Glastonbury 2008: Review #2

Glastonbury 2008
Thursday 26th June

Awaking at a friends' house in Charlton Adam, a very small village just south of the Festival me and a mate Corin set off for the gate at 8am, eager to avoid the second rush of people to the festival.
Luckily I already knew some people who were working for Oxfam over the week so they'd saved us a space on Kidney Mead field, which is literally less than a 5 minute walk from the Pyramid, what a touch! Also more luckily we was at the top of a hill, so any rain that falls would run down the hill and not into my fucking tent!
After we'd pitched our tent by around 9 and made the second journey back to the car for beer and food we set off to explore the site at 10am. After around 20 miuntes or so, I really began to understand why this fesitval was so popular and why it has such a heritage and reputation. Being able to freely walk around the stages with my own beer is something that the Gatecrasher Weekender really lacks. Glastonbury is much more about the music and not digging deeper and deeper into your pocket!
We spent much of the day literally just walking around, soaking up as much of the festival fever as we could, I knew that I'd regret not doing things afterwards if I didn't.
We walked in and out of a few of the smaller stages that have music on for Thursday, but there wern't many bands that I've even heard of that were playing that day, the only thing i was waiting for was seeing The Rascals in leftfield at half 6.
I saw the band for the first time on the MTV Spanking New Music Tour supporting The Pigeon Detectives, and was blown away by their raw sound. Admitedly yes, everyone says they sound like the Monkeys and yes they do, but what would everyone have thought about them, had the Monkeys never existed. The bassist is amazing, his ability to turn a performance around with a few fine strums of his deep lobster pinching sound really gets the crowd going.
I watched many of the crowd warm to the band, but it wasn't until they launched into new single 'Freakbeat Phantom' did the party really start going and by the time they finished off with 'Is It Too Late?' the crowd were yearning for more. The real shame about that song, is its their best piece to date, yet it wasn't included in their album, and would have proved the perfect closer.

Sitting around the fire with the group of 6 we had in our little tent circle, sipping bear and burning anything we could find, I started to really feel the Glastonbury spirit come alive. The one thing that I noticed as I walked around on thursday was although people were in agony walking their bags to their tent site, and pitching their tent, once it was all done, not a single soul could do anything other than smile their arses off at about what waited them on Friday.

Glastonbury 2008: Review #1

Glastonbury 2008

Bang for Buck or Dead as the Dodo

Rain, Wellingtons and Ponchos are just some of the words that are usually thrown around when talking about Glastonbury. However, I think Great-Fucking-Music should be the phrase on the tip of everyone's tongue, especially when talking about this years' festival.
Now I can't speak from experience from previous years as I've never been to Glasto; although I can tell you now that the biggest festival in the world has now been cemented without question as the greatest festival the world has ever seen.

After a storming 2007 that although was graced with a debut headline performance from the one and only Arctic Monkeys, it was undboutedly over-shadowed by the terrible weather conditions and simply uncanny supply on mud on show. I think there were more bands on show than blades of grass by the end of it and people had to resort to paying tractors to tow their cars out of the mud; hardly fair is it.


I feel Michael and Emily Eavis have put last years' problems behind them and started a-fresh, which includes a 25% increase on the site size, now covering an area of just over 50 acres. I'm not even sure a Russian launched ICBM could have disrupted the organisation and dedication for this years' party that I witnessed during the five days I was there.
Eavis Snr has threw the cat amongst the pigeons and took Glastonbury back to its grass roots principals when he booked Jay-Z. Ok, Hip-Hop has never appeared in such a prominent way before, but the principal of Glastonbury has always been to offer the most diverse display of musical talent possible to the public. He could have played the safe bet that Reading and Leeds did this year by throwing huge American rock bands Rage Against The Machine, The Killers and Metallica into the limelight to secure a sell out crowd.

Glastonbury however, despite all the criticism and hype, managed to finally sell out every single ticket by Friday afternoon, I can safely say thats a big f-u to the haters.Enough is enough, throwing the hype and gossip aside that includes the whole 'Jay-Z' saga down the drain, I'll just say one thing before tomorrow's first proper review post kicks things off. It really was just 'a little bit' special.
Let the most controversial Glastonbury Festival of Contempory Arts, begin...