Glastonbury Festival | Vital Football

Glastonbury Festival

Buddha

Buddha

Vital Football Hero
If it weren't for covid I'd have already been at Pilton for a few weeks, working in the hot sun. This year would have marked the 50th anniversary of the first festival (but not the fiftieth festival cos of the fallow years).

How many of you have ever been? When was your first time? What are your best memories? And worst? Best performance(s) you saw there? Have you ever jumped the fence?!

I first went in 1994 and jumped the fence that year, and then again for the next few years until one year MIchael Eavis started giving us free tickets! Then I stopped going in the early 2000s but returned a few years ago with another free wristband, and since then I've worked there every year.

Seeing Rage Against the Machine there on my first visit was a truly amazing experience but there have been so many good times. In recent years Cyndi Lauper was great and watching Kylie strut her stuff on the Pyramid Stage was kinda surreal but also superb.

The festival is very different now to how it was when I first started going. But even back then people were saying the same thing, that it had lost it's soul to commercialisation and had 'sold out'! If that wasn't true in 1994, it shirley must be so now. But even so, Glastonbury Festival has become a national institution and it feels strange this year, with the Solstice having just passed, that the festival isn't preparing to open it's gates for the annual party.

BBC article about jumping the fence here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53151990
 
valenciagill said:
I've never been myself , but from what I've seen on telly , I would rather go the last night at the proms 😃
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What do you mean, music wise? Or you talking comfort, a nice comfy seat at the Royal Albert Hall vs roughing in it in a muddy field?!

I'd understand that. There's no way I could survive the weekend there if all I had to go back to was a tent! Completely different when you've got your home there. Mind you, some of the workers just have a tent and are there for several weeks. That'd be bad enough when it's dry but a nightmare when it's wet and muddy!

Have you ever been to the last night at the proms? I'd not turn down the opportunity to go, reckon it'd be quite an experience.
 
Buddha said:
What do you mean, music wise? Or you talking comfort, a nice comfy seat at the Royal Albert Hall vs roughing in it in a muddy field?!
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Both really.
I've done the rough stuff , and couldn't stand or walk around for a day (or more)
Music wise , I'd maybe like some , but certainly dislike others.

Nope , give me a night of flag-waving sing-along classics anytime !
 
valenciagill said:
Both really.
I've done the rough stuff , and couldn't stand or walk around for a day (or more)
Music wise , I'd maybe like some , but certainly dislike others.

Nope , give me a night of flag-waving sing-along classics anytime !
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Can't say you surprise me!

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
A potential H bomb
 
If I was 20 again, i`d think about it, then decide it still was not my cup of tea. Good luck to all those who attend, hope it doesn`t get too muddy. As for jumping the fence, i`d pay. Didn`t jump the fence at Priestfield either. Glastonbury needs to hire a consultant from Washington DC to build a bigger fence !!
 
In the early 70s I went to Glastonbury a few times. Not for the festivals tho' ... I used to go down to mark the spring equinox, or summer solstice - spending the night on the Tor, with a few dozen, once even a hundred or two folk watching the sunset & rise etc. The town was a very interesting place to visit, what with the Arthurian & Holy Grail legends. There were already a couple of pubs in the town showing "no hippie" or "no patchouli wearer" signs ! We always went to the Riflemans pub, close to the bottom of the Tor, for some lethal scrumpy cider ....
 
Never seen the point of festivals! Would only want to watch the bands I like and can do that from home with a better view!
 
mozzer59 said:
Never seen the point of festivals! Would only want to watch the bands I like and can do that from home with a better view!
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Watching bands is only a small part of the entire experience, mozzer. There are so many things to see and do that you could quite easily (and many do) spend the entire weekend having a great time without actually seeing a single band.

As for watching bands on the telly, I think that's a bit like watching football on the telly - it's ok but it's nothing like being there and witnessing it happen live.
 
mozzer59 said:
Never seen the point of festivals! Would only want to watch the bands I like and can do that from home with a better view!
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In the late 60s, early 70s etc, when the festivals started, the possibility of watching at home didn't really exist until much later, of course. The original festivals were very cheap (& there were also free festivals for a number of years, like with the great free Hyde Park concerts) where you could see & hear some of the best bands around, both British & American.
 
My sister and many of my mates have been a number of times, but ive not.

Its one of my biggest regrets music/holiday wise is not going to be honest. I cant help but feel much of its magic has been tainted by the more recent commercialisation of the last 10 years. Too much James Corden and David Beckham (going there just to look cool in posh glamping pods) for my liking now. They are most certainly missing the point of it all IMO. They should probably sit at home and watch it on the box as a poster above has suggested he'd prefer.

