My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 20, 2004

Chapter 20. 2004, The Long and Winding Road.

 The gates opened for the festival on Wednesday morning but when we got up that morning and looked out of the window we made the decision not to go that day. It was pouring with rain and the weather forecast predicted gale force winds. The music didn't start till Friday and although it’s nice to get there early and find a good spot for camping we decided to wait till Friday which the weatherman said would be sunny. Friday morning arrived, and it was a beautiful day. We said cheerio to our cat Murphy who our neighbour Stephanie was going to look after and got a taxi to the station and caught the train to Castle Cary and then the special buses that took people to Worthy Farm. The first sight of the festival is truly awesome, 900 acres of land accommodating 150,000 people. I had now been coming to Glastonbury for 25 years but I still got a thrill when I arrived. Amazingly almost the first person we saw on going through the gates was the organiser Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily. She was only about 23 or 24 back then and running the most incredible festival in the world.

We made our way across the site, past the New Bands Stage and the Dance Tent, past the Other Stage, through the Glade, across the old railway line to our new favourite camping area on Pennard Hill Ground. The trouble was that it seems to have become everybody’s favourite area. It was packed but Luckily, I managed to find a small space by a walkway and we put up our little tent. As soon as the tent was up we threw our belongings in it and set off to have some fun. It was a really hot day (Little did we realise what lay ahead!) so our first port of call was The Bread and Roses Saloon on the green and then we made our way to the Pyramid Stage where Wilco were performing. I thought they must be American judging by the accents and although I had never heard their stuff before I thought they were excellent, great guitar playing. After that we went for a bit of a stroll and ended up in the Theatre Field. We sat in a wine bar and watched the world go by. Two girls came in the bar, they were about 12ft tall. That’s because they were on stilts. They had long Spanish type dresses on and flowers behind their ears, one played the clarinet and the other accompanied her on bongos and they entertained the customers in the bar. This is the joy of Glastonbury, there is strange and wondrous things going on all over the place. After that little interlude we ambled up to the Acoustic Stage where we watched a band from Montreal called Taima. They had a very attractive girl singer called Elsapi Isaac. We listened to them for a while but got bored eventually and my boot heels wanted to go wandering. We walked up past Kidz World and into the family field where I wanted to say hello to a friend from the internet. I found his tent, but they were all away, so I left a message. We carried on walking and arrived back at the Pyramid Stage to find we had just missed Nelly Furtado, another Canadian.  Groove Armada followed Nelly, but I wanted to go back and check the tent was ok. I kept worrying that it would be robbed, in the past you used to get a lot of petty thieving going on but I'm happy to say that by 2004 there was hardly any which is good news. After a bite to eat we were back at the Acoustic Stage for The Kilfinore Ceili Band all the way from County Clare in Ireland. The band was founded almost 100 years ago, and they are still going strong. They made the whole audience get on their feet and start dancing. They had a guest singer as well called Kathy McCormack and also Liam from the Hot House Flowers sat in with them. They were followed by the legendary Love with Arthur Lee. Apart from himself was a brand-new line up but they were brilliant and included most of the songs from their seminal album Forever Changes. In the market area afterwards, we got chatting to a bloke who had a bottle of vodka on him and he kept giving me dirty great goblets full of neat vodka which is why the rest of the night became a bit of a blur. I remember seeing Oasis, everybody I spoke to thought they were great but there is something about them that I don’t like. I don’t remember walking back to the tent that night, but I must have done and passed out blissfully unaware of the drama to come.

When I regained my senses on Saturday morning Kim was already up and gone. I felt like death warmed up and thought I was being machine gunned, then realised it was the sound of rain on the tent. Emergency action was needed, and I reached into my bag for my secret weapon for such occasions. I pulled out a bottle of brandy I had been saving and washed down two paracetamols with a couple of good hits of brandy. I pulled on me wellies and went to find Kim. On crawling out of the tent I realised I had made a grave error of judgement camping by a walkway because the tent was being splattered with mud. I found Kim easily enough, sitting in the nearest cafe having breakfast. I ordered a coffee and added another lash of brandy to it and started to feel a bit better. I passed the time by reading the Glastonbury Daily which is the free paper they give away. I always enjoy the article by Roger Melly from Viz comic in this because he always comes up with some good festival slang terms. For instance, Blind Man’s Porn that’s the sexual noises you hear coming from adjacent tents, or Sonic Bog Lock, which is the whistles, coughs, hums and songs people do when they are in a toilet with no lock, or Biggie Smalls which are fat girls knickers, or Electric Lemonade which is another term for West Country Cider or Scrumpy, also known as Tone Vale Tonic. Also, French Accordion Player, which is a bloke who doesn't know much about sex, so he just presses and squeezes everything as quickly as possible. The markets were being reduced to a mud heap, but even so were not as bad as the legendary muddy years of 97,98. We bought a book as a present for Stephanie and wandered through the Jazz World field, but the constant drizzle was too depressing, and we found a table in the organic wine bar in the Field of Avalon and stayed in there for about 3 hours, watching the rain, chatting and sampling the variety of locally grown wines. Finally, we decided we better hear some music, The Scissor Sisters were going down a storm on the Pyramid Stage, but I couldn't stand the rain, so we went to the Cabaret Tent and watched Attila The Stockbroker who put across a strong political message with lots of humour and he was followed by the great John Otway who is on nearly every year and always cheers me up. In the late afternoon we decided to go back to the tent for a bit of a nap, but it was impossible with the constant noise of people sloshing past, just as you were about to crash out someone would shout out something silly like “Wibbily Wobbily”, Finally I gave up trying to sleep. Standing by my tent having a ciggie I suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Hey Patrick!", It was my sister Margaret, I didn't even know they were coming but her and Wayne had managed to get tickets at the last minute and had arrived at midnight on Friday. In a crowd of 150,000 they were camped only 30 yards away from us. What’s the chances of that? It was great to meet up with some family and friends and we ganged up for the evening ahead. The sad thing was that Damian Rice and Toots And The Maytels both clashed with Paul McCartney It had to be McCartney. When we made our way slowly to the main stage The Black-Eyed Peas were on stage, but I was more concerned with getting a drink. At the bar people were standing ten deep trying to get served but I managed to squeeze my way through and bought as many drinks as I could carry. Macca was quite simply stunning. It was the last date of his world tour and he has played 3000 gigs in his career but maybe he was amazed by his reception at Glastonbury. I enjoyed every song, it was great hearing the crowd singing along with All My Loving and other classics, Long And Winding Road was great as was Penny Lane and Hey Jude. Afterwards we got some food and went for a drink in the Leftfield tent and went back to the campsite. It was dawn before I went to bed. The birds were singing in the trees. It had been a great day and there was another one to come.

