PlanetGrrl Grrls In Rock - Glastonbury 2000

Grrls in Mud Review

GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2000

The characters

Sarah Phillips - Me. I am a glitter junkie and wanna be in a band when I grow up. I am the Planet Grrl 'Grrls in Rock' editor.
Ads Bambury - My boyfriend. He plays guitar and his favourite song is tubular bells.
Helen Cole (Melon Mole) - My best buddies. She has red hair and likes charity shops.
Sarah Richardson - An old friend of mine. Likes melodic punk-pop and pulling boys.
Adam Langrish (the Big A) - Bloke from skool. He is quite arrogant and likes getting drunk lots.
John Barret- Bloke from skool. Thinks he is the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix. Likes jazz and coffee.
Tom Ellinas - Bloke from skool. Likes lo-fi music, manga and porn.

The build up

After what seemed like millions of years revising for my GCSE exams, the end finally loomed ahead. Months previously I had bought my ticket for Glastonbury Festival and it was spooky that the festival began the day after my last exam, being a perfect opportunity to celebrate. After buying the ticket, I won two more on radio 1, along with a pair of backstage passes.

This was very kewl and when I was sitting trying to learn about electromagnetism or the cosine rule, I often thought about what might happen at the festival and it gave me hope! Last year I lost my Glastonbury 'virginity' and so this year was a bit more in the know about simple festival survival techniques. However instead of minimising my luggage for the holiday as I had vowed last year, I managed to stuff my bag full of every bracelet and T-shirt and pot of glitter gel I owned. I did pack a lot of useful stuff too such as wellies and wet wipes, which were essential as without them I may have been savagely killed by a bear.

Thursday

I woke up bright and early and went through the things I had already packed, attempting to make extra room to fit food and drink in. Once this was finished I scanned through my economics folder at a final attempt to cram in some facts for my last exam. The exam went fairly well (touch wood) and when I returned home at 4pm, I had an hour to get ready before leaving for the festival. The peak time for travelling to the festival is between noon and midnight on Thursday and as we had chosen to travel at 5pm, there were a few delays. We got dropped off at Castle Cary train station and then waited for a bus to the festival site.

The bus journey took around 3/4 of an hour to travel a couple of miles, because the traffic was so bad. However, we would have had to walk miles otherwise and we got dropped off at red gate 1, very near the place we wanted to camp at, so it worked out well. When we arrived at the site, the rain that had been pouring down all day had turned the fields into a bit of a mud bath.

My friends and I felt very sick about the state of affairs and after putting the tent up we all changed into wellies and waterproof jackets. Helen and I began our mission to collect our backstage passes and had little luck. Then at 10.30pm I got a phone call from Ads saying after walking about ten miles he and Tom and finally reached red gate 1. I sent Helen off with some random guy to find Sarah R and then headed towards red gate 1. The boys were not very happy, as they had been dropped off at the wrong place and had been walking for 2 1/2 hours, carrying their heavy bags. They promptly handed over virtually all their bags for me to carry and I showed them where we had camped. As it was about eleven by this point, pitch black and freezing cold, they couldn't be bothered to put their tent up. So there were 5 of us sleeping in a tent for 2 or 3 people!

Friday

We all slept from 3.30am till 4.30am, then the boys decided to get up and put their tent up before someone else stole their space. Helen and I got up at 5.30am and went to the production office to collect our backstage passes. They sent us to somewhere else to collect them and the people there sent us somewhere else. We were walking round in circles and swearing at the BBC, getting more angry and annoyed. Finally we spoke to a nice Scottish guy who told us the correct place to go and we were each given a lime green, plastic bracelet that allowed us into the backstage compound. After some breakfast and a quick walk round the markets on the site, I headed over to the Other Stage to see Cay, my first gig of the weekend.

Cay have been one of my favourite bands for a while now. They are described by the music press as art-punk and have a similar sound to the pixies, sonic youth and nirvana, the shouty female vocals that lead singer Anet Mook provide give the songs a riotous edge. They were on top form at the festival, playing in the midday sun, but whilst I was watching them I realised that the drummer and bassist had both changed. I made a mental note to question Anet about this if I met her. All the new material the band played though was fantastic, especially 'Don't let the girl go,' which has quite a punk sound and the crowd reacted really well to it.

A few hours later I actually met Anet Mook backstage and she sort of remembered me from the 'Grrls In Rock' interview I did before. When I questioned her about the change in line-up she said that they had asked the drummer to leave after disagreements with him and the bass player had left due to the birth of his first child. All this happened three weeks before the festival and the band had been furiously rehearsing with the new members to get a tight set for Glastonbury. I complimented Anet on the new material and she said the second album was well on its way. She was camping in the backstage compound and told me to come back and see her later.

I then watched some of Cypress Hill, who were going back to their hip-hop roots instead of playing large amounts of their new metal tracks. There was a large crowd for the band who were playing on the Pyramid Stage and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, dancing along to the music.

Ads, Tom and I then went to the Other Stage to witness a stunning performance by Scottish rockers Idlewild. Playing tracks from their new album '100 Broken Windows' that have made it to the radio 1 main playlist, the highlights of the set were all the recent singles and the classic from the last album, 'When I argue (I see shapes).' The forty-minute set ended with a bit of guitar trashing before the band left the stage. The next artist on my list of things to see was Moby and his set was also outstanding. Unfortunately I was miles away from the stage as there were so many people watching, but what I did hear was fantastic and apparently there were people jumping on decks, dancers and lots of running around the stage. Kewl! It was about 10.30pm and at this point in the day I felt the need to use the toilets and instead of slumming it with the rest of the festivalgoers, I headed for the slightly more clean backstage toilets.

On the way back I bumped into Anet from Cay again. We had another little chat and she took my address so she could send me this rare cay tee shirt that I want sooooooo much. I had my photo taken with her then I skipped off to find Ads who had been waiting about half an hour for me outside the compound. Nine Inch Nails were Friday's Other Stage headliners and although not a die-hard fan of the goth-metal group, the first few songs they played were quite enjoyable. Unfortunately at this point I began to fall asleep whilst standing up and so thought it was a good idea to travel back to the tent. We had planned to have a party by the fire sign at the cinema at 1.30am and had gone to the trouble of putting up a notice at the select message board. It was for everyone who had finished A-Levels or GCSEs and we had told lots of our friends to go. Due to the lack of sleep the night before we all collapsed in our tents after Nine Inch Nails and forgot about the party...ooops!

BUT WAIT ! Theres More ! >>> Glastonbury 200 P2