As I sit down to contemplate my time at Glastonbury Festival, I am quite simply filled with nothing but a warm nostalgic euphoria. It’s only been a week and yet somehow I laugh and smile to myself about times which seemed to have happened years ago in a magical hidden valley in my eternal youth. Glastonbury, it seems, is just that. For five days it is paradise on Earth for that certain group of people who choose to call it their second home.

As a Glastonbury virgin, I entered with an apprehensive excitement of the thought that anything could happen. I was neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed by the line-up of acts, only satisfied, and to be honest I was looking forward much more to my annual pilgrimage to Reading Festival. But five days later I was converted. If Reading is the anything-goes anarchy festival, then Glasto is the chill out, leave your egos at the gate please festival (the “please” in that sentence is important, everyone is nice here, or at least tries to be).

Glastonbury really does try to have something for everyone as you can tell from the line-up of headliners alone: First night sees Gorillaz, a hip-hop art ensemble, but amongst my own and several other camps, opinion was split but of course never volatile and there was always something else to take in. A quick jaunt round the corner and you can dance the night away with Fat Boy Slim.

Muse delivered an all out rock show and by their standards, this is very understated but by no means under cooked. Bass kicking you in the face with every note and a genuine modern day maestro-genius giving it his all can freeze you where you stand quite literally. Add to that the presence of The Edge performing, in my opinion, the greatest version of Where The Streets Have No Name, and you’ve got a genuine “I was there” moment.

Stevie Wonder of course unites all. You can’t help but fall for the loveable legend whether he’s on his knees playing keytar solos or even dueting with Michael Eavis. Try not to move your feet, I dare you!

Glasto though is so much more than the music and the sum of its parts. Upon my first night, a walk to the top of the hill and a gaze over the site at night is a sight to behold just to understand the sheer scale of this place. Wednesday in the stone circle is an almost spiritual experience; never has firelight been more captivating than when sat on that hill in Somerset. A walk around Shang Ri La is no less an experience. If you want to feel like you’re on drugs and not be on drugs, take a look around here when the sun goes down, it will open your mind.

As I packed up early on Monday morning after one hour of sleep, if only to avoid the hike in the mid-day sun that had plagued so many throughout the weekend, you daren’t look back, trying to avoid the sadness in your heart that you are leaving paradise, well, till next year anyway.

www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

Adam Hooper
Photos by Laura Palmer