Where do you start with something SO epic as Glastonbury?
After months of booking, debating whether to even go, planning, paying off it
eventually came round after a 2 year wait.
For those of you that have been you will understand the unbelievable
atmosphere that comes just with stepping through those gates. No matter how
long it has taken you to get there, however long you have queued, even if you
are buckling under the weight of the backpack with 4 litres of spirit and
mixer, 8 cans and 3ltrs of wine, the second you step through the turnstiles and
have your band attached to your wrist you have entered another world.
For those of you who haven’t been – why not?! I will list
the common reasons people don’t want to go:
- You can’t wash for 5 days – you can actually, you just have
to queue for a shower which takes away vital exploring time and therefore it
isn’t worth it, unless you want to get up at 6am when most people are going to
bed. Baby wipes suffice!
- Doesn’t it always rain? – I’m not really sure where
Glastonbury has got this rep from. Yes it has rained heavily in years before
but I’ve been going for the last 4 years and I always come back with a suntan
- I’m not really that fussed about the music – So don’t go for
the music! Go for the atmosphere and the adventure of it all!
- The toilets must be disgusting – Admittedly the toilets aren’t
the best, especially at 12am on a Saturday by the Pyramid Stage, but you get
over it because there are better things to do then moan about the toilets!
- I don’t want to camp – I don’t like camping especially but
for 5 days I live in a tent and I love it. Because it’s part of the
experience...
Thinking about it though I’m not sure why I am trying to
convince more people to go – with tickets selling out in 1hr and 40 minutes and
137,000 people there this year it might just be crowded enough.
But enough about all that – My Glasto 2013 experience:
Waking up, shouldering the load, squeezing on the tube,
joining the pre booked seat queue (so much shorter than the none!) having leg
room, queuing for an hour at Castle Cary, getting a shuttle bus, straight off
and in through the gates, trudging 30 mins with our backpacks to find a camping
spot, setting up the tent, turning round and boom:
Well that was all worth it then.
Wednesday
After our epic trip we chilled out at the tents drinking
cider, admiring the view and getting to know our neighbours. We had a prime
spot this year, the hill was a pain at night and in the heat but we were by
FLUSHING toilets and we could hear all the acts on the Pyramid Stage. We went
for a bit of a stroll once we had rested our blisters and sore shoulders. This
year I went with my boyfriend and one of my best friends and we have all been
before so we knew exactly where we were going for our first meal. A heart attack
in a baguette and glorious after 4 months of dieting –
I’d say don’t judge me but I don’t care.
Afterwards we headed over to Stone Circle to watch the
sunset and see the bonfire blaze, along with most of the festival. It is always
my favourite time because everyone is starting to relax and we talked about who
we wanted to see. Normally there are hundreds of lanterns in the sky but
Glastonbury but a ban on them this year because of Health and Safety, which is
a shame because they are so pretty but understandable. I also got to meet up
with a very old friend who I haven’t seen in 8 years, and of course saw at
Glastonbury after all that time! All the bars close early on Wednesday so we
had a relatively early night and went back to the tents.
Thursday
We woke up at the perfectly acceptable time of 10am and
rolled out of the tents before they got too hot. Still no music so we just had
a walk around the festival finding all the hidden treats including music poles
which were censored and played a different noise when you moved your hand across, and a beautiful
stone bridge with a little garden. I don’t know if there is a way to ever
explore everything across the site but when you do find little corners you
realised the size of Glastonbury. We got some lunch and stopped off at the tea
bus – an old London double decker bus with tables and seating inside, perfect
for watching people go by.
At around 3pm it started to spit with rain a little bit so
we went back to the tents, just in time for the downpour. It rained solidly
from 3 until 11pm so we just stayed in the tent drinking, chatting and eating
all the hula hoops we had bought. This was the only rain we had the whole 5
days and it helped dampen the dust covering all the tracks. There is something
so cosy about being in a tent when it is raining and you can hear it on the
outside. Sadly though my faithful camera of 8 years was sitting in a puddle of
cider for god knows how long and wouldn’t work so that was the end of the
pictures my end. Luckily my friend had a camera so we shared it for the rest of
the festival. We went to bed excited (and a little sad) for the music to start
on the Friday.
Friday
And so the festival began. We went to The Hives in the
morning and they were a perfect way to start the day – the lead singer was
arrogant but making the crowd laugh with it and it was impossible not to jump
around to their music, shouting the lyrics. Afterwards my friend went to have a
nap and so my boyfriend and I had a little walk over to the Dance Village where
we danced to some heavy Drum and Bass before finding a spot to sit and enjoy
some cider and listen to the music vibrating through the floor. That is what is
so incredible about Glastonbury – time doesn’t seem to exist, it can go so
quickly when you are listening to a band you are dying to see and so slowly
when you just want to relax.
At around 3pm we headed over to the Glade to find my old
friend but as anyone who has been to Glastonbury will know meeting up with
people is near impossible and we didn’t actually see her again for the whole
festival but we stayed at the Glade, sat in the sunshine and listened to
ACollective who were really quite good, a mixture of up tempo and slower music.
It was good that we stumbled across them as they suited the emerging sunshine.
