My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 23, 2013

Chapter 23. 2013, It’s Only Rock And Roll.

Sadly, Kim’s condition got worse and she spent time in hospital in 2010 and 2011. It was impossible for me to go to Glastonbury in those years. There was no festival in 2012 but I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway because that was the year that Kim passed away. In 2013 I wrote to Fiona and was accepted back onto the recycling team, It was Wednesday morning; the sun was shining, and I was excited. After four long years I was returning to my spiritual home, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Near Glastonbury, Somerset in the beautiful Vale of Avalon. The home of the world-famous Glastonbury Festival. Since my first Glastonbury in 1979 I think I have spent several weeks of my life down on the farm so after all the trials and tribulations of the previous few years it was great to be returning. My taxi arrived and took me to Westbury station. The platform was packed with hundreds of excited music fans waiting for the 8.30 train. How we all managed to squeeze on the train I don't know because it was already packed as it had traveled from London. It was like being on the Tokyo subway in the rush hour. We all had to stand in the aisles, but nobody cared. About two thousand revellers piled off the train and onto the endless stream of shuttle buses to take us the six miles to the festival and soon we arrived at the festival bus site.

 I collected my workers wristband from the cabin at Red Gate and was ushered through the workers entrance which was a lot quicker than for the tens of thousands who had to queue at the turnstiles. I hauled my rucksack onto my back and began the long walk across the huge site to my camping field. I headed for the Pyramid Stage to get my bearings and then found the roadway known as Muddy Lane for the walk up to Tom's Field. I registered for work and received my recyclers T-shirt, my gloves and my free programme and then found a nice spot to put up my tent. This proved a bit tricky at first as I hadn't used it for four years but a lady from the next tent helped me put it up. People are so friendly at Glasto. I arranged my belongings and my sleeping bag inside and I was sorted out by mid-day, brilliant. Then phoned my sister Margaret who was camped in the next field reserved for site crew only fifty yards away from me. Her and her partner Wayne were both out, so I decided to go for a long walk around the site. This was the year when they had the Phoenix atop the Pyramid Stage stage. This had been made out of reclaimed steel by a man from the Mutoid Waste Company who had been associated with the festival since the early 80’s. At night it was spectacular when it came to life and breathed fire.

I meandered slowly towards the area known as The Park right at the top of the site where Margaret was working and thought I might spot her. The Park is one of the nicest areas of all. Mick Jagger himself came for a visit up here. The Glastonbury sign is here and the Ribbon Tower which you can go up and take in the whole vastness of the site. I bought some nice vegetarian food. The free restaurant for the recyclers was vegetarian so I decided to be veggie for the whole festival. I loved the spicy veggie Cornish pasties and the falafels. In fact, I stayed veggie for quite a few months when I got home, (apart from once when I forgot) which is a little example of how Glasto can be a life changing experience. I didn't spot Margaret so had a nice relaxing pint of cider, sent a couple of postcards to my friends Smithy and Jacquie and watched the world go by. Walking back down who should drive by in a land rover but Wayne. He had been on site for a month putting in the plumbing and was on call troubleshooting to sort out any problems.
"See you at Bread and Roses at 6.00", shouted Wayne.
"Righto", I replied as he drove on.

Ambling back down through the market areas I noticed a place selling fold up chairs for only eight quid, so I bought one because at my age you need a bit of a sit down every now and then. Also, it would come in handy for the Larmer Tree Festival and Village Pump Folk Festival. I wandered back to my tent because I thought I’d have a little nap before the evening but that proved impossible because it was too hot in my tent so got up again, sat in my chair and read my programme and planned my itinerary of bands to enjoy, which turned out to be nothing like what I actually saw and got a girl to take my photo sitting outside my tent. At about 4.30 I walked down the avenue again and had a refreshing drink in the Bar on The Green where they were showing Wimbledon on a vast screen and later arrived at the Bread And Roses Bar and found Margaret waiting. We had a chat and a drink and then Wayne turned up who had just finished work. We socialised for a while and then I had to walk back for my recyclers meeting at 8.00. This only lasted about ten minutes. We met our team leader and were told to meet at 6.00 outside the marquee. These meetings make one thirsty. The workers bar was a bit empty, so I set off yet again down Muddy Lane and returned to the Green and had a couple of pints. Then walked to the Cockmill Bar at the Acoustic but now was feeling tired so after one pint I wandered back. I crawled into my tent and set the alarm for 5.00 and fell asleep by 10.30 which must be some kind of a record for me at Glasto. What a nice day it had been but as Van The Man once said 'The best is yet to come!’.

