My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 14, 1997

Chapter 14. 1997, Twisted Firestarter.

When the festival returned in 1997 it was now eighteen years since my first Glasto in 1979 and in all that time the Conservatives had ruled Britain. The dark age was finally over. In May the Labour Party won the election by a landslide and it was time to party. Sadly, the weather that year was bad. There was a lot of rain even before the gates opened, and the festival site became a mud bath. It was raining when we arrived, and it is quite a miserable experience putting up a tent in the rain. Not to worry, as soon as I managed to get the tent sorted out Kim dived in it and poured some wine. The NME stage by now had become known as the ‘Other’ stage and I think that was the muddiest area. It looked like a lake in front of the stage and some performances on that stage were cancelled because the stage was sinking into the mud.

1997 was the first year that Glasto was broadcast on the BBC which would have a big influence in years to come on the type of audience it attracted. Also, a good performance could propel an act to being world famous overnight because of the huge TV audience. On the other hand, sadly a lot of acts have used Glastonbury to boost their flagging careers. I think that the weather might have put off a few of the ticketless gate-crashers that year but not many and it certainly didn’t put off the tent thieves. Robbery from tents was even worse than ever. There were two girls camped near us who we befriended. We called them the ‘Posh birds’ because of their accents and they wore Barbour jackets and caps and looked like they were at the Badminton Horse Trials rather than Glasto. They were very friendly though. They even had a lock on their tent but that didn’t stop the thieves cutting into the tent with a knife and robbing them.

My friends Jacky & Bill’s daughter Sarah went that year with her boyfriend Craig. He had come specifically to see The Prodigy who were the most popular band in Britain at the time. It was blowing a gale on the Friday night when they were on. They were introduced by a comedian called Dennis Pennis who was a bit of an idiot. When they did their big hit Firestarter I said to Craig, “I like that song, but what’s it all about, what is the message?”. “Well, it’s all about starting fires”, replied Craig.

Despite the weather there were some great bands on in 97. I really enjoyed The Smashing Pumpkins on the Friday night although I didn’t know anything about them previously. Beck was on as well. I really liked him and had his album Odelay. In the beer tents on all the pint containers they had printed, I’m a boozer baby, so why don’t you fill me’ as a tribute to Beck’s song Loser. Echo And The Bunnymen were also on Friday. They are a great band, but it always seemed to rain when they were on at Glastonbury. On the Saturday me and Kim met up with a work friend of hers and we watched Nanci Griffiths from a distance…. (From A Distance was one of her big hits) and then Ray Davies from The Kinks. He is an arrogant git but brilliant musically. I made a big mistake in the evening because we were part of a tiny audience in the Acoustic Stage watching Nick Lowe. I was right at the front and kept shouting out requests for The Beast In Me which must have pissed him off because he never sang it. We had a bit of a dance though to I Knew The Bride, When She Used To Rock And Roll. The mistake I made was that although Nick was great, on the main stage Radiohead were playing on of the legendary sets of all time and I missed it. This was the performance that took them from being well known to being one of the top bands in the world.

The sun finally came out on Sunday afternoon which created a great relaxed atmosphere and there was some fabulous music. Kula Shakur had replaced Neil Young who couldn’t play because he had broken a finger which was a shame. They were great and even played a Neil Young song, but I can’t remember which one it was. Sheryl Crowe was on as well, she was good and Van ‘The Man’ Morrison had returned. I have written about his performance in my previous book, so I won’t go into it all again but just add that he was on great form and in a good mood. Van changed the words of one song to Whenever Sir Cliff Shines His Light On Me and in his song Summertime In England he referenced the surrounding towns such as Shepton Mallet. At the end of his set Van walked around the stage holding the microphone stand above his head before slamming it down on the stage and walking off in triumph. What a great performance. Steve Winwood was supposed to be on last, but he didn’t turn up and was replaced by Ash. Me and Kim didn’t watch them though, we went and saw the Bootleg Beatles who were great, and I bet if you took enough drugs you would swear they were the real thing.