When we got up on Sunday morning the sunshine had returned so I put on my Christy Moore shirt and we set forth, ready to give it one last lash. After breakfast we went to the Pyramid Stage and caught the end of English National Opera's performance of part of Wagner's Ring Cycle, including The Ride Of The Valkyries. There was a 98-piece orchestra with them and it was quite spectacular. The original idea was to have a fleet of helicopters fly in and circle the stage just like in the film Apocalypse Now. This was refused on health and safety grounds and because Michael Eavis didn't think it was the right image for Glasto on a Sunday morning. I enjoyed it, but they got on my nerves a bit by coming back at the end about ten times and bowing over and over to milk the applause. Our next agenda was to meet our friends Anthony and Sally at the cider tree, a well-known meeting place. They live locally and were just coming for the day. We had a bit of a chat and a couple of pints of the electric lemonade. Nearly all the English National Opera were at the bar. You could spot them because they were wearing their posh opera clothes and wellies. Then to pass the time we strolled to the Glade to listen to some dance music. I usually hate dance music and hate it played in pubs and I’d never listen to it at home but in its right setting its good fun. In among the trees of the glade with hundreds of people all getting into the rhythm the atmosphere is quite amazing. 

It was time to make our way to see one of my personal favourites Christy Moore. We got there good and early to get right at the front. Before Christy played The Bishop of Bath & Wells came on stage and gave a short speech which was well received. He reminded the audience that during the three days of the festival 90,000 children will have died worldwide because of lack of the basic things we take for granted and he urged the audience to support the charities that the festival supports.  What many people forget, that Glastonbury is a fundraiser. Each year it gives millions to groups such as Oxfam, Greenpeace, Water Aid, Amnesty International and many others. I had seen Christy three times previously at this festival. The previous time was 1993 when he came on before Lenny Kravitz and The Kinks. On that occasion when he sang Welcome To The Cabaret  Christy said something like, "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to see Lenny Kravitz and The Kinks and Christy Moore, I've never heard of him before!". Christy has always been a big supporter of the festival so it was great to see him back on the Pyramid Stage at 4.00 Sunday afternoon. He hadn't enjoyed the best of health in recent years, but seemed fighting fit again now. It was also great to see him arrive on stage with great support from Declan Sinnott and Donal Lunny. We were in for a great show. Christy began with Before The Deluge, a Jackson Browne song that Christy has made his own. I wondered why he chose that song to open? Had he gotten word backstage about the storm brewing? He followed that with North And South Of The River, a very moving song about Northern Ireland. This set the tone for the show with Christy opting for songs with a strong political message rather than love songs or the whimsical humorous songs for which he is noted.  I wasn't taking notes so can't remember every song that Christy sang, but he did the following for sure, After The Deluge, North And South Of The River, Black Is The Colour (Christy does requests even at Glasto), Missing You, Viva La Quinte Brigada (Awesome, My Favourite), Burning Times, City Of Chicago, Go Move Shift, Hiroshima/Nagasaki Russian Roulette, and Yellow Triangle. A few minutes into the set it began to rain and got heavier until it became a downpour, the crowd stayed though even though they were drenched which is a huge sign of the affection the audience had for Christy. I think the rain even made him more determined to entertain the crowd. “I know it’s hard but thanks for staying with us, you created a great vibe to work off," Said Christy. We all knew what the finish would be. It was of course Lisdoonvarna which was superb, and I always like it when Christy name checks my other hero Van Morrison. The song evolved into I'll Tell me Ma and the crowd danced in the mud. All three of them took a bow and walked off in triumph. What a show. As we left John C Scott from the official Glastonbury Website took our photo. I looked like a drowned rat. we went back to the tent. where we found a huge pool of water in it because I had not done the zip up properly. I made a decision. "Shall we go home?", I said to Kim.  "Don't you want to see James Brown?". Neither of us were that fussed about seeing the Godfather of Soul, so we put our possessions in a couple of bags and walked away, leaving our little faithful little tent in a rubbish bin. It had done a good job for four years, but it was knackered and caked in mud. I wouldn’t do that these days, I would take it home even if I didn’t want it any more. Love The Farm, Leave No Trace!. We got the bus to Castle Cary and the train and were home about fifty minutes after leaving the site. That evening I went to the pub and watched the Czech Republic play Denmark in the football. then watched about two hours of Glasto on the telly. Bonnie Raitt sounded great and Morrissey and we began to regret coming home early. I felt that we had cheated. That was the only time I have come home from Glasto before Monday. The next day I washed my wellies with a hosepipe in the garden because they were covered in mud and little bit of Worthy farm became forever part of my back garden.