Glastonbury Review: Volume One

Monday was a little slice of tiresome. I had to make the trek back from Glastonbury to Nottingham, which would be a stressful trip in itself, without considering the 175,000 people making similar plans (though fortunately not all to Nottingham), and the fact that I was on my now annual Glasto come-down. Like a musical cold turkey, if you will.

Anyway, after last year's mess of a trip home, the fact that I missed a train, and had to travel home in a cattle-truck of a train carriage - well, they just seemed relatively pleasant. Such is life, I suppose, when you spent most of last year carrying a six-person tent on your back in the pouring rain at four o'clock in the morning. Feeling empathy for a sardine loses it's stress factor after that.

So, to Glastonbury '08. Well, the weather was frankly beautiful for the majority of the time - it's left me with the most British tan ever. My arms and face are a lovely dark shade of man-tan, but if you pull down on my collar, or fold back my sleeve, you risk snow-blindness. It's truly that horrific.

So, for my top ten artists I saw at Glastonbury (because the Top Ten Preview never quite found time to finish itself, did it?). This time I'll do it one artist at a time, and share with you my beautiful pictures from 2007's quagmire - for I have not yet ventured to have this year's developed.


10. John Cale

In at number ten we have one of my unplanned artists of the weekend. John Cale appeared before my third favourite set, and knowing that it would be a busy gig I had arrived early and managed to catch the last half of the former Velvet Underground man's set. I was hit immediately by two things. Firstly, just how similar John Cale looks to my grandfather. It's a tad disturbing. And secondly, just how lively and fun an old man can make a set. This second point was reiterated to me twice over the weekend, once by Neil Diamond and once by ex-Squeeze man Glenn Tilbrook, who included in his set a rapping granny and finale so embrassingly cringe-worthy that it actually turned out to be one of the most fun close to a set all weekend.

But John Cale knows how to work a crowd, how to have fun himself, and above all how to make good music.