GLASTONBURY ‘97 - Friday
And so it
came to pass that I started my Glastonbury proper at the Other Stage with THE
SHIREHORSES ( the Manchester band the Seahorses have ripped off, as discovered from
the archives by those chirpy Radio 1 Breakfast Show comperes, Mark & Lard
). First band on. And they were the best way to start the festival. How better
to wake up the field, than with Gazebo’s ‘Lardy Boy ...?
I’ve since read that they were offered a recording contract on the
basis of that set.
So it’s apparent that others share my feelings.
( And, um, maybe miss the point of the ‘band’, but whatever... )
Had been set to spend
most of the day at the Other Stage. Had been.
Could still have done that, though might have become a little
bored.
By the early afternoon, at about the time we should have been
being graced with sweet Catatonia, all 
that there was to watch on the Other Stage was Jamie
Theakston being filmed by a camera crew & heckled by the crowd.
It took us a while to find
out just what exactly was going on - the Information Tent were only marginally
more useful than the Other Stage’s Security - but it was eventually established
that after Mark & Lard had played it in the morning, the Other Stage had
been declared unsafe. The equipment and the audience had kept falling over into
the mud, the stage itself was said to be sinking, and most of the day’s bands
were cancelled.
Moorhaven, Family of Free Love, Embrace, Catatonia, Kenickie,
Audioweb, My Life Story,
( Helen was livid, she lives for My Life Story )
Ben Folds Five, Sneaker Pimps, The Divine Comedy, Placebo. Oh.
And of those bands, I truly adore one (and we are not in any way
talking Embrace here), love four, and would really really have quite liked to
see at least two.
Imagine if you took a nice big lion. Cut off its tail, and sheared
its mane. Killed its mate and cubs before its eyes.
It wouldn’t just be ‘quite pissed off’. It wouldn’t just growl.
And it would be able to take it out on somebody.
grr.
So then. No way to solve
this. Nothing to do. Need entertainment, or something to gouge at.
And my solution...? Went to see BODGER & BADGER in The Kids
Field... And am so glad I did.
It took me an age to
find it - even with my map ( I ended up at Pedestrian 
Gate 3 ), and once there I couldn’t help feeling a
leetle self-conscious as I was the only person I could see who was over 3 feet
tall who wasn’t there with someone who was under three feet tall.
But it didn’t matter once they came on. Or that I hadn’t seen them
since I was ickle ( & my brother was ickler ). Because we’re all Badger’s
mashy ( ‘and muddy’ ‘yes Badger and mashy’ ‘and muddy’ ‘yes, and mashy’ ‘and
muddy’ ‘and mashy’ ‘huh-huh’ ) mates.
They were really cool.
Very well timed. And it was really funny.
( And I bootlegged the set with my dictaphone, if you’re
interested. )
First Bodger & Badger did a bit of stand-up ( involving much
nose-licking - um, Badger, WHY ??? ), then some magic featuring ‘Susan Starlet’
in ‘a lovely spangly-wangly costume’ - and pigtails - while Badger helpfully
went to the toilet ( thinking about it now, for about 20 minutes... ) - and
then some good old mashed potato making.
During the magic show one of the small children brought onstage as
a helper from the audience saw fit to explain how they made the pom-poms appear
in her hand. The one Badger had brought onstage earlier to help with the card
trick had stayed fairly quiet - probably more because he’d just tried to eat
her hat than natural shyness.
After a while I did start
to wonder about the Portaloo issue - is Badger really alright with going to the
toilet by himself? Is that why it took him so long? What the hell would you do
if you saw a badger in front of you in the queue for the Portaloos? Where does
he keep his bog roll - in his hat? And wouldn’t he be too small to use a
Portaloo anyway....?
My uncle Rob
had a dog called Badger.
I don’t know if that explains anything, but it does seem to fit.
I found Becca &
Helen & Elaine after the show, and, having accosted Bodger to have our
picture taken with him ( it’s mashed
potato that you can see still on his face here ) we happily squelched off to
Beck.
We were just approaching
the Pyramid Stage when the announcement came floating towards us that the Other
Stage was to be running earlier than had been expected, and so My Life Story
and Placebo would be playing.
Fate, with her appreciation for beauty over-riding her twisted
sense of humour, had decided it would probably be best that if the first band
on the Other Stage were The Shirehorses, the second ought not to be The
Seahorses.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Like it was supposed to be.
And then there was my
first proper ( ie staying for the whole of the show ) BECK experience.
