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Glastonbury 2000 P2
Saturday
Today I woke up really early and was ready and dressed by 8am, as I was looking forward to seeing
Helen from the Planet Grrl team getting married on the Main
Stage. I went over there with my pals Helen C and Sarah R, but when we got there and asked the security guards if there was a wedding at 9am they said 'no'. So we went and had some breakfast and walked round the Green Fields area and then sat in the Scared Space. We also played a kewl game that involved singing 'The Addams Family' theme tune to complete strangers. Hours of fun! Then I rang Ads to meet him and he told me that Adam Langrish had gone to see the wedding and it had happened. I was soooo annoyed!
The Green Field area is the main hippy part of the site and there were lots of stalls and entertainers, with mainly eastern influenced art. This was an area I had not visited in 1999 and I made a point of going there this year. The Healing Fields was a calm environment nearby and there were lots of hippy families here with more art, stalls, displays and demonstrations. The area was divided into four sections for earth, fire, wind and water and each section reflected the theme. When we went through there was yoga class going on and over the weekend there were various other classes. The Sacred Space was a circle of stones that wasn't really very sacred, just lots of people getting stoned or selling drugs. We didn't stay here too long!
For me, the first band of the day was the Belgian group Soulwax, who I had heard of before, but wasn't particularly familiar with their music. However their set was super and the lead singer and guitarist had a lot of energy, spicing up their performance. Their songs were extremely varied and they even managed to fit a cover of the Backstreet Boys into their set. At 3pm Coldplay hit the Other Stage and the best tracks were definitely the latest single 'Yellow' and the cover of the James Bond theme 'You only live twice.' My only criticism of their set was the arrogant comments that lead singer Chris Martin made throughout it.
After watching ten minutes in the New Bands tent of My Vitriol, who were not up to their usual standard, Feeder were the next band I wanted to see. Playing material from all albums, the crowd went wild and a chant of 'Feeder, Feeder, Feeder' between songs began. The band were quite nervous as it was their first live performance in a fairly long period of time, but this didn't affect their stunning set. At one point in the set, front-man Grant complained about the BBC's film cameras being turned off on the stage when they were playing (it seems to be a bit of a tradition for Feeder- no TV coverage) and the camera crew rushed on stage and started filming! All in all, this was a good performance from a band that has a lot of fans, but surprisingly has never done very well or got much media attention. Perhaps the future holds better things for the band.
I began to get very excited when Feeder went off, as Elastica were next up on the Other Stage. I only recently got interested in the band and this was to be the first time I'd see them live. I pushed right to the front of the crowd, so I would have a good view and when they came on stage everyone went crazy. The set consisted of a couple of new songs, one being the b-side of the latest single 'Mad Dog,' and most of the highlights of the recent album 'The Menace' were played too, including 'Your Arse, My place,' 'Generator' and 'How he wrote Elastica Man'. The old tracks, such as 'Connection' and '2:1' had great impact on the crowd as well and their fantastic performance summed up the success of the bands comeback. This was one of my favourite shows of the weekend- I can't wait to see them again at Reading Festival.
We went back to the tent for some drink and noodles, then the boys and I went to the New Bands Tent to see Wheat, an American group who are yet to conquer the UK. Ads describes their music as 'gorgeous' and 'beautiful' and that pretty much sums it up. Their album 'Hope and Adams', which was released last year, has a very chilled out sound and the set reflected this. The best song was 'Don't I hold you' which quite literally made me cry. This was an amazing performance.
Instead of taking the Ads' advice to stay and watch the Flaming Lips, I went to meet Sarah R and Helen backstage. They wanted to go and watch Travis and I wanted to get something to eat, so I planned to meet them by the Pyramid Stage. This all went a bit pear-shaped and I ended sitting on my own listening to Travis. However, there was one great thing that came out of this.
As I sat listening to Travis in the backstage area, out of nowhere Justine Frischmann and the rest of Elastica appeared and so I had a quick chat with her and felt very smug for the rest of the day.
