From Wednesday 24th until Sunday 28th June 2009 @ Worthy Farm, Somerset
Featuring Performances From: Slow Club, Bloc Party, Dizzee Rascal, Kasabian, Kate Walsh, Metric, Blur

Everybody loves Glastonbury Festival: People spend months saving up, hours sat in-front of a computer frantically clicking refresh and pulling their hair out and then will quite happily spend 9 hours sat in gridlocked traffic, all for the chance to enter a tented city where the rules of society are just a little bit different, a bit freer, and to sit monged off their faces in the sacred circle, contemplating life and sipping Glasto’s holy water (aka. Brothers Pear Cider – festival strength, naturally). 2009 was my third visit to this very special corner of Somerset and after negotiating the usual travel rituals, me and our entourage of 13-odd had one of the best, soggiest and downright most enjoyable festivals of our lives! Unbelievable!!

Whatever your fuel for life, across its seemingly infinite amount of stages and fields, Glastonbury provides more than enough entertainment for everyone; be it fantastic new or old music of literally any genre, circus, comedy, cabaret, theatre, literature, dance, art, sculpture, free-love, escapism, experiencing something new, surrealism, socialism, socialising, mesmerising…Why can’t life always be like this?

Making any kind of “to do” plans at Glasto is unwise and nigh on impossible; the best thing to do is have two or three targets for places to be each day and the rest of the time just go with the flow (as my sumptuous Sunday afternoon in the Circus Field proved). One of my “must sees” for this year though was my favourite new band, Slow Club. Of all the current crop of new folk-pop bands, Slow Club are foot-stamps and hand-claps above them all but while the likes of Noah & The Whale and Emmy The Great geared up for their main stage shows, Slow Club had to contend with an unattractive slot on an inaccessible stage. They don’t let the strictly limited capacity of The Guardian Lounge hold them back though and after inspiring the gazing crowd up onto their feet and into a euphoric frenzy of dancing during Giving Up On Love, the talented duo charge outside to give the fans who can’t get in a delicious acoustic performance of Christmas TV under the grey sky – the perfect antidote to the bad weather.

Somewhat foolishly, this year we pitched-up our tent in the heart of the site right next to the Hare Krishna marquee. This did come with the advantages of being lulled awake every morning by the gentle meditation of their monks and regular free meals but did mean the rest of the time we had to contend with the constant apocalyptic beats of The Glade, loud enough to give Michael Jackson a headache. This is Glastonbury’s biggest criticism, that it’s got too big for its wellies and intense (in-tents….ha!), and often the sheer amount of people and never-ending noise can get too much. I nearly cracked at one point: tired of having to queue to eat, queue to drink, queue to shit, queue to wash and often queue to just walk, and fearing for my life as the intense heat fermented the disease ridden piss/mud swamps, watching someone shitting metres from my tent was the last straw and I had to get away.

Thankfully then, this year we had the beautiful addition of the Lounging/Viewing Area; a new field they’ve opened on a valley side high-up above the site. If you’re prepared to make the effort to get there, you’re rewarded with lots of breathing room on a luscious, peaceful hillside and stunning views of the entire festival site and the surrounding countryside. It’s a long needed and fantastic addition to the festival and the view means you can try and get your head around the scale of everything. As I gazed out across the ten or twenty stages in view, each buzzing with energy and people, I was in awe of the sheer organisational power on show and applauded those who make it happen every year. The fact that by then the sun had come out to stay helped matters no end – it’s amazing what effect the weather has on everyone’s spirits!

During the weekend, other memorable performances came from Bloc Party, Dizzee Rascal, Kasabian and Kate Walsh and I particularly enjoyed watching Metric as they fulfilled their Glasto dream, Jimmy Shaw’s adrenalin pumping guitar solo on Gold Guns Girls putting the “Herculean majesty” of Zeus Springsteen to shame. The standout show that everyone was most worked-up over though was definitely the reformed Blur’s Pyramid Stage Sunday night headline performance. Their show was everything I had hoped for and more and the mass sing-alongs of Tender and The Universal that carried on all through the night was the perfect way to close out Glastonbury 2009. “Shaaaamone Motherfucker!!”

In Pictures - Glastonbury Festival 2009

www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

Matt Whittle