The car-parks at Glastonbury are all on grass which is ok normally but if it rains all weekend then it can be a disaster. On Monday afternoon when me and Kim were leaving the whole site resembled the Battle Of Verdun in World War 1. I thought we would never get out of there. Luckily for us though most cars had already gone, and they had left a little green square where they had been parked. Kim drove, and I carefully guided her from green patch to green patch until we reached the roadway. Once on the road we were home two hours later and Glasto was over for another year.

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 15, 1998

Chapter 15. 1998, A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.

The weather was great for Glastonbury in the first half of the 90’s but sadly 1998 for the second-year running was a rainy mud bath. We were back in the field next to where the Glade is these days.  We had borrowed a tent from our neighbours Dave and Sarah who lived two doors away from us. It was a nice tent, even big enough to store my books in as well. I pitched the tent right next to one of the metaled walkways because I thought that would be a great spot to sell my books from with thousands of people walking by every day. That decision was to prove to be a terrible mistake. The weather was fine when we arrived but before long it started raining and over the next few days that walkway turned into a muddy stream. Every time a vehicle like a tractor drove by one side of the tent got sprayed with muddy filth. The field was on a slight slope and about 100 yards back from us were some toilets. They were of the long drop variety where they had been constructed over a trench. Water flowed down the hill from even further up and the toilets eventually overflowed. It was all running down the hill towards our tent. They had sludge-gulpers going around which solved that problem and it was still nice and dry inside the tent, but I knew that there was no way we could clean it up and return it. The tent had been destroyed.

Even when it stopped raining it was too muddy in our area to set up my book stall. Up in the Field Of Avalon I discovered a man with a proper, dry indoor bookstall and I had a chat with him and he agreed to buy my entire stock off me. In the end though I couldn’t be bothered to carry them up there and I didn’t sell one sodding book all weekend. I had brought my ghetto-blaster along that year, so we could have some music around the campfire. The problem was that we didn’t have a campfire because the firewood was too damp to burn. We did have a dance in the mud though and one day the Bishop Of Bath And Wells walked by and grinned at us.

1998 was also a World Cup year. On the Friday night they showed the game between England and Colombia on the big screens at the main stage. England needed a draw to qualify for the next round. In the beer tent the water was coming up to the top of our wellies. I sat there at a table and surveyed the market area outside. The rain was chucking it down and the market more or less empty. I didn’t feel sorry for the food outlets because people still need food whatever the weather. It was people selling clothes and other merchandise who had my sympathy because their stock was getting splattered and muddy. They must have lost a fortune. Eventually the rain eased enough for us to leave the shelter of the beer tent and go and watch the footie. The Lightning Seeds were on first because they had recorded a football song called Three Lions which reached number one in the charts in 98.  It all ended well because England won the game 2-0 with goals by Beckham and Anderton which cheered everyone up.

There was one other thing I particularly remember about that Friday. When the music started on the main stage Kim and I thought we better go and watch some of the acts because it was a music festival after all. We were watching a band called Gomez who I had never heard of before, but they sounded pretty good. Then who should I spot standing in the crowd listening to the music but festival organiser Michael Eavis and his wife Jean. Lots of people were talking to them and taking photos.

“Come on Kim, let’s go and say hello”.

“No, leave them alone”, said Kim.

I insisted though because this was a photo opportunity. I asked Michael and Jean if I could take a photo and they were happy to oblige. Michael didn’t have a clue who we were although I had met him several times before, he must meet thousands of people every year. Incredibly though, Jean remembered us from our brief meeting at the farmhouse six years before and asked how we were and had a little chat with Kim. This put my nose out a bit because I liked to think I was the big ‘I am’ and she talked more to Kim than me. Anyway, what a nice lady she was, very friendly indeed. Taking that photo was to prove fateful for us a year later but I’ll tell you about that when I get to it.

I can’t remember who else we saw on the Friday apart from Eric Bibb who played on the Acoustic Stage. He is a brilliant American guitarist and blues singer who I have seen quite a few times since at various festivals. They had a new stage that year at the top of our field called The New Bands Stage. I never bothered going in it, but I did notice that Sean Lennon the son of John Lennon was on that stage and apparently, Yoko Ono accompanied him to the festival. On the Saturday Blur and Robbie Williams were on the main stage. I didn’t bother with Williams because I can’t stand him, but we watched a bit of Blur. I think that whole Saturday must have been a bit of a blur to me because I can’t remember anything else about it.