We had planned to go and see 'Fight Club' at 2am, but yet again we reached the cinema field and suddenly all felt very tired. Ads and I went back to the tent to find a guy having a bad trip or something, jumping on one of our neighbour's tent. A few other people from nearby had gathered around and we all stood and waited for a welfare van to turn up and take this guy away. This was very scary and I have decided that if clips of moments like this were shown to kids at school, then fewer people would experiment with drugs. Oh the joys of Glastonbury Festival! This is why your mum wouldn't let you go when you were twelve.
At about three in the morning Adam Langrish returned to the camp in an appallingly drunken state, saying he had lost his sleeping bag, his shoes and his mobile phone. Everyone laughed at him and went back to sleep. Luckily he found them later on!
Sunday
I woke up really early then after more shopping, Ads and I went to watch Wilt on the main stage. They weren't really anything special, but the line-up for Sunday was pretty poor to be quite honest. We went back to the tent and cooked more noodles, then went to see The For Carnation, except they didn't turn up so we watched Badly Drawn Boy instead. I found this lo-fi shenanigans quite boring and so went to the 'Playlouder' tent and sent some emails in their free internet café. How kewl? I got to use a lush, purple Apple Mac and got a free sticker too. Yay!
The next band I saw was Dandy Warhols, who rocked mucho. Pop-tart lead singer and guitarist Courtney, along with Zia on the keyboards and the rest of the gang, played the several chart hits the band have had ('Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth' and 'Everyday, should be a holiday'). They also played many tracks from the previous album and others from the current one 'Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia'. With much comedy capers involving Zia spanking some guy from backstage and then her singing a little song on her own at the end when the rest of the band had left the stage- she was the star of their show. The band played for about an hour, which was much longer than they were supposed to and I don't think they wanted to leave at the end.
We had wanted to push to the front to watch the Muse set, which seemed like it would be pretty impressive, but everyone else in the crowd had a similar idea, so we settled with standing slightly to the left of the stage, but we still had a fantastic view. Muse are probably the most hyped band around at the moment. The music press loves them and their recent singles have been favourites on the radio 1 playlist. Everyone in the crowd was expecting something pretty special and they didn't go away disappointed.
From the moment Matt Bellamy walked on stage, he had the attention of every audience member. They hung on to his every word said, every chord played, every note sung. Playing all the best tracks from their debut album 'Showbiz', the highlights were definitely 'Muscle Museum', 'Unintended' and the title track 'Showbiz'. The amazing thing about Muse is they mix anger and beauty in such an effective way that every song deals with so many different emotions and you as the listener can relate to them. They are the only band in the last few years that have managed to recapture the enthusiasm, determination and talent of such classic groups as Nirvana, Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins. All the new material that was performed was on the same level, if not better, than the songs on the album. The set ended with the bassist jumping on Bellamy, before ramming at the drummer and drum kit. The audience was left stunned by a truly amazing performance.
At this point in the day, Ads and I saw Adam Langrish and he was getting quite excited because he had made a fake backstage pass out of a piece of yellow paper and the security guards had let him into the area. He then proceeded to demonstrate his skill and walked straight past the guards, flashing his wrist at them. When he came back to the tent later he told us he had met the bassist from Muse, the girl from St. Etienne, Wilt and several other minor celebrities, but we all agreed it was quite an achievement.
Instead of going to see Doves as we had planned, we all sat outside our tents and had a fire and a chat and some noodles. For the first time all weekend, we all got along well and there was a really chilled atmosphere. Some guys came and sat with in our circle and played guitar and digeridoo for us. In the background we could hear David Bowie and Kelis, but this didn't ruin our perfect evening. However the fire began to run out at around 1am and it got really cold, so we all crawled into bed feeling quite depressed that we would be going home the next day.
Monday
We got home at 9.30am and I slept 'til about 5pm! The festival come down hit me in a harsh way and I kept remembering all the great things that had happened. It was an absolutely amazing weekend and I really can't wait until next year.
Glastonbury 2000 P1
Glastonbury 2000 P2
A Glastonbury Wedding
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