GLASTONBURY ‘99 - Friday

Most Apt Quote For The Day:

Julian Barratt - “Don’t you hate it when you get in a lift and they’re full of people? I hate people.”

Wake up at 08:30. To a 3-point newsflash on Radio 1 - one of the most important stories of the day is Glastonbury’s weather - that it’s NOT pissing it down is a national cause celebre. Heh-heh. Am already too hot. I take off my coat, my jumper, my other jumper, and two of the t-shirts. That’s better. I think about getting dressed for the day ahead, and then think better of it, instead choosing just to sit in the tent in my underwear ( essentially, because I can ), listening to other’s people’s conversations and planning the day ahead. One of the people in the tents to my right has now ‘got the shits’ from a dodgy curry, another is trying to style his friends into a perfect pre-breakfast picture. Before realising... “I’m being a dad now with the camera, aren’t I ? ‘Move a little over to the left - now shake hands with your mother...’ ” Camping gives such opportunities for eavesdropping. It’s the most fun part. Provided you’re not trying to sleep. Or whatever. You just get to overhear the best conversations...

Becca - “Do I look like a monk ? I’m really worried about my hair.”

Yesterday, I saw a man carrying a leaf-less tree in the direction of the Jazz field, someone in a flourescent orange furry suit ( think Zoe from Sesame Street ), and three blokes in a giant pair of Y-fronts. But this moring I heard Zoe Ball do a karaoke duet version of the UB40 classic, ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. With Keith Allen. And then they played The Wonderstuff’s ‘Size of a Cow’. S’gonna be a good day, this. And so the wardrobe is planned accordingly: a weird faces / flowers t-shirt (white & light & not too tight ), a short-ish black PVC skirt ( changeable weather compromise ), and my glittery fishnets ( fantastic ). Today I plan on getting a criss-cross suntan on my legs. Oh yes.

And for our first mission of the day we - Becca & myself - make the first band on the Other Stage. DOVES. Just a little bit. I’m trying to get in peeps I haven’t seen before. And it was alright. Cos the songs are good. Though you might as well just watch their records going around on your turntable. And they weren’t nearly the kicking start to the weekend as BJORN AGAIN. Oh no. Because they all had fantastic boots ( white knee-highs for the women, big spangly silver platforms for the men ). Because they had synchronised moves for us to copy. Because they all had fantastic 70’s costumes - with their names written in rhinestones on the back. Because they managed to get the entire crowd pointing along with them. Because on every single ‘aHA’ in ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, the man behind me took great delight in displaying his best Alan Partridge style-ee to the assembled crowds. Because they did that fantastic Bucks Fizz skirt-removal move. Because they were having as much fun as we were. Because they didn’t have to win the crowd over to the music, or woo us into new material. Because everybody loves Abba. And because they did a rocking cover of ‘Born To Be Wild’. A-HA !

And then off we trot to meet Charlie ( and hopefully Elaine, if she’s got any of our messages ) in the back of the dance tent, at 13:00. We get there. Myself and Becca. The place is packed out. So much for Charlie’s promises of ‘we’ll be obvious, there won’t be anyone in there that early in the day’. I try to ring him to find out where he is. The phone continues to play ‘silly beggars’ with me. Buggery bastard. Which means I then swear at it in a rapid & vituperative fashion, which is a style to which we are both growing accustomed. And then we head back into the tent to try and find the party ourselves, without the aid of technology. Which we manage far swifter than I would have thought possible. So maybe his range of yellow t-shirts do serve a positive function. Grin.

Charlie - “Where’s my Select guide ?”

me - “Um. I’m sitting on it.”

Charlie - “Awww...”

me - “It’ll be nice and warm. Anyway, what’s wrong with my arse ?”

Charlie - “Nothing. It’s lovely.”

