Glastonbury - Mud, music and watching Nug trying to put a tent up!!

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Way back on April 1st, while I was swanning off to Bristol for a 5 a-side footy tourney, a military operation was being conducted back home by the Baso boys which led to us snaffling 7 prized tickets for Glastonbury. I say military operation, but as Gent and Emily will testify, any plan which involves Nug and a bit of organising is always going to be fraught with danger!

When the festival rolled round and we tried to head off, we found that space was at a real premium and that the journey there was not going to be a pleasant one for the passengers crammed into the back of the faithful Escort! It was all pretty comfy for me in the driver's seat though, and it gave me a prime view of Nug's usual relaxed style of driving which led to a few wrong turns and some hilarious frantic phone calls between the cars.

We arrived and began the traditional Glastonbury trudge from the car park to the camping area to meet up with Shaun's uni mate Johnny who had arrived earlier that day and sorted out a decent camping spot for us, defending it from a bunch of errant Scousers along the way!Once again Nug came into his own on the comedy front when it came to setting up our tents. Everybody soon had their ground-sheets down, were marking out their pitch and getting on with putting their tents up. Nug, on the other hand was giving it the full double teapot stance looking quizzically at his tent hoping that all that was needed was a bit of prolonged staring and the tent would magically spring into shape of its own accord! I finished off my tent and wandered over to help him put it up, and we were making steady progress when a nearby camper trotted over with a spare tent asking if we had dropped it on our way through. It unsurprisingly turned out to be Nug's tent and it transpired that the one we were busy working on was one of Johnny's friend's tents which Nug had simply found lying about the campsite and decided to put up! Genius!

With the tents all on their way up we also got cracking on the Masterpiece which was Moss' gazebo. I had purchased the cheapest Gazebo that Argos could supply for our trip, and Moss was concerned that it would be about as useful as a chocolate fire guard in keeping the rain out, so he had invested in a shed-load of black plastic sheeting in order to provide our gazebo with an upwind wall and hopefully give us some semblance of a chance of keeping dry! Our gazebo safely up, we got on with the important job of firing up our disposable barbecues and getting a few drinkies inside us before heading off to explore the site. At this point the festival site was mercifully dry and we all ended up over at the Stone Circle chilling out and watching the fire lanterns being set-off into the night sky.

Thursday saw no music on the main stages, but the green-fields and arts and crafts were already in full swing so I caught up with my uni mates Sarah and James and we went for a wander. I think by this time inevitable Glastonbury rain had started to fall, but we managed to stay reasonably dry ducking in and out of the tents and marquees and we saw some pretty amazing trapeze action in our stay at the circus tent. As the evening rolled round, and by this point I was pretty intoxicated, I invited James and Sarah back to our campsite to meet up with the guys and also enjoy the "slap-up" chicken fajita meal I had prepared. I wouldn't say that firing up a camping stove and trying to cook up a dinner while severely under the influence was possibly the best plan, but nothing and no-one got burnt so it was pretty successful!

After another cool night over by the Stone Circle, Friday brought the start of the music - and rain in absolute bucket-loads! Unfortunately it also seemed to have brought gale force winds, and Moss' gazebo wall that had proved so effective at keeping the rain out had also turned out to be a superb wind trap, so we woke up on Friday morning to find the legs of our spindly gazebo snapped in half by the wind and held together only by the tape that attached the plastic sheeting! It clearly wasn't going to last long and so I went scavenging Scrapheap Challenge style and managed to find a metal pole and a load of string which we were able to use as a "splint" for our stricken Gazebo leg! Somehow, the botched repair job survived the rest of the week and the gazebo did a fine job of keeping us dry, though needless to say the faithful gazebo didn't make it home with us at the end of proceedings!

Looking back Friday was probably my favourite day for music, with Modest Mouse in the afternoon being absolutely superb and then the fact that we were all together as a massive group was perfect for the crazy campness of Rufus Wainwright and the sing-along on-stage magic of Arcade Fire. Sam and I scooted over to the Pyramid stage to catch the Artic Monkeys headlining, but unfortunately the sound quality was pretty poor and as we weren't able to get too close to the front this really took the edge off the performance.

