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Last year Glastonbury was, as visible above, the year of the mud. It was nasty. Wet, squidgy, everywhere. This year, with the sun out in the sky, the mud relatively non-existent and sunburns a frequent issue there was a need for another definition. Perhaps we could accurately call Glastonbury 2008 the Year of the Old Man. Which brings on nicely to today's Glastonbury Top Ten man:
9. Neil Diamond
By Sunday afternoon the sun had been shining for a solid two days and festival spirits were higher than the population of the Stone Circle at dawn that morning. I squeezed my way down the side of the Pyramid stage and watched Neil Diamond walk out in front of tens of thousands of sunkissed people.
I was front row, but so far over that I could have been fiftieth row in the centre and I still would have been closer. Still, when a man overflows with joie de vie as much as Diamond does, you could be keeping your kids busy at the back of the field and still have the time of your life.
Skipping through every song your regular Glastonbury punter is likely to know, Diamond led treats such as Red Red Wine and I'm A Believer with more enthusiasm than a vampire at a bloodbank, though perhaps a little less sinisterly. Of course, by the time Neil Diamond finished America, the crowd were putty in his hands. Even a three-minute loss of sound hadn't slowed down a man who has gathered every ounce of his experience together to make one of the greatest shows of his generation. When he started Sweet Caroline, there was no real question over how the crowd would react.
There must be some feeling of satisfaction in getting the biggest crowd singalong of Glastonbury 2008, but if there was, Neil Diamond remainded humble nonetheless, leaving everyone who saw him beaming at his fantastic and modest approach to putting on a great set.
mp3: 'Sweet Caroline' by Neil Diamond
My Top Ten 'Glastonbury Moments' From Glastonbury 2008. By me.
10. Sunday night, about midnight, my mate Rob and I are sitting waiting for other friends in an old cockpit by a bar in Shangri-La. Man in thick-knitted sweater, worn jeans and wellies sits next to me. Looks at me. Raises hand and starts talking to me through tiny wool finger puppet mouse. I find this perfectly normal behaviour.
9. Friday evening, front row of The Holloways set in the Queen's Head tent. Crowd euphoric as the band plays through their old and new tracks with typical energy. I turn to my right. Sixty-year old black man rests on barrier, looking more miserable than anyone who has ever lived before. He is wearing a colourful furry lion hat.
8. Friday night, Park Stage, I am crushed down at the front of a secret gig being put on by Franz Ferdinand. I look ahead to the front row, just two people ahead of me. A small boy, no older than ten is standing watching the band as his father is slowly pulverised whilst attempting to keep his son from mosh-related injuries.
7. Saturday night, by the Cider Bus. I buy a pint of cider and watch on as a giant wicker turtle, the size of a van, is wheeled through the rabble. Costumed men and women are sitting on top, on a matress inside, whilst a few push it along. People stop and watch, everyone laughs. Until it parks in front of about fifty of them at the Pyramid Stage. No one argues. Who's to say what these people are capable of?
6. Saturday afternoon, Other Stage. Elbow finish their set spectacularly, leading the crowd in an epic singalong to 'One Day Like This'. After they leave the stage the crowd forgo the traditional cheering for more, simply choosing not to stop the singalong. The lines 'Throw those curtains wide/One day like this a year would see me right!' are sung in unity by thirty thousand people for a further four minutes.
5. Wednesday evening, Jazz World Stage. A woman shins her way up one of the many flags that pepper the arena. Crowd watches on, calling out encouragement. When the woman reaches fifteen feet or so, the flag simply snaps in half and the woman falls to the ground, lies for a few seconds, gets up and walks off.
4. Sunday afternoon, Pyramid Stage, Neil Diamond leads seventy to eighty thousand people in a sing along to Sweet Caroline. That's all.
3. Sunday night, about 2am. Rob and I have found his friends and are dancing in a group to jive music in a fifties diner in Shangri-La. One friend points to the side of the dancefloor. Mark Ronson pashes with his girlfriend. We all privately consider going over. No-one does.
2. Wednesday evening, Jazz World Stage. I buy a pint of pear cider, and walking away from the bar hear a huge cheer - the sort you hear leading up to a penalty. A rising 'oohhhhHHHHH' followed by a 'Whay!'. I go over to examine. Amongst a circle of thirty sit three people and their mate, who lies passed out on the floor, cardboard cup of cider held loosely in hand. Between his legs, where they meet the crotch, an empty cider cup has been placed. Towering up from this is a lopsided stack of these cups, at least eighty of them, gathered and piled to create a spontaneous alcoholic's idea of Jenga. Every 'oohhhhHHHHHWhay!' comes from the crowd as they watch another contestant approach the tower and carefully place their empty cup in. The tower topples at approximately ninety cups, but the bloke remains unconscious. He is roused by his friends, and a little surprsied to be covered in cardboard cups and cheered by three dozen people. It is Glastonbury.
1. Walking through the Green Fields on Thursday afternoon I stop to join a small group watching a tranny teach a ten-year old boy how to weld. That is all, but it is all I will ever need.
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.
I'm leaving for Glastonbury in a mere 50-odd hours. Just sayin'. Let's continue the Top Ten, shall we?