Time passes. In the sunshine. Thus far I have missed Stroke, Muse, and The Barenaked Ladies. ( And numerous others, but only those mentioned were on my tentative listing. ) This is due, essentially, to light-induced laziness / lethargy. Plus, even though you can move between stages at half the speed of last year ( grass ! we have grass ! ), everything still seems to be about twenty minutes away. No matter what it is you’re trying to get to. So you have to really want to get there. Having an ice-cream inside you does help in this. ( Yum-yum 99. ) And while it’s dribbling down my hand, I realise that I’ve done it again. I’m always ‘with ice-cream’ when first I head for the Cabaret Tent, and the perennial festival delights of STEWART LEE... Who, knowing how much the repetition of old material at last year’s festival had annoyed me, has kindly promised me ( the last time I saw him ) to do exactly the same set as he did in ‘98. Specifically to piss me off. ( Sweetie, isn’t he...? ) And, come 14:25 in the packed Cabaret Tent, he made good his pledge.

So.

In honour of that, here’s the same expertly laid out & mildly interactive review as last year, give or take a few tweaks here and there, and a tiny bit of new material. ( Ha. )

Because, if I’m going to gripe about anything - and it was as funny as is pre-requisite demanded - I had mostly the same complaint as last year with Stu’s time onstage. If at all. To already know the material DOES leave the listener with the smallest feeling of satisfaction ( ‘see how well I know my loves, this is an old sketch and you are all fools for never having heard it before’ ), but more overwhelmingly, leaves you feeling slightly cheated. And as though you’re being penalised for making the effort to go and see someone you know you like, who you want to see BECAUSE you’re already familiar with their material. I’d rather see a band doing a greatest hits performance than a comic. ( Humour ought not to be so prescribed and recreatable, for one thing. ) It just seems a little lazy. So I can’t expect him to write new material solely on the off-chance that there will be those in The Cabaret Tent in such a mental state so as they will be able to appreciate it both for its content AND for being fresh. And I shouldn’t presume myself to be the centre of everyone else’s universe just because I am to my own. The material he was doing was funny - the Jesus sketch, the empty packet of Monster Munch retort, the Princess Di / ET material and ( of course ) the jammy toddler... all of that I do like.

‘If you had a leaking bag filled with proportionate quantities of bile, blood, excrement and urine - that had a jam smeared face - you wouldn’t dress it up in a crochet bobble hat and try to teach it simple words...’

I just liked it all better the first time I heard it. But I still liked it. Whatever, I’d probably have laughed had he just regurgitated the entire serieses of ‘Fist Of Fun’. Sigh. Maybe I’m just too demanding. But I don’t think I’m asking for the moon on a stick...

And after you’ve acted as a pillow to one of your friends whilst listening to a man talk about how drunken Scots wanted to beat him up for being Mark Lamarr and idly watching a Ferris Wheel out of the corner of your eye, all you can really do is go and watch a 70’s icon who’s growing old disgracefully belt out songs you’ve loved since childhood. Really. All hail to BLONDIE, the pearly queens of pop. So she dances like your mum at a wedding, so she’s wearing the clothes you’d expect of your mum at a wedding, so she’s old and you can tell, so she’s no longer the icily poised Debbie Harry of adored fantasy, she can still sing. Like That. And the songs are still glorious. Like That. We - myself & Charlie - left after ‘Union City Blue’, so I didn’t get ‘Rip Her To Shreds’ ( which I’m a leetle upset over, as I adore that song ), but instead we got GAY DAD, which is quite a good preening substitute. And who make me just as happy. Because they gosh-darn rock and roll. Alwight ?

Incidental scene-setting information: because of the strength of the sun’s rays, and my choice of skirt material, my bottom now feels awfully warm to the touch. This I find highly amusing. As does Becca. And anyone else who gets close enough to warm their hands. I want to see if we could fry things on it though, typically, no-one can provide me with any eggs to try this out.

More incidental scene-setting information: during a brief pop-back to the tents for re-energising ( food & drink intake; I’m no battery-charged paranoid android ), Charlie and I realised where each other were pitched. It’s not enough that we’re in the same field. Oh no. ‘I’m right next to that acid-face smiley balloon.’ ‘No ! So am I !’ His tent is a maximum of ten seconds walk from mine. How cool is that ? Just how cool is that ?

Oh. And then we watch dEUS. Whom I calculate while watching I haven’t seen for 28 and a half months. Who are still very very good. And sweetly Belgian. And whose set-highlights included a violently pretty ‘Roses’, and that gloriously shouty one offa the first album that ( I can’t remember the name of but that ) just ends with everyone yelling ‘fridayfridayfriday’. Marvellous.

