On Saturday I may have felt a bit rough, but I felt fine except the usual festival sunburn etc. On Sunday, however, I felt decidedly different. We couldn't be bothered to make any kind of breakfast, so off we went to the arena.
We arrived at the main stage well in time to see 'Linoleum' - a bit of a mixed bag. They were good, but well, a few more songs are needed. During their set I noticed some fellow fanzine writers sitting in front of me. If that was you sitting on the right side of the right speaker/control thing/whatever it was, please get in touch - it looked very interesting.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, 'Honeycrack' started their set. REPEAT strongly recommended them, which is a pretty sad indictment of REPEAT really, because they really were terrible. Imagine what you would get if you took the Wildhearts and removed all humour, tunes, and energy from them. They were worse.
Thankfully, the divine Broadcast were on at the Doc Martens tent. They were very good, but halfway through I started to get the 4th day of a festival thing, and most of it is a sort of haze. I do however, remember sitting in the shade behind an ice cream van (with about 20 other people - yes, it was hot) listening to the Cardigans (no, I can't remember them either). I also remember my trip to the legendary 'Festival Toilets'TM, which I don't want to think about, let alone write about. I felt altogether better when I came back to find Coolio had just finished, and we spent a few more hours by the Ice cream van.
Marion were a bit disappointing. Maybe they are an acquired taste live. They played all the new & Dull tracks and omitted 'late gate show' from their set. This is, of course, a capital sin where I come here). They were a bit less of the 'Manics circa '91' , and a bit more 'Tinpot U2' than I had expected. I was too far back to heckle, so I waited for a while and The Fall came on. I didn't expect much, but I was pleasantly surprised. They were as good as, if not better than on record. All right, 40% of the crowd were totally baffled by them, but that's part of the attraction, isn't it?
Now, over the years' people have worked out carefully how music performance should be arranged in its separate forms. Clubs have people dancing wildly on the dancefloor, and so when it is full, people stay by the sidelines. Festivals, however, have moshing and standing still so that huge amounts of people can be squashed into a tiny tent. Someone must have omitted to tell this to the hundreds of people who kept pushing into the already full tent. And so I found myself surrounded by people who evidently did not understand that you do not wildly gyrate your arms while people are pressed on each side of you.
After a few minutes I decided that the Mafia must have sent them to elbow-in-the-face me to death, and I pushed my way to the back by myself, and went over to a drinks stand. Another lesson I learned at this festival was 'Never trust anyone who wants you to buy anything off them'. This I discovered when I went over to a drinks stand and asked for 'the cheapest drink you've got'. A moldy kia-ora (£1 1/4 pint) later I went back over to the dance tent and watched the rest of the Chemical Brothers set. It was, of course, very good (Now if that isn't quality journalism I don't know what is).
After a brief look at the 'Tracy brothers' (who taught us all the art of successful heckling), I went to the Sex Pistols. At least I thought they were the Sex Pistols, but they turned out to be a load of middle aged blokes doing a bad impersonation of them. I suppose that's a bit unfair - they were all right, but nothing special. 20 minutes later I managed to get out of the arena (as my path was blocked by millions of middle aged punks)
I found James (who I had lost at the Chemical Brothers) back at the tent next to a fire he had just lit. I had a long awaited eat, and we met some interesting people. This is what happens when you sit around a campfire next to a main path. We had a sleep, packed up the tent, and went home the next day. On the whole it was quite fun - and thankfully I didn't look the mess I was sure I looked.
The day was looking up. Even Echobelly, who I had expected to be dull to middling were really good. Much better than their slightly dull singles. 20 minutes into their set, James found Aaron. After he had discussed the set with him, and meeting his friends (oh dear), we decided to go to see the chemical brothers.
Well, Glasto this year! (stop press: Glasto sold out. Looks like the Phoenix again. Look out for the review in Blue Glow 2. It'll be better- I promise!)