The weather cheered up on Sunday and it was memorable for two acts. Tony Bennett and Bob Dylan. Kim loved the veteran crooner Tony Bennett and he seemed to relish playing at Glastonbury. I bet he had never had an audience like this in his life. If I remember correctly he had a white suit on and somehow managed to not get any mud on it at all. Bob Dylan on the other hand I found a bit disappointing. He refused to allow the big screens to be on which made it difficult to see him from the vast crowd. Compared to the previous time I had seen him outdoors at Blackbushe twenty years earlier when he was at the peak of his powers it was quite a sad performance. Bob said that playing at Glastonbury was a dream come true, but it seemed to me that he was just going through the motions and it was just another gig on the never-ending tour. Bob is one of the greatest poets who ever lived who absolutely deserves his Nobel Prize for literature and I still listen to his albums a lot, but I haven’t seen him live since that Glastonbury performance. A friend of ours called Pru who did stone-carving up in the Greenfields Crafts area was also in a folk band called Murphy’s Mongrels who played in the Wise Crone Café stage on the Sunday. They played for three free tickets to the festival.

“I bet you never thought you would be on the same bill as Bob Dylan”, I said to Pru.

The only other band I can remember seeing on Sunday in 98 was Catatonia on the Other Stage who had Cerys Matthews as the singer and were very famous at the time. I didn’t have a lot of interest in them though. That brought Glastonbury 1998 to an end. It was quite disappointing weather-wise and musically, but it was certainly unforgettable. When we got home on Monday evening. I put on the telly to see what it said about the festival on the local news and on the BBC report they had filmed our splattered tent to show how muddy it had been. Next day we went to Argos and bought a new tent and then went around to Dave and Sarah’s and explained what had happened. They were fine about it, probably because they are Glasto veterans as well. The whole experience certainly hadn’t put us off going and we were back in 1999 which was to be another epic year.

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 16, 1999

Chapter 16. 1999, Reasons To Be Tearful.     

After all the rain and mud in 97 & 98 the sunshine returned for 99. It was a fabulous year with lots of great music which I will get to in a bit. It was tinged with sadness though because it was also the year that Jean Eavis passed away. Jean died on May 15^th only a few weeks before the festival gates opened. That was a big shock to Kim and me because when we met her at the festival a year earlier she looked the picture of health. We had no idea that she was ill. Although we only met her twice briefly we thought of her as a friend, especially since 92 when she was kind enough to phone us up and say she had saved us two tickets. That is what Glastonbury is like, even though it is huge it feels like a big family and Jean was the mother of the festival. We knew that Michael would be devastated and wondered how he would cope, especially with the festival being imminent so we decided to send him a sympathy card. Inside I put a copy of the photo that I took of them both the previous year along with a little note. We didn’t expect a reply because we knew Michael would have received dozens if not hundreds of cards. Imagine our surprise when a few weeks later a letter arrived from Michael thanking us for the card and photo. He also included two tickets to the Extravaganza that he had organised later that year at Glastonbury Abbey which was really kind of him. That turned out to be an unforgettable evening which I’ll tell you about later.

It was too late to cancel the festival at such short notice. I think when Jean died their daughter Emily decided to give up her studies at teacher training college in order to help Michael run the festival. As the years have gone by Emily has become a driving force behind the festival just like her mum. When the festival got underway, in memory of Jean I think they burned a wicker bird up near the stone circle and on Sunday morning the London Community Gospel Choir sang, and a two-minute silence was observed across the site. Also, if I remember correctly I think REM dedicated a song in their set to Jean called Sweetness Follows. She will never be forgotten. I think all the nice little touches around the site such as the hanging baskets of flowers are little reminders of the influence of Jean.

There was another reason to be tearful in 99. The wonderful Ian Dury had been booked to appear but sadly Ian was too ill to appear. He died the following March. Ian will never be forgotten either. He was one of the greats.