And then, set-over, before I can run off to the Cabaret Tent, I ( was ) found ( by ) Claire Malkin. And she found me Elaine. Who isn’t dead, mauled, arrested or back in London. She’d got in yesterday, rung up Claire, and slept the night in her tent. Next year we are ALL having mobile phones. That work. And that are switched on alla time. That way no-one has to stay lost. Though as today Elaine had on a vehement pink wig, we were unlikely to lose sight of her again. Anyway. Claire disappears off for something, can’t remember what, probably to try and find the pink haired Sonic Youth boy with the blue doll from last year. And Charlie disappears off as well, can’t remember for what, probably Dark Star or Wilco or Add N to (X) or something else I wanted to do but couldn’t because I’ve pledged my allegiance to the flag of haunted-envelope comedy. As has Elaine. Who always comes with me to anyone Mighty Boosh like. ( As in, um, Julian or Noel. ) And this seemingly on the whim of The Fates, as I found her just minutes before I was to go off Barratt-wards. How peculiar. How nice. And how tidy. I love it when a plan comes together. Though I appreciate it less when I arrive at the front of a tent and get overly-enthusiastically pelted with rice by the obsessed puppeteer onstage. Still. I’ve never arrived anywhere else in just enough time to get rice in my tights. So there’s another Glastonbury first. I give Elaine a lolly. We shake the rice out of our hair. ( She later finds some in her knickers. How did that happen ? She was wearing trousers... ) And then bask in the addled joys of JULIAN BARRATT ( ‘come on me beauties’ ) performing his own brand of hammock-riddled surreality ( ‘clamp onto a teat’ ) to an audience whom almost entirely proved perfect 3-D representations of the definition of the word ‘nonplussed’.

“I hate camomile tea - it tastes of cupboards.”

He did very well. Considering he was moving too fast for a lot of people. I think he scared his audience into being quiet though. ( And yeah, Stu, he did some old / unfresh material as well, but then them Mighty Booshers are in a constant state of recycling, the pig thing gets funnier each time I hear it, and, well, nyeah. ) Ah, he tickled my brain as well as my funny bone, and for that he deserves a hug and a kiss and a big bag of Play-doh... He’s been having back problems he says, so he went to the doctor’s, and was prescribed acupuncture, which seemed to do the trick, but: ‘when I got home my little wax doll was dead’. Grin. Widely. What stands as a punch-line with him is as satisfying as solving a particularly sticky maths equation - it’s like having your brain rewarded for keeping with him and making the required leaps. Thoroughly recommended. As well you know. Grin.

And then we were going to leave, because we had to Penelope-Pitstop-race for the Pyramid Stage. But then BOOTHBY GRAFFOE came on. So I couldn’t go. Because he’s gosh darned good too. ( Comes onstage, checks if anyone recognises him from the Channel 5 programme, and proceeds to do a couple of pre-televised jokes. ) If anyone can make you laugh about a small worm that lives in dog-poo and blinds children, well, it’s going to be him. Really. Oh, and seeing me taking pictures ( he couldn’t really avoid doing so, were Elaine and myself any closer we’d have been cutting off the circulation in his feet ), he turned around and gave me the opportunity for a luvverly one of his waggling arse. Which should explain this ( SEE LEFT ). And also why our leaving attracted unavoidable comment. Because we were sitting right in front of him. And we had looked like we were enjoying ourselves. So when Elaine got up and I followed, he tried to machine-gun us from the stage with his guitar. ( As you can see, he didn’t think that one through properly. What he could have done with there would have been an actual gun. Though it woyldn’t have been quite as funny. Certainly not for us two, anyway. ) Well I couldn’t have that. And I’d hate him to think us rude. So I went back and presented him with a strawberry Chupa Chup lolly. ( Which are the best ones. ) As recompense for our absence.

him - “Do you want some money for it ?”

her - “No. It’s a present. It’s free.”

him - “Hmm. The first one’s are always free.”

Lollies were the only thing on offer, matey. Anyway. That neatly excused us, with reasonable grace. I told him we had to go and meet someone. Else we’d have loved to stay. What I should have said ( as it would have been a teensy bit more true ), was that we have a date with Courtney Love. ( Oh that it was a real one with Melissa. Oooh. Yummy. ) And they’re not ladies you’d wanna stand up. Really...