And it was an unexpected joy.
Harmonica ho-downs ahoy...
And that was when I first realised the real size and power of the
festival-crowd, and the importance of the people onstage. I don’t remember ever
being a conscious part of a crowd of that size. Which isn’t to say that I’ve
always been unconscious at past gigs, it’s more that I’ve never been so aware
of being part of a unit like that. Or of being part of such a large unit. I didn’t realise how big the 
crowds were until I saw us on the big TV screen - the
waiting audience which had only reached back to the mixing desk tower thing
when we’d arrived now stretched all the way back up the hill. All of them happy
to help Beck kick this ‘shit’. And only too willing to sing what he wanted us
to, just we couldn’t understand what he was saying. He’d managed to completely win us over...
Before he’d come on, one
had looked at the earth splattered stage, and realised the band wouldn’t just
need to sing to us, they’d need to prove themselves. Entertain, or be met with
mud. But I needn’t have even thought of worrying. Because he was good. Reeeeal
good. There’s an ‘essence’ to him live, this aura about his presence &
musical creations which are indefinable & untouchable but altogether there.
And so cool...
Bestest bits: when they
all kept playing musical statues and freezing in time to the music; when the
sun started to come out just a little bit for us; when two people climbed
onstage unharrassed while he was doing an acoustic, waited till he was finished
to introduce themselves, say hello and leave. And also when he came back on for
the encore in his spangly-wangly ( it was that sort of day ) cowboy suit. (
With spurs. )
Happy happy joy joy.
I’m one of Beck’s ‘folks’.
And I have now come to the conclusion that his ideal target
audience are funky pigeons.
After that we
made a quick speed-burn back to the tent so as to eat before Placebo at 19:20.
(N.B. ‘Speed-burning’ is not a drug reference - it’s a phrase which I use to
convey rapid movement. In understanding the phrase in this context however, one
must remember that I was ‘speed-burning’ through mud. And therefore going at
approximately the speed of a mildly hyperactive cow. Anyhow. Placebo.) The
cunning blighters started 20 mins early - at approximately the time we were
coaxing Claire and her DM’s out of the tent so as we could go and get a good
place at the front.
We had to run to get
there. To run. Over tents and through brown glue. To run.
Drawn to the sound of molten steel being driven backwards through
an amplifier by three grinning fallen angels.
Never been to a Placebo
gig in an anorak before.
Somehow one gets the
feeling that Brian was carried onto the stage - not a speck of dirt was to be
seen on him. Though I think that mud would just bounce off him, like it would
Neil Codling. As it was no-one 
tried it. Though we were without Burger Queen and Lady
Of the Flowers. And I missed the beginning of the set. And on Brian’s guitar
breaking we were told that ‘ I blame every single one of you’.
It’s enough that it’s
them, and we’re here and they’re there, and that they aren’t sinking on the
stage as they play
( even if we are sinking into the ground as they play... ).
And ( she says positively )
it was a really good audience. Because they weren’t supposed to have been
playing at all, and because they started earlier than scheduled, and with an
album track.
Not just ‘Nancy Boy’ fans, is what I’m trying to say here.
( Not a music fascist, just protective of my baby bands... )
And I didn’t get squished. ‘Ra.
And how glorious it was to be watching something of the weekend
which oozed in a delightfully delicious way - give me purring sexuality over,
um, mud any day.
Oh, it was just beautiful.
absolutely beautiful.
A bloke got onstage in
the change-over time between The Seahorses and Ash.
He ambled up to the microphone, and started telling us about the
weather. How it could only get better ( maan ).
We watched with mild interest.
As he degenerated into progressively more incoherent babble, more
and more people realised that he was neither a security guard, a true weather
forecaster, Michael Eavis, or supposed to be there.
By the time he was dragged offstage, he had succeeded in obtaining
everyone’s attention and a huge cheer...
( But who was he? Why was he there? Why was he there then? Did he
do weather forecasts on all the stages? Had he planned to speak about the
weather, or was it the first thing he thought of? What else did he do over the
weekend? Will he be there next year? (pause) Why, God, why? )
Oh, and then
I saw my first ever Ash gig that evening as well.
Which was nice.
Who needs adjectives when
you can get the idea from my happy face...? I’m grinning as I write this -
that’s all the set was, just a reason to be grinning, all the way through.