Unlike the previous two years when we spent half the time sheltering from the rain, the problem in 99 was trying to get some shade from the sun. Me and Kim found a nice Bacardi bar and sat in there for a while guzzling Bacardi drinks with lots of ice which was great. They even had an American Cadillac car parked outside to add to the coolness. Kim was always good at spotting celebs. She spotted Sinead O’Connor one year sat in the back of a beer tent having a quiet drink and in 99 we were in a beer tent and Kim said, “That’s Rick Stein over there”, she recognised him immediately because she watched all the cookery programmes on the telly. I wasn’t so sure so when we were leaving I said to him, “Hello, is your name Rick?”, and he said, “No”, and grinned at his companion. I know it was though because I’ve seen him on the telly lots of times since.

Anyway, to the music. The first band we saw that year on the main stage was an Abba tribute band called Bjorn Again. They were good fun and made me think that if the real Abba ever reformed they would go down a storm at Glastonbury. Later that afternoon we went to see the legend that is Marianne Faithfull. I had heard Marianne interviewed on the radio a few days before and she said, “Glastonbury is going to be great this year”, the interviewer asked her why that was, and Marianne replied, “Because I’m on, of course”. She was already on when we got to the Acoustic Stage and it was so crowded that we could hardly squeeze in the tent, in the end we gave up and sat on the grass outside to listen. It was great to be in her presence though.

Another legendary lady was up next on the main stage and that was Debby Harry with her band Blondie. They had recently returned to the top of the UK charts after a long absence with a song called Maria. A band called Bush were on next, but I can’t remember anything about them. After that was Hole featuring Courtney Love. She almost caused a riot by inviting the audience up on stage. The security did allow about twenty people on stage, but it was very reckless of her doing that, from a health and safety point of view. The Beautiful South were on next, but we went back to base for a bit of a rest.

The last band on that night were REM and me and my brother Paul went down to see them. We managed to wheedle our way right to the very front. REM were fantastic, although I have only ever had one of their albums. Michael Stipe must be one of the greatest front men for any group ever. They did all their really famous songs such as What’s The Frequency Kenneth? The Great Beyond, The One I Love, Losing My Religion, Everybody Hurts, Man On The Moon and many more and ended with It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. I would put that performance by REM in my favourite five Glastonbury shows of all time.

The great music continued Saturday. Billy Bragg was the first person on the main stage and Billy took the opportunity to mock the Manic Street Preachers who were headlining. The reason was that backstage, Billy had spotted a sign on a portaloo which said, ‘This Toilet Is For The Exclusive Use Of The Manic Street Preachers’. This attitude offended Billy’s socialist sensibilities and he ripped the sign down and brought it on stage to read to the crowd. Billy is a Glastonbury legend who has appeared there for over thirty years. There was another legend on the main stage in 99 as well who was the late great Joe Strummer with his band The Mescalero’s. Joe went to Glasto every year whether he was playing or not. He always camped with Keith Allen who brought his kids along who included the now world-famous Lily Allen. I think Lily has been going to Glasto since she was two years old. Joe was renowned for the enormous bonfire that he would build every year. What I remember most about his performance in 99 was that Joe took offence at all the TV cameras. “I hate these cameras”, said Joe, “You can’t go for a dump these days without a camera following you”. Then he proceeded to attack the cameras with his microphone stand. I thought it was hilarious. I never saw The Clash live so I’m glad that I got this chance to see the great Joe Strummer especially as Joe died only three years later. His legend lives on at Glasto with an area now called Strummerville and there is a stone in his memory. Ten years after this performance Bruce Springsteen would pay a tribute to Joe by starting his set with Joe’s song Coma Girl.

Another person who I am pleased I saw on that historic Saturday was Lonnie Donegan who played on the Acoustic Stage. Lonnie was one of the most important figures in the history of British music and an inspiration to everyone, from the Beatles and the Stones to The Who and many more. His career had fallen into almost obscurity until he made the Skiffle Sessions album with Van Morrison and he was enjoying a renaissance in popularity. We saw Lonnie once more that summer at the Fleadh in Finsbury Park when he actually joined Van on stage. Sadly, Lonnie also died in 2002 so I’m glad we got the chance to see him. I kept telling Hannah to come and see him because he sang a great song called My Old Man’s A Dustman. He didn’t sing it though, which was a bit of a shame.