Heading back to the campsite, I found little Moss feverishly trying to get a fire going out of some extremely damp burning logs that someone had brought along and unfortunately left out in the rain. Moss was not to be deterred though, and after about forty five minutes of his finest Ray Mears impressions we had ourselves a roaring inferno - albeit at the cost of Gent's stove which would never quite be the same again after it was the only thing powerful enough to get the soaking logs aflame!

I had been looking for the chance to watch Paul Weller for an absolute age, and managed to get myself about ten rows from the front for his gig Saturday night on the Pyramid Stage. He didn't disappoint and was one of my highlights for the weekend. Having got into such a great position Sara somehow managed to track me down with a few phone calls and directions based around a giant inflatable hammer that was nearby! We ended the night watching the Killers, who put on a great show both sonically and visually and being so close to the front the sound problems which were apparently still plaguing the Pyramid Stage didn't affect us one bit.

After the music wound down, we made the epic trek across the site to continue the party over in the Lost Vagueness. Unfortunately, most of the festival seemed to have had the same idea and it really showed that perhaps Glastonbury getting bigger and bigger isn't such a good thing as there just isn't enough room for everyone! When I was there in 2004, I remember it being pretty easy to get around the site and there only being massive queues and bottle-necks near the main stages after a couple of the headline acts had finished. Although the mud can't have helped this year, it seemed that the extra 50,000 tickets or so had really pushed the site to bursting point and it took an absolute age to try and get anywhere. This was never more apparent than on Saturday night as thousands of people inched along the old train-track bed trying to get into the Lost Vagueness. By some miracle of drunken coincidence we managed to catch up with Shaun and the guys in throng, who had been enjoying a secret gig over on the Park stage which was apparently superb. The Lost Vagueness proved a very funky night out with everybody dancing away in their wellies. Hygiene facilities being at a premium also meant that any port in a storm was good enough for Shaun and Moss with a Fussball table and the bar itself taking the brunt!

The final day had come around already, and as I was driving home I didn't have the numbing effect of the copious amounts of red wine I had got used to drinking to disguise the fact that having been in wellies for 5 solid days my feet were absolutely killing me. Brad seemed to be having the same problem but his makeshift bin bag protectors for his trainers left a lot to be desired. Sunday afternoon I visited the Park stage for the first time to meet up with Sarah and James. This turned out to be a heck of a walk with some of the stickiest most glue-like mud I had yet come across, but the trek was worth it as Willie Mason put on a superb show.

I closed the festival by watching The Who, another act I had been dying to see and this would probably be my only chance as I would be somewhat priced out of going to see one of their gigs! With that in mind I battled my way right to the front after the previous act finished and stood, sober in the pouring, freezing rain (amazing how useful that beer coat is at beating the cold) until The Who came on....late! It was absolutely worth snaring such a good spot though, as being the legends that they are The Who put on an absolutely mind blowing set which just oozed class and was a privilege to watch. It was an awesome way to close the festival for me and topped off five incredible days of music and mud with my mates!

Getting back to the campsite, the rain was not relenting and if anything was getting harder and harder. We were meeting my sister in the early hours of the morning back by the car and with the grim weather Gent, Emily and I gave up any semblance of keeping dry and packed up the tents as quickly as possible and headed back to the car. With another amazing stroke of luck, we bumped into Sara who had been wandering around the car park for an age trying to track the car down! Reunited, we were able to dump all of our soaking wet stuff in the boot and get out of the site without any problems.

Back at the camp, Moss was having a bit of trouble as the Biscuit Brothers Nug and Shaun had not returned from their night out and, having already packed up, Moss could do nothing but lie on the floor of his tent with no sleeping bag shivering the night away. Once Nug and Shaun returned there was the small matter of trying to pack the tents up. Not the easiest task in the pouring rain, but certainly made even more difficult by the fact that as soon as Shaun or Nug made any progress on either of their tents there had to be a quick bout of mud-wrestling or wrapping up of the other one in the tent! Sounds like absolute comedy genius, but I don't think that shivering Moss could have been all that amused by proceedings!

However, all seven of us made it home safely to bring the curtain down on a fantastic festival experience and get ourselves some much needed sleep in an actual real bed. Cheers for the experience guys and hopefully we can do it all again next year - who knows it may even be a dry one!

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Photos

Arts and Crafts
The greenfields at Glasto

Sunset
Friday evening after showers all day we were over on the Other Stage and got to enjoy this Sunset.