And then on the firste day there was HOLE, and it was goode. For they had the fyre of rock withine their bellies, and the stampe of jewels in their haire, and the winges of the angels on their backs. And lo, the photographers were spat upon by the one they call Courtney, and the camera-men did not dare to turne their lenses from her. And lo, the one called Melissa did charme the crowdes with her smile. And lo, the one called Eric did receive little camera time, despite his Spinal Tap t-shirt, for he is as pale as the bread of our Lord. And lo, we ignored the drummer. And Courtney did pull up her crowd-surfers to sit onstage, and Courtney did ballroom dance with one of her fans, and Courtney did flash in Becca’s direction, and lo it was goode. And we did declare her to rock like a mutha. Yea.

And then, now I’d got Elaine, I went off with her to find her tent. So we’d have no excuse for losing each other again. We wandered around above the Pyramid Stage for a while. And then gave up. I went back to mine for a bit of a sit-down - passing Fast from the FLC en route, I think - while she kept looking ( found it within minutes of my leaving, apparently ) and then went to see Marianne Faithful. I didn’t. Neither did I see Built To Spill or Fatboy Slim. Darn it. ( I wish I had the chance to Groundhog Day my festivals, and just stay at each different stage and then explore the site properly. ) Instead, I saw a birrof Gomez. ( They came on to Krusty the Clown. How cool is that ? ) Wanted to catch the start of Lamb on the Jazz Stage, but they didn’t come on at 21:30 ( on the button ) and I got bored waiting. So I moved off to the Cabaret Tent. And arrived in there with exactly enough time to see Boothby Graffoe encouraging a small choir of rambunctious onstage under-fives in a happy birthday sing-along. The demographic of the audience has now shifted dramatically - the majority are just out of primary school. One of the children’s mum was on next. With his auntie. So Boothby got him back onstage to introduce them. A formative moment, no doubt, in the child’s stage-career. ‘And then I got my mum and auntie to come out in black rubber suits to spin fire sticks about their heads. Was it good ? Oh yes. Hypnotically soothing. Very nice. And after them was a man who said naughty words and who had pictures of naughty things onstage on a screen and a camera to film himself and sometimes us, so me and my friends kept jumping around in front of the stage.’

Visually, Simon Munnery - aka the one man LEAGUE AGAINST TEDIUM - was a hit with the under-fives. Though his material sailed over their heads with ease.

‘Knock-knock.’

‘Who’s there ?’

‘The Atlantic Ocean.’

‘Ah, my old enemy...’

The ‘League...’ is one gadget-loon of a tin-pot dictator, who knows we are nothing, and dis nit spik lak yew. He doesn’t want the audience on side, just paying attention. Properly.

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Frosties, par exemple.’

The ‘League...’ is versed in 99 languages. He is the inventor of 98 languages.

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day - perhaps if Italians spoke less with their arms...’

The ‘League...’ wants you to learn his dance while guessing the colour of his pants.

‘What do men find so attractive about breasts ?

It’s because there’s two of them. And that represents good value.’

The ‘League...’ is a one-man church who knows the perils of watching too much Michael Caine.

‘Darwin only invented the theory of evolution to explain away his extraordinarily hairy back.’

The ‘League...’ I think I’ve fallen in love with. He deserves his forum. I can see parallels with the Manics in places ( shared loves, bombastic use of imagery & stage power, pointfylly rude...) And as I’d never seen him before I can’t shout about repetition of old material. Aah... So clever. So good. So well done. Very impressed. Oh yes.

‘Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw.’

Hurrah! then for cerebral juvenalia...

And to the Pyramid Stage for the night to be crowned...