Give me a tent, some crates of shit beer, a group of good mates and 100,000 weird and wonderful prats ive not met yet, and i love festivals.

Been to Reading and Leeds which were amazing experiences. I can only feel they were glasto lite though and always wanted to experience glasto in its glory.

Going to see the bands was great. Amazing concerts to over a hundred thousand people singing along. Some great djs playing through until 6am in leeds too in big tents dotted around the campsites...launching bottles of our piss at 50 cent (yeah i know irresponsible lol, but he must have known it was coming as he actually replied by launching a few hundred bottles of water back at us).

Buddhas exactly right, going to a concert and experiencing it properly is not comparable with watching on tv. Getting in a mosh pit is nothing like watching one. In the same way football on tv is pretty boring compared with the real thing and the chants and the atmosphere in the stands (well used to be, anyway), being at a concert is massively different from watching it on tv.

Buddhas right again also, the music itself is just one small part of the fun. The music ends at 11-12 in most festivals, but that really is where the night begins. Its basically just a 4 day piss up/experience with your mates.
 
Gilles Lingam said:
In the late 60s, early 70s etc, when the festivals started, the possibility of watching at home didn't really exist until much later, of course. The original festivals were very cheap (& there were also free festivals for a number of years, like with the great free Hyde Park concerts) where you could see & hear some of the best bands around, both British & American.
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I went to the Isle of Wight in 1970 and camped with a groupm of about a dozen with one small tent and some plastic sheeting, fabulous lineup. I saw a few of those Hyde Park Concerts and caught Edgar Broughton and others in various outdoor venues across Kent. Happy days; I don't do festivals anymore and haven't done for a long time but me, my bike and my tent still trundle.
 
Buddha said:
Watching bands is only a small part of the entire experience, mozzer. There are so many things to see and do that you could quite easily (and many do) spend the entire weekend having a great time without actually seeing a single band.

As for watching bands on the telly, I think that's a bit like watching football on the telly - it's ok but it's nothing like being there and witnessing it happen live.
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No, still not interested!
 
Ok, so never been to Glastonbury but my first festival experience was V96 at Chelmsford. I was 20 and me and 4 mates had tickets for the Saturday. A mate drove up early and it was a fucking great day. We met some Essex girls there, and I decided to stay up there with a girl, my mates came back to whitstable and me and this pink haired girl found a quiet area, kipped the night with a blanket, then got the second day for free (I’m sure you’d approve Buds!). I finally made it back to whitstable on the Tuesday evening, my poor old mum was beside herself. Didn’t know where I’d been. On the Monday morning I’d thought to ring work to say I couldn’t get in- I was an apprentice at the time, but hadn’t thought to ring home.

The next year, and subsequent few me and my mates actually went with the intention of staying all weekend. So had tents, alcohol, a bit of weed etc. But nothing beats that first year.........
 
Gilles Lingam said:
In the early 70s I went to Glastonbury a few times. Not for the festivals tho' ... I used to go down to mark the spring equinox, or summer solstice - spending the night on the Tor, with a few dozen, once even a hundred or two folk watching the sunset & rise etc. The town was a very interesting place to visit, what with the Arthurian & Holy Grail legends. There were already a couple of pubs in the town showing "no hippie" or "no patchouli wearer" signs ! We always went to the Riflemans pub, close to the bottom of the Tor, for some lethal scrumpy cider ....
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I know the town a bit, have been parked up there a few times. It's a few miles from the festival site. Still not been up the Tor tho, I really must do that - have been meaning to for years...
 
SE1_Gills said:
Camping is my idea of hell so festivals are a non starter for me
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I wouldn't want to camp either, SE. I don't think I'd bother going to a festival these days without a caravan or a vehicle of some sort. I need a proper bed and somewhere to make a cup of tea in the mornings!

It's pretty good where I get to park up for Glastonbury, inside the fences and not too far from the parts of the festival where i'd probably choose to hang out most anyway. In the weeks leading up to the festival I can get around the whole site (it's big!) quickly using my push bike. I tend not to use it much during the festival because of the crowds but it is fun riding it around and having wide eyed punters ask me, "Did they just let you bring that bike in?!"

If anybody on here does ever go in the future, try to find the 'Irish dug-out'. It's not on any of the maps and is a bit of a secret. But if you're determined then you'll find it. And you wont be disappointed! Lots and lots of fun to be had in there and you're liable to get so pissed you'll never find the place again, not unless you know where to look!
 
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