This isn’t a review; it makes no attempt to answer the question “What was Glastonbury 2005 like?”, except in the most circumscribed of fashions. If you want a broad overview, with a load of coverage, try the Guardian Unlimited special report. This is just my daily ramblings, mostly taken from a diary I kept whenever I didn’t forget, with a few more details courtesy of my somewhat selective memory. This was my fourth Glastonbury, and like all the rest, full of unexpected incident. A somewhat tough year to this point meant it took me until about Sunday to unwind; I think this comes out in the writing, which is pretty taut and contained until Sunday, when it spills out into this stream of impressions. I rather like this; it’s not meant to be great writing, just a scattering of random thoughts. I like myself better when I’m not trying so hard. Anyway, on with the show. The pictures are Glyn’s, not mine (I decided to go cameraless this year).
Day one: Wednesday
We arrived late, following a series of mishaps. We left late to begin with, and our driver had managed to leave his ticket in Bath, so we had to take a massive detour through north Somerset. Brain-haemorrhaging rounds of I-Spy and Twenty Questions passed the time, the same mix tape playing over and over in the background. By the time we began to put up the tents, it was dark, and we were hungry. Tenting and portage from car to camp site was thus followed by the ingestion of pork products, and sleep.
Day two: Thursday
Too hot for us to do anything much; I woke at 4:30, rose at 7:30, and dragged some accomplices out in search of food. This foray turned into a brief tour of the site, purchasing forgotten necessities as we went.
For most of the day we played cards, napped, and read the Guardian. With the coming of both evening and reinforcements, we ventured up to the Stone Circle, and enjoyed the view across the whole site. This was followed by dinner at La Grande Bouffe, a French restaurant stall serving probably the most delicious food I’ve ever had at Glastonbury (the only thing that matches up to it was the legendary Hiroshima pancakes). As evening drew in, we constructed a camp fire and sat round it, drinking and chatting.
Day three: Friday
As Friday dawned, the opening act of our Glastonbury drama began. The previous two days had merely been a prelude to the first day of the festival proper, and what a day it was.
The storm started, reports estimate, around four in the morning. Lightning rent the skies (and the fabric of a beer tent in the dance field). Torrential rain swamped all the tents at the bottom of the hill; more fool them for camping there. The festival eventually kicked off, hours late, as power outages delayed everything—including coffee. The onset of a vicious headache duing M83’s set killed the day for me: no Bloc Party, no White Stripes. In a festival not exactly packed with stuff I was desperate to see, this double blow—the rain and the pain—was pretty crushing.
Day four: Saturday
Saturday started better, with sausage and the Guardian followed up by Martha Wainwright and lemonade. Watched the All Blacks crush a pathetic Lions side; abysmal lineouts and the loss of captain O’Driscoll in the first minute left them wide open to a rampaging New Zealand side that showed no mercy.
Did better on the bands: saw Echo & the Bunnymen, Interpol, and New Order. Great to see Echo live, with Ian McCulloch showing off his Jim Morrison obsession with a cover of ‘Roadhouse Blues’. Interpol seem to receive a mixed reception: some people thought they were great, others that the performance was disappointing. I found myself in the former camp, and was disappointed at having to leave a little after halfway through the set, in order to get a decent place for New Order on the Pyramid stage.
Despite being littered with classics—’Every Time I See You Falling’, ‘True Faith’, ‘Temptation’—the set felt fragmented, their power being constantly dispersed by flimsy recent work that failed to inspire the crowd. A couple of times there was a real atmosphere, a sense of anticipation that was never carried through. Sometimes a performance will incite an electric feeling in the crowd, a sense of unity and brotherhood that is special to Glastonbury. New Order were on the cusp of achieving this, but didn’t quite manage it. The closest they got was their rendition of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, dedicated to the late Ian Curtis. They also played ‘Transmission’, which is just a fantastic song: while they’ve remained indebted to their Joy Division back catalogue generally, it’s in this song that one can most clearly see the roots of their later work. The lack of an encore was disappointing; we all stood around for a few minutes feeling confused, wondering when the band were going to come back on and play ‘Blue Monday’, which was mysteriously absent.
Day Five: Sunday
Sunday morning dawned hot and sunny, and with the mud hardening and the puddles evaporating, it seemed like the perfect time to watch a crazy Cuban ska band (called, in original and inimitable style, Ska Cubano) and drink 7% pear cider (also known by the wussy name ‘perry’; no wonder the Brothers Bar prefer to compare it to apple-based alcohol). Sitting on the dusty ground, sunglasses shielding me from the glare, with a warm alcoholic glow suffusing my body, I began to feel that all the pain had been worth it. In a piece of wonderful timing, the Observer included their music mag, the OMM, so I sat there and read about Circulus (apparently, “Britain’s finest neo-medieval psychedelic folk-rock band”) while the sun beat down and this insane music thundered and wailed in my ears.
By this point, in case you couldn’t tell, I was feeling pretty happy, and more inclined to follow my own instincts about the day, and I decided that our next stop needed to be the Glastonbury clay army. We’d tried to find it the previous day, but our memories clearly weren’t up to the job; it wasn’t where we thought it was. Remembering that I’d seen it advertised in the official programme, I decided to look it up, and then pinpoint its location on the map. Strange to say, this strategy appeared to work flawlessly: we managed to walk straight there without a hitch, beyond the few minutes we devoted to admiring (and critiqueing) some monstrous metal sculptures. I looked in vain for my creations of the previous year; others were luckier.
The culmination of this euphoric mood, as sunshine triumphed over the mud, was Brian Wilson’s incredible set at the Pyramid Stage. The magic New Order had failed to spark was present in spades, as rippling, lush melodies suffused the golden afternoon. It was worth coming just for this.
Day Six: Monday
And now, the pain: five hours stuck in the car park in the baking sun, trying to get home. Leaving late was a terrible idea; why do people need to get up so late, and how long does it take to take a tent down? Still, our ritual visit to the Little Chef cheered us on our way, and we finally made it back, exhausted but happy, some time after ten.
And that’s it. I think I’ve about recovered: mud has been washed off, tents aired, feet given a deserved rest, and life has settled back to whatever passes for normality around here. It’s been rainy and overcast for a week; the sun’s on holiday. Taking a break. Maybe when he comes back—maybe this weekend—we can have a few drinks. Play a little music. And wish we were still there.