On the same stage that day was another performance that I’ll never forget and that was by Henry McCullough. Henry was the only Irishman on stage at the famous Woodstock festival in 69 when he was in Joe Cocker’s Grease Band. Later he was in Wings with Paul McCartney. Along with Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher Henry was one of the great Irish guitarists. Henry’s guitar solo on My Love by Wings is said to be one of the greatest solo’s ever. I wasn’t all that familiar with his work, but I did know of him because at one time another of the Grease Band was someone who went to my school called Neil Hubbard, another great guitarist. Also, I really liked Henry’s song Failed Christian which had been covered by Nick Lowe. The other thing was that Henry was a friend of my brother Paul and had appeared a few times at my brother’s pub in County Mayo, Ireland. It was a shame that the audience was so small for Henry because he was great. After his set my brother went backstage to see him. They went on a bar crawl all over the site. I think it started with them raiding Lonnie Donegan’s backstage fridge for a drink. Henry was blown away by Glastonbury, he hadn’t seen anything like this since Woodstock. I think finally a lady who worked backstage drove him back to his hotel. Sadly, Henry is no longer with us either, he passed away in 2016 but he was a great man, that’s for sure.

The highlight for me on the Sunday was seeing one of the great soul singers of all time which was Al Green. He was fabulous, what a voice. The only thing that put me off was that he tried to turn his set into a religious Baptist revival meeting and kept asking the audience to put their hands in the air and let Jesus into their lives. I found that a bit cringe-worthy. I don’t mind religion, but I don’t like it being forced on me, thank you very much. The other thing was that Al didn’t seem to know where he was. He kept saying that it was nice to be here in Bristol which was about forty miles away. Apart from that he was great. The Corrs were on after Al. The girls were gorgeous looking. I had one of their albums when they first appeared on the scene, but I think they were a bit over-rated actually. Later that night we saw some of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals and finally Skunk Anansie. I don’t remember a lot about the rest of that evening though, I think I was bollixed.

That brought Glastonbury in the 1990’s to a close. It had been a decade of anarchy and the festival had been lucky to survive. A lot of people look back on Glasto in the 90’s with nostalgia and miss the edginess that it had then. A new millennium was approaching when the festival would eventually solve the problems confronting it and become the annual event we love today. Not immediately though, in 2000 I was to meet the dark side of Glastonbury full on for myself.

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 17, 2000

Chapter 17. 2000

A few weeks after the festival in 99 Kim and I were back in Glastonbury for the Extravaganza at the abbey which Michael had organised. He does this every year to thank the local people for their support and the profits help towards the up-keep of the abbey. We stayed at the George & Pilgrim which is just across the High Street from the abbey grounds. It is about 600 years old and originally it was an inn for pilgrims going to the abbey. It is also reputed to be haunted. Our room was brilliant, we even had a four-post bed which Kim thought was great. The concert was the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guest soloist Evelyn Glennie. We brought along two fold-up chairs and a little table, lots of nice food and a bottle of champagne and had a picnic. Kim was in her element, she liked this sort of thing, she thought it was posh. They even had the local boy scouts there with wheel barrows to carry your stuff to where you wanted to sit. I spotted Michael Eavis as soon as we arrived, and I wanted to go over and thank him for the tickets. Kim refused though because he was talking to people, and she didn’t like to bother him. On the Pimm’s stall who should be serving? none other than Arabella Churchill, Sir Winston’s grand-daughter. We had a bit of a chat with her. What a nice lady she was. Along with Michael, Jean & Emily I think she was one of the main reasons for the success of Glastonbury with her founding Children’s World which evolved into the Kidz Field, also her developing the theatre & cabaret side of the festival.