I’d give you a picture,
but my camera, possibly overcome by the general Glastonbury ‘vibe’, took this
night-time opprtunity to begin taking pictures in ‘strange-drugs-vision’. And
the results are best left unpublished.
Instead. here’s a lovely one of Ash and Kernickers, as nicked from
the music press.
I then made a decision
which few other people could ever bring themselves to understand.
I set off to see Lee & Herring instead of The Prodigy.
I wasn’t in exactly the right mood for them, it wasn’t ‘supposed
to be’ on that day.
Which makes sense to me, which is what matters.
I don’t actually know
where I ended up, or how exactly I got there, just that the Cabaret Tent is
nowhere near mine, and is situated in the middle of a quagmire. The distance
part I was made aware of as I trekked to the tent - the quagmire part I only
noticed when I sat down in the tent and realised mud was dripping from my legs.
LEE & HERRING weren’t
on, neither was BILL BAILEY - they weren’t sticking to the listings in the
program guide and the compere was pissed ( called Malcolm, had a beard, kept
playing the harmonica and introducing the wrong artists. ) One surreal joke in
an hour and a half, courtesy of NICK NICHOLAS ( ‘yes, it is my real name, my
dad stammered at the christening’ ) in that - there 
were two goldfish in a tank, one of them said to the
other, ‘who’s driving this thing?’
Schnarf... Where’s Eddie Izzard when you need him...? ( pause )
Okay, so I didn’t get to see any true comedians.
The jugglers were cool
though. I can’t remember their name, but I think it was something about fish.
Three persons, all dressed in black, and all the lights off in the tent. They
were juggling glowing balls, and it was really peaceful. And totally
hypnotic...
And then there was the
really weird leather catsuit band doing an operatic/spoken word version of Kate
Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, and then fitting a Bee Gees song over a Mozart
Aria. Who were bad, but in an interesting kind of a way.
Unlike, say, WOODY BOP MUDDY. Whom I last saw with exactly the
same act ( and jokes, and wig ) 2 years ago, supporting Rob Newman. And he was
utter utter shite then too.
Comedy acts are supposed to be comedic. Otherwise we should be
able to sue.
The basis of Woody Bop
Muddy’s ‘act’ is that he has a lot of kitsch records from the past ( I’d never
heard ‘I’ve Got A Brand New Combine Harvester’ played to that many people
before ), which the audience listen to, and then decide whether they should go
to record heaven or hell. It was made bearable by the distribution of small
ugly soft toys into the audience, which we were instructed to hurl about the
place when we heard the comedy ‘boing’ noise. But which we threw about anyway.
And some people - those with awfully good aim and a powerful overarm - took the
‘comedian’ onstage as a target. Heh-heh.
The best act I saw in
The Cabaret Tent were SKATE NAKED. Who, um, didn’t skate. Or get ( completely )
naked.
( Though they were, along with every other cabaret act I watched,
proficient in balloon modelling - one of them swallowed a balloon sword. The
other, um, made a worm.)
Before I continue with my description of their
activities however, I want you to bear in mind that they were really amusing.
And that that facet to their performance ought not to be forgotten in the face
of, well, certain other aspects of it.
Like the fact that they performed wearing only posing pouches.
( And they did both have very nice bottoms. )
For example.
And kept playing with fire ( and people’s lighters ) in areas
where they really rather shouldn’t.
Because of Skate Naked, I
now know that if you were to put a pink Marigold glove over your head, and blow
outwards, the glove will swell until you are leant the appearance of a strange
human udder. And that you can burst this udder with a fire brand, causing the
minimum distress to the glove wearer.
I also now know that if people are very very tired and very very
stoned, they are not set to be a particularly receptive audience. Even if your
act includes tricks such as that one.
At one point, one of the
pair came out into the audience so as to show us how we ought to be responding
( ‘we want sexy whoos, okay...’ ). And proceeded to demonstrate this whilst
straddling a sleeping form. Who then woke up, and recoiled violently, the first
thing he saw being a semi-naked man’s posing pouch above his head.
The climax to their act
was um, their doing in tandem handstands whilst balanced on a pile of bricks on
their respective platforms. With ( lit ) sparklers up their bottoms.
I didn’t get a picture, but I won’t be forgetting that one in a
hurry.
Neither will my friends - though they didn’t actually get to see
the spectacle itself over the weekend, my description of it when I returned to
our tents, and the very idea of such an occurrence burned incredibly vividly in their imaginations.
Didn’t dream about it though. Praise the lud.
>>> Saturday
