mistersnappy

intermittent since 2001

3 stops and home

Endless Pulp

After a few changes I am finally on a train bound for Paddington. I’m attempting to write this here blog entry from my phone seeing as I have access to power and were getting more 3G signal the closer we get to London.

As you might well imagine, if you’ve seen the coverage on TV the festival was awesome as ever. This is now my fourth time (if I’d not mentioned it before). And every experience has been different. This time I was helping out a friend recovering from a broken leg and as I’ve mentioned this afforded me a few perks. In no particular order of preference they were: nice camping field, bus to the other side of the site, clean(ish) toilets, an acceptable level of tent security and last but not least backstage access.
Glastonbury has lots of circuitous routes that take you from A to B via the rest of the alphabet. This is partly due to the two main stages and associated production areas being located in the centre of the site. The backstage access makes it much easier to get from say Spring Ground to The Park without doing your charge any further damage. In theory.
There was a stretch of pathway leading to the entrance for The Other Stage which became known as the gauntlet. No amount of sunshine and heat dried this place out. It lay in the shadow of The Other Stage so received little sun and was also possibly the most trudged path backstage. It was awash with a tasty mix of mud and whatever the dairy heard leave behind. It wasn’t the kind of mud that sucks your boots of, more a watered down version that was between 6 and 10 inches deep. I admit to a little schadenfreude when seeing hurried festival goers land squarely on their arses in a pool of Worthy Farm’s finest, but had to restrain my sniggers until I was on firmer ground!
What turned out to be the biggest bonus was the ability to get a pint of cider and some food and sit at a table to eat. Obviously we didn’t do this all the time but after a days’ trekking it’s a nice little treat (and you get to celeb spot too which is nice).
Just so I don’t forget, the bands/DJs/performers I saw this year included… U2 (probably should have given this a miss), oidPrimal Scream (should have seen them in their entirety instead of U2), Radiohead and Pulp in The Park, Chemical Brother (breathtaking and frightening all in one go), Cassette Boy and DJ Rubbish, Infinite Monkey Cage (Radio 4 at Glasto with Brian Cox, Graham Coxon, Billy Bragg etc…), OKgo (shortened set down at John Peel), Wombles (they still got it), Two Door Cinema Club, Biffy Clyro (mon the bif), Eels (by far and away the best beards on site), BB King, Paul Simon (still crazy after all these years) and Graham Coxon (making a better job of it than Albarn and his Gorrilaz).
Regrets? A few. Missing Craig Charles DJing at the Rabbit Hole, Orbital at Arcadia, seeing the whole of Primal Scream instead of U2 (but that’s what iPlayer is for), Morrissey, taking in a movie at the Pilton Palais and spending more time at the weird end of Glastonbury. But you makes your choices over the festival weekend which is what makes the whole experience so different each time I go.
You have to understand that for one weekend in year te biggest city in the west country (infinite money cage stat) springs up for just one weekend. There is no way ou can see or do even half of what you intended. You may be too far from your destination stage, to tired to walk there or just too chilled out at the Stone Circle to be bothered. I know that I need to be braver with my choices, which I was a little more this time. Even after 4 times there is still too much to see and even Michael Eavis said in a talk on Sunday PM there are places that he hadn’t made it too. This makes me feel a bit better although he’s got 35 years on me.
Who knows if this will be my last visit. Mini me wants to go again in 2013 perhaps and I haven’t managed to drag along any of my home mates yet either. Maybe more challenges at Worthy Farm still await me, but until then all I want is a shower.
Next stop Paddington.

2011festivalglastonburypiltonworthy farm

mistersnappy • June 27, 2011


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