The concert was fabulous. This was the only time in my life that I ever saw a world-renowned classical orchestra. I’m not an expert on this type of music at all but I particularly enjoyed the Karelia Suite by Sibelius from Finlandia. They even had water features shooting up fountains of water in time to the music. The percussionist Evelyn Glennie was wonderful, especially when you realise that she has been profoundly deaf since birth. She doesn’t hear the music, she feels it. A great evening came to an end with a spectacular firework display. Since that night, I have been back to the extravaganza quite a few times, to see Van Morrison there on three occasions, also Robert Plant, George Ezra, Ray Davies and Brian Wilson. If you want a great night out in beautiful historic surroundings, then go to Glastonbury Extravaganza at the abbey.

I’ll always remember Glastonbury 2000 as the year of the brand-new Pyramid Stage, David Bowie and it being the year I got robbed. The weather was glorious when we set off from Westbury in a two-car convoy. Me, Kim and Kim’s niece Lisa in our car and our friends Andy and Alex in their car. Unfortunately, by the time we got as far as Frome we had lost them in the traffic and didn’t find them for another two days. I think this was probably the biggest Glastonbury of all. We will never know the true figure of how many people were there, but I reckon it could have been as many as 250,000. You could tell that by how crowded it was. If you got there late it would have been nearly impossible to find a space to put up a tent. Everyone in the country knew by now how easy it was to get in for nothing and with the good weather as well, people just poured in. That was a huge problem from a health and safety point of view. This was the year of the disaster at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark when nine people were crushed to death in front of the stage. Glastonbury was lucky that the same thing didn’t happen there. I think the biggest danger was when one act finished on a stage and their fans would be leaving and meet other people arriving to see the next band and a human traffic jam would be created which was potentially lethal.

The other major problem facing the festival was the thieving which had got totally out of hand. You could see gangs of robbers going from tent to tent and if a tent was empty they would be in there robbing whatever they could find. They called themselves ‘The Scally’ but they were just scumbags who were ruining it for the vast majority of peace loving honest people. There simply wasn’t enough police and security to cope with it. The police did have one good idea though. They put up lots of bogus tents and quite a few thieves got busted trying to rob ‘police tents’. I always thought it would never happen to me because I was always careful not to leave anything valuable in my tent. In 2000 I got robbed though on the very first night we arrived. If it had happened on the Sunday night, it wouldn’t have been as bad because I would have spent most of my money by then but on the Thursday night I was still pockets a jingle. It was about 1.00 in the morning and I was wandering back to camp from one of the beer tents and these three characters came along shouting, “Four cans of Stella for a fiver”. “That sounds like a good deal”, I thought to myself, “I’ll take them back to camp”. Like an idiot, I got out my wallet and was looking in it for a fiver when in a split-second I was staring at my bare hands. They had snatched my wallet and ran off in three different directions into the crowd. It was pointless giving chase because I didn’t know which one had my wallet and I would never have caught them anyway. I had lost £200 and my credit cards.

I felt like such a fool when I got back to camp and had to announce that I had just been mugged. Luckily there was an on-site bank and next morning I went up there with Kim’s niece Lisa and cancelled my cards and Lisa lent me £100 which was kind of her. Then we went to the Police Headquarters and reported the theft. Not that it did any good. There was a huge queue to report crimes. I think there was 900 reported thefts that year. I bet the real figure was more like 5000 because most people wouldn’t have bothered reporting it. The police asked me for a description of the robbers, but I couldn’t tell them much except I knew where they came from because I recognised the accents, but I know everyone from that area isn’t a thief. It taught me a lesson I can tell you.

Let’s talk about more pleasant things because we still had a great time in 2000 despite that bad experience. It was the year of the brand-new Pyramid Stage. The gleaming silver structure had been christened by Robert Plant when he visited the farm a couple of weeks earlier. He christened it with some of Worthy Farm’s own milk. It was great to see the Pyramid back again and it is the same stage that is used today and makes Glasto recognisable around the world. 2000 was also the first year of The Glade which pumped out dance music among the trees non-stop from Wednesday till Monday morning.

Before I talk about the music I just want to tell you about one funny incident. Me and Kim were walking through the Theatre/ Circus field and we were approached by this dodgy looking geezer. He was wearing check trousers and a nasty coat with a fur collar and he had greasy combed back hair and a little mustache. He reminded me of Private Walker from Dads Army.

