Glastonbury 2007

The Good

(beeb has the recordings online for another few days at
glastonurial ground

amy winehouse (yes, she is actually amazing despite being half soused ) and one hell of a great gig - the band were good, the weather just about held out, and (at least in the pyramid set) her voice and singing get classier and classier

lily allen + the specials re-union! up town top skanking - lily has actually gottne way better as a singer (throws her voice around a bit - e.g. on cover of blondie heart of glass) - i actually think she may be the next kirsty maccoll...one day! all this and the sun came out!

rufus wainwright in drag and torch songs - but before that, a lot of his recent normal fare, with a fabulously tight backing band

eric bibb, gospel blues with dignity and charm - fabulous


seasick steve - very "authentic" whatever that means, but seriously good hardcore electro blues

bat for lashes, the gossip, kt tunstall - all in fine voice and fettle too, as was dame shirley bassey who bought serious glam

kids reported that the Marley Brothers were ace, Maximo park fine, iggy and the stooges (orlando went on stage with them in the end!) awsome, and also that Rodrigo Y Gabriela and Mr Scruff were jolly good and rather different - Bjork, the Who and the Kaiser Chiefs did what was expected of them, and very Big it was too...

oh, the kids field was extremely good (we had an 8 and a 9 year old to keep happy) - particulalry the puppetry/theatre by DNA, but all the people working there were good.(especially the mad nuns and the tardis!)

oh, most the beer tents had Wherry, which was very pleasnt given the weather (as well as usual somerset cider)

The mud
was slightly annoying plus (arise sir michael eavis and take note)

The not very good:

the arrangements for coach+ticket were REALLY annoying
1. we had no choice when to go/return - given proximity of A-levels to glastonbury, this had us nailbiting about whether we'd be able to bring some folks as we didnt know coach time til last second
2. coach dropped us far side from the (better) family field, and NOONE on the gate had a clue whether there was any space left there - given they had radios, this was careless of them - give n we then had to walk 2 miles in rain and mud on thursday night then find a space in the dark and given the extra people the family fields were pretty much full, this was UNFAIR on people allocated tickets with coachs

luckily, 2 14 year olds we bought with had a lot of gumption and just moved two empty tents a couple of feet further apart so we could fit between.

3. the return coach ride arrangements were bollocks, frankly - the place to wait at 2am in the rain weas crowded and had no cover and nowhere to sit and NOONE had a clue which coach was for whome.


4. two other (minor) wines and moans (as lily would say):-
a) I cut my hand on a loo (my fault I admit) and the folks on the nearest security thing had first aid kit with NO antiseptic - brilliant, not.
b) we wanted to donate 1 of our tents (we had about 12 people in all in 3 + tents over several places as well as our cramped familiy field setup) - but we found you had to lug it to the farm. why? why not have pickup points in each field- we packed it up, but we were gonna walk the OTHER way to get to our bloody coach, mr eavis, so this was not a sensible offer.

however. music, PAs, food, Lost Weirdness (sorry, vagueness), Trash City, and many other fine things were as usual, well worth it.

but please fix the coach setup for next time (give people some choice or at least rpough preference for when/where) and sort out tent donations

Footnote: the older kids came back the next day by train - apparently there were zillions of abandoned tents, so they boght a few extra home with them...makes up for
my lost boots (20 year old fine hiking boots finally disintegrated under the assault from the damp - the screws rusted!, and my sandels finally fell apart ofter 3 years of walking in seawater and mud)

so just found the nme video blog which definitely sums up the whole thing very well indeed.