Our supervisor that year was called Neal who was a great bloke. We were the ‘Naughty Corner’ team. It had that name because we were responsible for Shangri-la, The Unfairground and those sorts of areas where all sorts of strange things go on all night long. We couldn’t do one area first thing in the morning on the first shift because there was an all-night party still going on. I got chatting to this girl called Odele who was very friendly and before long I was telling her all my life story. I didn’t realise it at the time but Odele was to become one of my best friends at Glastonbury ever since.
On Friday afternoon I met up with Margaret &Wayne again and we watched a few bands. I was particularly impressed with an American girl guitar band called Haim who played on the Pyramid and also a young kid from Nottingham who had just burst on the scene called Jake Bugg. He reminded me a bit of a young Johnny Cash. Margaret had to go to work in the evening so me and Wayne went for a wander. As he had been on site for a month working, Wayne had managed to acquire backstage passes for nearly every stage on the site. We ended up backstage at the Acoustic courtesy of a friend of ours called Rob. He had a marquee company and provided the marquee for the backstage bar. I took some photos of the three of us which I deleted later. I really regret that now because Rob died less than a year later. Anyway, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings were on when we got there but I don’t remember a lot about that because we were too busy drinking and talking to anybody and everyone. I do remember going around to the front later on to watch Sinead O’Connor, but I was seeing double for some reason and there were two Sineads onstage. I had real trouble getting back to my tent that night I can tell you.

Towards the end of our shift on the Saturday Neal sent four of us off to tidy up a certain area and to meet the rest of the team by the John Peel Stage but when we got there the others were nowhere to be seen. We caught up with Neal later back at base so that ended ok. We watched Stevie Winwood later who was good, but most people were just passing time waiting to see The Stones. Finally, about an hour before The Stones were due on stage we knew it would be a human traffic jam approaching the Pyramid via the market area, so we started making our way up past the side of the Acoustic Stage and arrived at the top of the Arena. This area would normally be a camping area, but they had extended the field because they knew that this would be the largest audience that Glastonbury had ever seen. Wayne was really excited because The Stones were his favourite band of all time and he couldn’t believe they were actually going to play at Glastonbury. The anticipation was electric, and they were quite a few minutes late arriving which just added to the excitement. Finally, they appeared. This is the setlist from that historic night. Jumpin' Jack Flash, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, Paint It Black, Gimme Shelter, Glastonbury Girl, Wild Horses, Doom and Gloom, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Honky Tonk Women, Happy, Miss You, Midnight Rambler, 2000 Light Years From Home, Sympathy for the Devil, Start Me Up, Tumbling Dice, Brown Sugar, You Can't Always Get What You Want & Satisfaction.

It was a magnificent performance, for some songs they were reunited with former Stone Mick Taylor, Keef did the vocals on a couple of songs, Bobby Keys was fabulous on saxophone, he sadly died a few months later. Mick had done his homework on Glastonbury. He had been here a couple of days, had a good look round and had his own luxury yurt to live in. I think some of Mick’s children had been to Glasto quite a few times, probably with Mick’s brother Chris’s family because Chris lives in Glastonbury town. Mick had changed the words of the Stones song Factory Girl to Glastonbury Girl which the crowd loved. For the penultimate song You Can’t Always Get What You Want they had a huge gospel choir to help them out which sounded fabulous. I had left Margaret & Wayne after a few songs because I didn’t think it was loud enough where we were and worked my way down the side till I was quite near the front. After a while I fancied a drink and went to the bar quite near the cider bus. It was then I realise the huge extent of the crowd. It stretched right back into the market area. I managed to get myself a triple whiskey & coke and watched the rest of the show standing on a bench with some girls who were dancing and watching the Stones through a gap in the trees. They will never get another act to top that appearance by the Stones in 2013.

The main thing I remember about Sunday is getting lost while watching Kenny Rogers in the afternoon. It was a sweltering hot afternoon and there was a huge crowd watching Kenny. I didn’t particularly like him but thought I’d wait to hear Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town, The Gambler & Lucille. After a while I needed to go to the loo which wasn’t too far away. I took my bearings off an ice-cream van that was parked between us and the urinals and said I wouldn’t be long. I was only gone a few minutes and was wandering back, and I looked up and there was 50,000 people and I suddenly realised I didn’t know where Margaret & Wayne were. I wandered round and round in circles for about 20 minutes getting more and more frustrated and fed up and people started looking at me. I finally sat down and talked to this lady who was as concerned as me. I couldn’t phone Margaret & Wayne because I had left all my stuff with them including my phone. I was getting sick of hearing Kenny Rogers by now. Finally, I had one last walk and they managed to spot me. I think a lot of the time I had only been about ten yards away from them. It was a relief to find them at last.

Me and Wayne spent most of Sunday evening at the backstage bar at the Acoustic again. We met this horrible fat rich kid whose father was one of the major contractors at Glastonbury, that’s how he got hold of lots of passes. He got off on the wrong foot with us by saying The Stones had been rubbish. When I asked him if he was going to go into his old man’s business when he left school, he said no, he wanted a career in banking because he liked the idea of gambling with other people’s money. What a nasty little oink. The only music I can remember that evening was seeing Lucinda Williams but I was the worse for wear again that evening so it’s all a bit hazy.

On Monday morning I up packed my tent and my stuff and went round to the next field when Wayne & Margaret were nearly ready to go. Then we got a phone call from my brother to say that my mum had passed away. As you can imagine we were in a very sombre mood on the way home. What made it worse was there was a traffic jam in the lanes and it was a long slow crawl until we hit the main road. That was the end of Glastonbury 2013.