“Scuse me mate”, he said, “Would you be interested in buying a car?”

“Not really”, I said, “We’ve got one, where is it?”

“I’ve got loads of them for sale”

“Well, where are they then?”

“Here they are”, and he opened his coat to reveal lots of little dinky cars sewn into the lining of his coat. It was hilarious. He was part of the street theatre that wander about in that area of the site. That is why you don’t need drugs at Glasto because reality is weird enough.

It was a good year musically in 2000. On the Friday night we saw Macy Gray. What I remember most about Macy’s set was that the security allowed two naked people to climb over the barrier and run across the front of the stage. This prompted Macy’s two backing singers to remove their knickers to show solidarity with the nudists. It might have all been part of the act for all I know but it was very funny. Later that night we saw some of Cypress Hill. They are an American hip-hop rap group from California. This isn’t usually my type of music, but I thought they were good. When there was all the furore about Kanye West headlining at Glastonbury a couple of years ago, people were saying that this isn’t suitable music for Glastonbury, but they forget that this type of music was on the Pyramid Stage many years earlier. Don’t forget the success of the dance tents either which played a lot of hip-hop.

The main act I remember on the Saturday was seeing David Gray on the Other Stage. I had discovered his music the previous year at the Fleadh in London and had bought his album White Ladder. The next day Burt Bacharach was supposed to be playing but he pulled out and David played another set on the Pyramid Stage which made him a superstar overnight and White Ladder shot up the album charts. You can always tell who was a big success at Glasto by looking at the charts a week later. People can become world famous overnight. The only band I watched on the Pyramid that day was Ladysmith Black Mambazo. When we were around the campfire that night I was singing the song Homeless which they recorded with Paul Simon, but I changed the song to Hopeless and was leaping over the fire which seemed quite funny at the time. Some of the best fun was around the fire, drinking and telling jokes. When people are really spaced out after partying for days and with sleep deprivation they will laugh at anything, such as, “What do you do if you see a spaceman?” “Park in it man”, and other silly stuff like that. The Pet Shop Boys, Reef, Ocean Colour Scene, Semisonic, Brand New Heavies, Travis and Asian Dub Foundation were also on that day, but I don’t remember any of that. A lot of those bands slipped back into obscurity. I don’t think the Saturday line-up was that great in 2000. One good thing though, that evening we bumped into our friends Andy & Alex who we had lost two days before, so that was good.

Sunday was a lot better musically. Sharon Shannon was on the Pyramid Stage and a bit later it was American country music legend Willie Nelson. I know his importance in the history of music, but I have never been a big fan. He was good, and I recognised quite a few of the songs. I insisted that we leave before the end of his set though because I wanted to see someone whose music I had discovered around that time which was Kate Rusby aka The Barnsley Nightingale who played on the Acoustic Stage. She was great, this was the first time I had seen Kate and I’ve seen her lots of times since. My favourite song of her performance was her version of Iris Dement’s Our Town.

The highlight of the whole festival was David Bowie’s performance. This was his second Glastonbury. The first was in 1971 when he was relatively unknown and now he returned 29 years later as a music legend. It was the second and last time I ever saw him live. The first time was in the mid 70’s when he was the thin white duke and Station To Station was released. He seemed really pleased to be back. I can’t remember all the songs, but I know he began with Wild Is The Wind because one of our friends Alex was a huge fan and was really pleased about that. It was mainly greatest hits set including China Girl, Changes, Life On Mars, Ashes To Ashes, Rebel Rebel, Golden Years, Fame, All The Young Dudes, Man Who Sold The World, Station To Station, Starman, Under Pressure, Ziggy Stardust, Heroes, Let’s Dance and many other songs that I can’t remember now.

That brought Glastonbury 2000 to a triumphant end. There was no festival in 2001 and when it returned in 2002 the huge problems of gate-crashers and thieving would finally be addressed.

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 18, 2002

Chapter 18. 2002, Wake Up Maggie.