5. St. Vincent
Today we're keeping a strict Park Stage On Saturday theme, where both artists are performing for my aural pleasure. It should be good, seeing as last year my friend and I ventured to the Park area only once, in order to buy her a limited edition Stella McCartney top. She's worn it maybe four times since. But this year The Park has been allowed to develop further, and is overflowing with some of my favourite artists of the last year or so. The first of which is my old favourite St. Vincent, who made one of my favourite albums of 2007 in 'Marry Me'.
I'm really interested to see how Annie Clark performs live - her previous credentials in The Polyphonic Spree will have shown her how to have fun (in fact, my favourite live performance is still held by the Spree), whereas working with Sufjan Stevens will have taught her how to capture the audience and stun them with music. Her album perhaps lends itself more to the latter, but I'm not gonna miss the opportunity to find out for myself...
See her: Saturday, on The Park Stage
6. Alphabeat
I really shouldn't have to explain this choice by now, so I'll sum up the reasons briefly and succinctly for you and leave it at that. Firstly, Alphabeat are the best pop band currently making music in the British pop industry. Secondly, they are Scandinavian, and therefore awesome. Thirdly, their album is the most consistantly satisfying debut since 'Parachutes'. Fourth of all, they are the best live band I have seen this year.
See them: Saturday, on The Park Stage
mp3: 'Marry Me' by St. Vincent
mp3: 'Touch Me, Touching You' by Alphabeat
3. Goldfrapp
There is an undoubtable prescence of summer in Seventh Tree, the latest from Goldfrapp, and if I were a documentary maker I'd be setting up camp front row of the band's Glastonbury set this year. Simply put, Seventh Tree is the music of Glastonbury, grand, swooping and Romantic with a big 'R'. Alison Goldfrapp is herself renowned for putting on a mesmerising live show, and I doubt it'll be any different a week from today. The downside of Goldfrapp's set, if indeed you consider it one, is that the bad will be performing on the Pyramid Stage the same night that The Verve headline. It'll be packed, rammed and generally giving everyone empathy for the sardine. It has the potential to be hypnotic and one of those great musical moments where 70,000 people all fall into a slow-motion unison, lost in the music. Until the twat with the huge umbrella shuffles up into the row just in front of you...
See them: Sunday on the Pyramid Stage
4. The Swell Season
After finally seeing Once a few weeks back, I've not taken the soundtrack, nor the semi-separate Swell Season album off of rotation. To explain to those who have not heard of Once (though, seriously, where have been?): Once is a fantastic independent film from Ireland that cost 100,000 Euros to make and won the Best Song award at the Oscars this year, beating off competition from no less than 3 songs from Disney's Enchanted. It follows two struggling musicians in Dublin, and is sprinkled with some of the sweetest songs to have arisen from Ireland since The Cake Sale album (and, indeed, features one song from said album). Since the film, the two lead actors (Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova, though the second of the two names requires some squiggles above letters) have continued musically together and released an album under the moniker The Swell Season. Their album features some songs featured in the film and some that were not. They are terribly lovely and ever so slightly incredible.
See them: Saturday on the Acoustic Stage
mp3: 'Cologne Cerrone Houdini' by Goldfrapp
mp3: 'Lies' by The Swell Season
In less than seven days I will be on my way to Glastonbury 2008, hopefully having worked out how to fit my new pop-up tent back in its case (I tested out the other day and now I can't put it down). One week from today I'll be strolling around the back streets of the festival looking for whatever Thursday night music I can - probably Make Model at the Queen's Head... Until then, however, I must tide my time with words and websites. Enjoy my daily countdown of the top ten bands to see at Glastonbury this year...
1. Elbow
I don't know if you heard, but last year Glastonbury was a bit soggy. The wettest ever, as it happens. So whilst I was able to keep the Friday and the Saturday about the music, my fellow-festivaler and I managed to see only four bands on the Sunday. It was a pretty crap day - I had a six-person tent on my back all day, leaving strap-marks for a week (men should never have strap-marks, people!), and the shambolic mess that was the coach park left us tired and grumpy. This Glastonbury, I've made every effort to make Sunday lovely. I don't leave til Monday, and I've decided it won't rain. The key thing, though, is Elbow's set on the wonderful Queen's Head stage. Even if I only see them all day long, it'll be enough. Every one of the three previous live encounters I've had with the band have left me breathless, like the first time you see the Eiffel Tower, or that time your hairdresser cut off a chunk of your ear by accident. And, if I do miss the Sunday set, I will have almost certainly seen them the Saturday too!
See them: Saturday on The Other Stage, Sunday at the Queen's Head.
2. Stephen Fretwell
Keeping on a similar theme, this year also sees songwriting mastermind Stephen Fretwell grace the Queen's Head (fast becoming my essential stage for Glasto '08). I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Fretwell last year, and whilst on his tour bus discussing his friendship with the aforementioned Elbow he proudly displayed their bassist, Pete, having a nap in the bunk next to my chair.
Other than Elbow connections, though, Fretwell still maintains a formidble 'pros' list to outweigh any cons. His songs are sparse but lyrically lush, his voice the Scunthorpe musician's equivalent of James Stewart or Casey Affleck, and his looks hovering between hobo and Hollywood, like a less ginger Glen Hansard. Beautiful.
See him: Saturday at the Queen's Head
mp3: 'May You Never' by Elbow
mp3: 'New York' by Stephen Fretwell