After they had finished we headed back to the tent to get the alcohol for the
night and to collect my friend before we headed out again to dance to SBTRKT,
before heading over to see Bastille who managed to pack the whole of the John
Peel tent out and then some.
After I had sung my heart out we went to go and
see Disclosure who were 30minutes late starting so we had to leave to get over
to the final act of the day – Arctic Monkeys. They opened with their new song –
Do I wanna know? – which is my song of the moment and launched into new and old
classics. I suffered the curse of being stuck in the middle of the crowd,
bursting for the toilet and so we left just before the end of the set and had
to dance to ‘When the sun goes down’ next to the toilets but it was all fun.
Afterwards we went back to the dance village and skanked out to Rustie whilst
waving our glow sticks high in the air.
All the sunshine and fresh air must
have got to us because we were in bed by 2am which by Glastonbury standards
really isn’t that great at all!
Saturday
I’ve mentioned before that I was unsure whether to pay the
full amount on my ticket and just not go this year but I changed my mind. Once
of the reasons is because I wasn’t that impressed with the line-up this year.
We spent a fair bit of time just walking around listening in on all the bands
that were playing rather than having anything that we actually wanted to see.
There were a few that we were interested in though so we braved the scorching
heat to sit at the Pyramid Stage to watch Ben Howard who was perfectly chilled
on a sunny day. At one point a single puff of cloud hid the sun and the whole
field let out a sigh of relief before baking again a minute later. I got a
large majority of my tan on this day, there was just no escaping it.
We went back to the tents to collect alcohol and I got
changed into my dancing clothes because *shock horror* no we didn’t go and see
the Rolling Stones. Instead we spent the evening dancing, first to MisterJam
who made the whole crowd do the Harlem Shake (link below – I am in that crowd
somewhere!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tdoay1sZyg
Then we saw Rudimental who had everyone dancing like mad. We then
danced our way over to the Other Stage which unfortunately was a little bit
dead, we assumed everyone was trying to go to see the Rolling Stones, but it
meant we had tons of space to dance to Example who got the crowd going yelling ‘put
your hand up if your dad told you to go and see the Stones’ to which 90% of
hands went up, mine included.
Then the main act of the night started – Chase & Status –
who were just bloody amazing and I could have danced to them all night if I’d
had the chance. They put on a really good show and nearly every one there was
young and having an incredible time. I found out later that 100,000 people went
to go and see the Rolling Stones which means that the other 37,000 must have
been sensible and stuck to the dancing. Unfortunately my friend was feeling a
bit ill so she went back to the tents after but my boyfriend and I stayed up a
bit longer heading over to Arcadia to watch the flames shooting out of what can
only be described as a giant spider. I don’t have any pictures due to the lack
of camera but the heat coming out of the jets of flames was searing. We danced
for a little bit before getting jerk chicken and heading ‘home’.
Sunday
Last day of the festival! I am obviously condensing the
whole trip but even writing about it makes it seem so quick. It did feel a bit
like that on Sunday – how the hell did this go so fast?! Again we didn’t have
anything on for a while so we went up to the Glastonbury sign and sat in the
sun for a little bit before getting some pictures by it. In the 3 previous
years I haven’t been up there so it was nice to do something new. I was also
very jealous of the people swinging in the shade in the hammock section at The
Park as it was still scorching hot. We took a stroll over to the Dance Village
and the Blues stage which had a shanty town style look to it and we watched an
old Rasta man pass joints into the crowd and rap away which was unexpected but
brilliant.
We went to sit in the sun at the Pyramid Stage and
unfortunately caught a bit of Kenny Rogers – I say this because all he did was
name drop and insult the audience. When I was looking through the line up 2
bands stood out to me on the Sunday but they were on at the same time. Flux Pavilion
and Vampire Weekend. I was initially going to go with Flux but because it was so
sunny and I really couldn’t be bothered to energetically dance we stayed for
Vampire Weekend which I do regret now but they were still good regardless.
We went back to the tents and filled our bottles with the
last of the alcohol before heading down to the Pyramid Stage to watch Mumford
& Sons get the crowd going. Again I had seen them before but I reckon
because they have a new album they were better this time, although I have since
read that they scorned the crowd for being drug users and I don’t think it’s
fair to judge the whole crowd so it makes me like them less.
As it was Sunday and people had already started to make
their way home we decided to head over to Shangri-La, the nightlife of the
festival. The queues weren’t too bad, like we had hoped and we had a walk
around the crazy land that is Shangri-La, which had a heaven and hell theme
this year. My throat was killing me by this point with all the cigarettes and
screaming for the bands so I was just blowing the whistle that was attached to
my glowstick whilst watching drunk (amongst other things) people stumbling
around. And that concludes the festival.
I won’t go into too much detail about getting home Monday –
to be honest it was a bit of a nightmare that included 3 hours on a train stopping
and starting to get back to London but as always it was really sad to leave
again for a year.
Glastonbury always manages to perform in its ability to make
me happy and this year was no exception despite my reservations about it
earlier on in the year. I can only hope that we manage to get a ticket for next
year too, I’m going to have to fight off a lot of people to do so.