 Two long years had gone by and it was time to return to Glastonbury. There was never any doubt about it, we had to go. It would be unbearable to be at home when the biggest party in the world was going on only thirty miles down the road. Another reason for going to Glasto every year is that there were some people who I didn’t see all year apart from at the festival and we would probably have lost touch if it wasn’t for Glastonbury.

Michael Eavis had not been idle in those two years. He had designed a brand-new steel fence which had cost £1,000,000. The design meant that it was too high to climb, and it couldn’t be dismantled either as all the sections fitted into each other. There was a metalled walkway all around the outside of it as well which made it impossible to burrow under the fence. Glastonbury was now surrounded by a ring of steel. Another change this year as well was that the Mean Fiddler organisation had taken over the security duties. This wasn’t approved of by a lot of festival goers, but it turned out to be quite successful. It was now almost impossible to gate crash Glastonbury. Most people didn’t mind the gate crashers and I don’t think even Michael Eavis really objected to them, but it had to be stopped because of risks to health. Also, even though the site was huge there simply wasn’t enough camping room for an extra 100,000 people. The other major benefit was that it kept out the gangs of thieves who were ruining it for everyone else. Crime dropped dramatically and now you could leave your tent unattended without worrying that it would be pillaged. The organisers and security had overlooked one thing though. The car-parks were still outside the fence and when the thieving scumbags found they couldn’t get into the festival they started robbing from cars outside. When we left on Monday we saw lots of cars with smashed windows where they had been broken into. Luckily, they hadn’t touched Kim’s little Fiat Panda. Other people I know weren’t so fortunate though. My niece Katherine had her car stolen and it was later involved in a  car crash which was very upsetting for her.

With the nice weather and a lot of the problems solved Glastonbury 2002 should have been one of the great festivals but it seemed to fall short somehow. A few months earlier the atrocity of 9-11 had happened, Afghanistan had been invaded and the war in Iraq was being planned. Back in the 1980’s there would have been speeches from the stage warning of the dire consequences of going to war. Strangely though this didn’t seem to affect Glastonbury. It had become a lot less political. A lot of the gate-crashers of previous years were working class people who probably couldn’t afford to buy tickets so from 2002 onwards the audience at Glastonbury became more middle-class and wealthy. They were part of the throwaway society. This is the time when people started abandoning tents and other belongings at the end of the festival. There was a lot more room for camping in 2002 but strangely that seemed to take away from the atmosphere of friendship and neighbourliness. This was the year we moved our camping area again and moved across the old railway track to Pennard Hill Ground.

I think another reason 2002 didn’t live up to expectations was because the line-up wasn’t that great. Rod Stewart was the headliner on the Sunday. It had been thirty years since I had seen Rod at my first ever festival at Lincoln. Back in 72 he was great, playing with The Faces and he was a great rock singer. Now, he just seemed like a parody of his former self, lost in show-biz. Kim really enjoyed it though. Rod seemed to be enjoying himself and kicked about thirty footballs into the audience. What I really regretted was that Kate & Anna McGarrigle were headlining on the Acoustic Stage when this was going on. I would have loved to have seen them because their debut album of 1977 is one of my all-time favourites. I’ll never get the chance to see them now because Kate has since died. Another great band I would have liked to have seen was the Be Good Tanyas. I wasn’t familiar with their music at the time, but I love it now. I missed all that to see Rod The  Mod. The real headliner should have been Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame. He was good. The sound for his performance was the best ever at Glastonbury with the music coming at you from all directions. Originally, they planned to have plastic pigs descending by parachute into the crowd but that wasn’t allowed for health and safety reasons.

We saw Brian Kennedy play who has a great voice. You could hear the music from the Pyramid during his performance and he asked the audience who it was. When he found out it was Ash who also come from Northern Ireland he didn’t mind. Also, we saw Eric Bibb again and Nick Lowe who always seems to be on at Glasto. The best performance in the Acoustic that year for us was a very emotional set by the late great Richie Havens. Another act that was always popular with the crowd was Rolf Harris, there were even people dressed as kangaroos bouncing through the crowd during his performance. I don’t think there is any chance of him ever being at Glastonbury again.