Elaine runs off through the crowd at the front-left of the stage. I run after her. We stop. We move forward. We stop. We join another group of similarly like-mindedly-moving peeps. Move forward. A drunken wuckfit fondles my hair and then physically harangues my furry jacket. Twat. We move forward. Elaine sees a gap in the crowd, 5 people deep before her, and heads for it. And then I’m tapped on the shoulder. I turn around. A stripey hatted Stewart Lee is grinning at us. ‘Hello !’ Bless his cotton socks - of all the people in all the field to be found by... I take the opportunity to give him a hug, ask after his festival, and just check whether I did see his & Rich’s pictures onscreen for The ‘League...’ - I did - and whether the space around him that we’ve just occupied is a result of his spinning around like a little kid in the playground - it’s not. Sadly. He’s not that high. ( Oh those pesky Herbal Ecstasy tablets... ) So that cleared up, the band still aren’t onstage, I might as well tell him off for being as good as his word and doing a semi-identical set to last year ( one or two new bits and all references updated isn’t enough to meet my exacting standards ). We argue about it for a bit. And then there’s REM. And all the lights come on onstage. ( They have pictures & logos spelt out in flashing coloured light-bulbs across the backdrop. ) And so conversation dies for the sake of a rip-roaring ‘Lotus’ start to proceedings.

However.

About an hour into the set, Elaine is enthusing over their still playing old songs. They haven’t forgotten the long time fans. They will reward us with dust-encrusted diamonds, if we hang around for long enough.

Stu - “So it’s alright for THEM to repeat old material...?”

Yes. Songs are like wine. But stand-up comedy is more like expensive chocolate. As well he knows. But he does seem to have taken my comments personally. ( Would you rather if I didn’t give a flying fiddly-foodle bird? Would you rather I didn’t bother coming to see you play live? Would you? ) To the extent that he’ll bring up the subject an hour after we’ve left it. He says he hasn’t had time to give a crowd of people who still kind of think he’s Mark Lamarr / Tucker Jenkins more than 10 minutes of original thought. This year, Stu has written a TV series, script-edited for folks like Harry Hill, and done 80 000 words for a book. As well as his music column for a certain un-named newspaper. So I’m not allowed to acuse him of slacking over the 365 day period. He says. But I still feel as though I’m owed more. I know he can make me laugh, it’s a wonderful power to have, it just seems like laziness when he falls back on old material instead of exercising his brain and looking for new situations for his roving satirical eye. Maybe it’s that, for boredom’s sake, I make a conscious effort never to have the same conversation with one person twice, and because of the informal nature of stand-up, he seems to be going against that with his time onstage. Maybe I shouldn’t apply my own standards ( of living, of working, of an entertainer’s public debt ) to others. It’s just that... over the same 365 day period, I’ve spent at least 450 minutes making my house-mates laugh in front of the television ( though not the cameras required for broadcasting ), written and edited 4 fanzines ( 116 pages each ) and done a year’s worth of coursework for my 2nd Year of University. I’m not just getting at him for doing it, I’m getting at every comedian whom I’ve ever seen repeat material to different audiences. ( Which means, essentially, the world but for Billy Conolly. And Eddie Izzard. Whom I’ve only ever seen repeat himself if asked the same question by an interviewer. ) I think this is all part of my general desire to leave behind that which wastes my time, to only fill my life with true greatness ( songs, films, books ) and leave behind the flotsam ( sub-standard material, Cast, ineffectual covers & money-grabbing re-releases ). And I want Stu to shine as I know he can. Anyway. I haven’t taken it personally. He shouldn’t have either. As I stuck around to watch REM with him. That was so nice. Just, oh, so nice. I don’t really have the words for it. But no matter the adjectives I throw at my memories, they won’t cover the evening completely. I want my words to fit Michael like a catsuit. But all I can do is repeat you how happy them made me feel. How happy the night was. How beautiful it all was. And so on. And so on. And so on.

It’s them. And I’m warm. And there’s grass underfoot. And I’m here with people I love. And we’ve found Elaine. And we’ve been found by Stu. And they’re so damn good. And the songs are just gorgeous. And Michael’s wiggling like a chorus-girl up there. And, ooh, everything. All the planets seemed to be in alignment.

They nearly got me with the sentiments of... ‘I count your eyelashes’. It’s so beautiful. And I’m so happy. But when they do ‘Everybody Hurts’, and the whole crowd gets underneath the song and carries it aloft, I’m away. It always makes me cry. I think it makes everyone teeter. Stu turns to me to enthuse over how the band have such a power for empathic connection, how they mean so much to so many people, and I’m crying, so I don’t really need to be told. Lovely lovely lovely lovely lovely lovely lovely.

>>> Saturday

Last revised: 27/07/01