back, seeing if I recognise the old place - I'm certainly happy to be seeing Kasabian and Blur and even Bruce Springsteen, someone I'd never normally pay to be in the same room as. Another part of me is dreading the deprivation of it all. I'm 44. I'm not reviewing it for anybody. I don't have a backstage armband, nor am I seeking one. I don't have a car pass. I won't be picnicking with Robert Sandall. And, due to the admirable commitment of my travelling companions, I'll be heading down there on the Wednesday and leaving on the Monday morning. Must buy some wellies and some waterproof trousers too.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:13 AM
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17 Comments:
Hope this doesn't come across as being too cheeky but aren't you now the target audience for Glasto? It's not really for 'the kids' anymore given the expense of it. That said I'm 28 and would love to be going for Neil Young alone.
Just hope and pray it doesn't rain.
If it doesn't (as I'm sure you know) it's a fantastic weekend, there's pretty much all the bands you could ever want there and you'll skip happily around sampling them all. Or at least I did.
If it does rain, the clay-based mud makes things a real nightmare. The bands all still play but it takes so much longer to get there you may find yourself arriving at the end of their set, by which time it's off to another stage to repeat the same thing. Or at least I did.
Have you not heard the non-Springsteen Springsteen album, The Seeger Sessions? He sounds like he's been eating tin shards in a mountain wood cabin for a decade. It may turn you...
Anna x
I have my fingers firmly crossed for good weather this year. In the weeks leading up to Glastonbury my excitement always fluctuates from excited to some kind of delirious fever depending on the weather outside.
Here's to 5 days of drinking pear cider (but Brothers rather than Magners) in the sun!
Dave, York
Ace! See you there. I went to Glastonbury the last time in 1993 when I was 19. I didn't go again, apart from one Sunday when I got under the fence (1999?) until last year. It is a bit less mad these days, but it is packed- you can barely get a rizla between the tents. I'm going this year as well. If it's wet, I'm going home. Fuck that. Otherwise, it should be fun.
My second successive festival this year. Pleased that the long range forecast on Met Check, unreliable as it may be, went from some rain to no rain.
Will be no-where near Springsteen on Saturday, ugh. Seeing Neil Young on the Wednesday in Aberdeen and Blur after Glastonbury so that leaves me free to do a lot of other stuff all festival.
I meant to say in my previous message that like you last year I was "dreading the deprivation of it all" as well, wondering if I was too old for this sort of thing, whether I could still hack it. And pretty much as soon as I got there, and certainly as soon as my tent was up and I was sat on the grass drinking cider, I knew I could. It will be fine. So long as it doesn't rain.
I'd love to go "one year". Maybe in another few years the kids will be old enough to be left at home for a few days without burning down or selling the house (or my guitars).
One day.
I wonder if this will be the first festival that can be fully experienced via Twitter. I have an image of 100,000 people standing in a field not looking at the stage or taking anything in because they're too busy typing "wow Broos is old but he can still ROK lols". And the jester-hat sellers* doing a roaring trade in iPhone mud covers.
Anyhow - hope you have fun and there are no monsoons.
*that's what you get at festivals, right? Never been, far too nature-averse.
As it happens, during a tedious loft clearance last weekend I came across my copy of Select with the Glasto 92 coverage... kept and preserved because (a) that was my only Glasto so far and (b) I'm in the photo on the front page of the supplement, sweating and enjoying The House Of Love. Happy days!
Get an inflatable pillow too. You'll be glad you did. You don't want to be watching Blur with a crick in your neck. Oh, and a wind-up torch.
I'm 38.
Last time I went to Glastonbury it peeed all weekend and was a thoroughly miserable experience ... 10 years later the wounds have healed and I am ready to experience it all over again, that's right I am paying nearly £800 to do something I swore to never do again, ever... but this time I'm bringing the family and staying in a vw camper.
I'm 39.
D'you know, in all my 38 years I've never been to Glastonbury. Or any other outdoor festival, for that matter. I haven't lived, have I? What a depressing thought. Am I destined to be one of those sorts who grows a ponytail, buys a motorbike and tries to pull girls half their age once I hit 40?
Are there any tickets left? Perhaps I should experience this before it's too late...
I'm just going to echo the point about Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album.
It's the kind of album that a mature, passionate musician can make. Full of a lifestime of making music, and all the confidence with handling this hard-etched, sincere music that that brings with it.
I didn't really listen to him before then, but my Dad was always a fan, and he'd been in proper folk bands in the sixties, so he thought this album was the dog's testicles. And it is, you know. It's really good. Give it a listen.
Fuck that..sleeping on the floor whilst someone pisses on my tent..not my idea of fun.
The bands are great (and this year it might appeal more to old timers -Andrew) but anyone with the money to build a hotel by the field would make a killing.
Lets face when you get to a certain age you need some comfort. Leave the filth to the crusties and students.
Do you know that companies like diesel (the clothes, not heavy oil) sponsor "celebs" to attend. If you see such shenanigans, Andrew, please do us all a favour and pour a pint of piss on them
I must admit I went to the V Festival last year at the crusty old age of 36 and had a whale of a time. Sounds corny but I felt like a new person. As soon as I got back I bought my ticket for this year - and I can't wait. OK I haven't heard of half the bands, but if I do some studious adult research on Spotify I'm sure I can bring that down to a quarter.
Hope you have a cosy tent, I'm sure you'll have a great time.
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