Glastonbury 40th Anniversary (or the reason I love my friends)

It’s been 7 days now since Dinn, Dave, Sarah and I had just finished watching an overly satisfying Gorrilaz performance. A performance that consisted of such guests acts as Shaun Ryder, De La Soul, Mark E. Smith, Snoop Dogg, Mos Deff, Mick Jones, Paul Siminon and even Lou Rheed. Seeing this just hours after Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood surprisingly showing up for a secret was quite overwhelming. A night like this can only happen of course at the biggest and arguably best festival in the world that is Glastonbury. So I shall start from the beginning.
This year they let the car parks open on Tuesday night to ease congestion, a genius idea I thought and a genius idea executed, the Pussy Wagon made it in 2 and half hours and we was in the closest possible car park to the gate. Next was to execute my personal master plan, to make sure I get my first major festival friends (Bangface weekender I crew) and my chosen family of London (Bangface Hardcrew) to be camped up together to create my personal campsite of love. Which was achieved by late Wednesday afternoon. Right time to relax, get pissed, skin up and maybe have a walk, although by this time I realised which quite frequently seems to be with Glastonbury, was the following weather forecast. However this time fears of thunderstorms weren’t on the agenda, it was the fear of a sheer energy sapping heat wave. A sign of typical British behaviour from myself and probably a few of my fellow festival gowers. Never happy. The Wednesday however was a blur for me, I got in, got my mates camped up, shut my eyes for a bit then did a bit of visiting to some other mates. Thursday followed suit really except for getting so pissed that I was sick all over myself and passed out, but when I came to I realised that the long awaited Bangface Glastonbury takeover was about to come to life. I however got so munted that I had a “Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing moment?” and lost my phone as a result. Bangface I felt was a complete success and we concluded the evening with a visit to stone circle for sunrise and a mind expanding magic moment.
By Friday the temperature had risen and I wasn’t climatising anytime soon, Friday again is a blur and by this point I hadn’t stuck to my drug timetable well and everything I was pummiling myself with just didn’t seem to touch the sides, however I later concluded this might have been down to me generally having a really good time. I pretty much saw a Radiohead set then managed to find Dave, Sarah and Dinn to go see the Gorrilaz. We had a quality spot at the Pyramid stage, far right hand side, 50 yards from the bar, 15 yards from the toilet, view of the stage and plenty of room to dance. Like I said before the overwhelming scale of the guests was enough to make it a memorable set, but it was also very fitting to the theme of the 40th anniversary of the festival. World interludes followed by superstars of genres performing tracks. I’m not a fan of the Gorrilaz music, but they did very well. When they had finished performing I turned back to my 3 friends and said in the best way I could “If I looked up cunt in the dictionary all 3 of your faces would be there… But I couldn’t of asked to watch it with anyone else” Looking back on this it might of seemed harsh, but I did also have the genuine feeling that if I’d of watched that set with anyone else it would have been shit. Great Friday night… The following couple of hours then made me realise how lucky I was to have been stuck with the company I had. I put myself on man mission to drag my mates to a stage I’d never found in 4 years, and for a set that would be finished within an hour, I dragged them through every field on the west side of Worthy Farm, turning over to say “You are so lucky I don’t have any sharp objects otherwise I’d kill every single one of you” there was a part of me that meant this, but then I was overpowered by this emotion, this emotion I have chased for about 10 years, I think its called Love and considering their manor towards it I think that was exactly what stopped me from killing them all. I dragged them along for another until we found the stage and I pilled them and myself full of whiskey, popped into Bez’s Acid house then I lost ‘em all and headed back for some rest.
Saturday at Glastonbury for me has followed a ritual of dropping strong acid then going on an adventure of the green fields, healing fields, circus and cabaret and my personal favourite park stage. However this year I was quite horribly constipated and the heat was really starting to get to me. Instead of wondering around all trippy and happy taking in the magic of the place I sat at my campsite with a pack of wet wipes in hand insulting my best friends. Until night fall when my other plan of getting pissed up with Heide and seeing a god of music was to come to place… However it did have signs of a faultier when Heide did give the confession that she was going to see The Pet Shop Boys instead… This was never going to happen as my threats of murder earlier on in the weekend had settled in, but we did actually pull off my plan of finding a place that sold draught Guiness and getting pissed up for the man himself…. Christy Moore was brilliant, his soundman made him quiet for some reason, but the crowd and set list were pretty spot on. I don’t remember what happened that night but I think I enjoyed myself. My initial plan of pulling at Glastonbury had resorted to asking random girls to sit on my face, to which I had a reply of puzzlement or was just ignored.

By the Sunday I think I had finally acclimatized and was ready to actually do shit, unfortunately this is always too late, again Dinn, Dave, Sarah and I went to see Ray Davies perform the Sunday Legends slot which was very nice, that evening I saw Faithless, and Orbital. Orbital being a bit of a controversial one as I’d swarn to see Stevie Wonder on my “who will I have a chance of seeing again” Glastonbury Manifesto. But the atmosphere for Orbital was amazing, and seeing Dave in a moment of sheer awe and finally meeting Alan’s friends that he’d brung along each year, who were sound as fuck. That night I attempted to go see the Arcadia fire show and Shangri-la but was exhausted from a week of hedonism.

In conclusion this years festival was not the finest hour I had hoped for, the weather came into play as it usually does, I moaned a lot, threatened to kill my mates, missed pretty much everything I came to see, and broke my Glastonbury manifesto. But I have noticed with every year I’ve gone I’ve learnt something different….

2007=Festivals are the best things in the world
2008=You need friends at festivals
2009=Glastonbury is the best place to have the best week of your life
2010=I have the best friend I can possibly hope for…

Although this year I was mainly very aggy from the heat, and was probably a downer for the atmosphere, I have nothing but appricieation for the people that pulled me through it, and seeing them genuinely enjoy themselves was enough to keep me happy. I had actual intentions of killing every single one of them, but was stopped by the power of love. Which is that similar thing that stops you from killing a family member, but as the saying goes friends are the family you chose for yourself, and seeing my mate Jem having a laugh with Tom the nonse, or Julie getting wrecked with Dinn, or Sarah having conversation with Ian and Rosa, was magic enough for me. To have a week in the company of my two favourite sets of people and seeing them enjoy themselves was the only selfless thing I can take from the week. I can’t threaten to kill many people and them laugh in my face lets put it that way. So I’ll do a roll call and for those I’ve missed out it’s because I met you that weekend and my appreciation for you will be shown maybe after next years festival?

So… Alan, Dinn, Dave, Elliot, Fiona, Heide, Ian, Jem, Josh, Julie, Petch, Rosa, Sarah, Tom ‘The Nonse’… It was a privilege and a pleasure to serve under you all and if you’re ever in need of a kidney, lung, blood or even heart transplant, I will happily give it to any of you.

Until next year.