Advertisement
Published: June 28th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Well, we've made it back home after an absolutely crazy weekend! We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a full day of travelling on trains and buses, and were greeted with a spectacular sunny afternoon. Some of our friends had arrived the previous day and had set up a great campsite just inside the main gate - we wouldn't know exactly how good the site was until the next afternoon...
Audrey and I took a wander around the site to get our bearings, Glastonbury is absolutely massive. We made it about halfway across the site (over to the Jazz stage), where we found the pear cider bus (delicious) and had to turn back to make sure we'd get home before dark.
Friday morning was a completely different story. Here's Audrey's thoughts...
We had a fabulous time with all of Michael's friends however my worst nightmare came true, imagine camping out for four days, porta potties, no showers (worst BO I have ever smelled!) and to top it off, it rained a full month of rain in only 7 hours on the first day of the festival. Thunder, lighting, torrential rain plus the added benefit of mud, mud and more mud... You can see it below in the photos! On the bright side, we jet off to Rome on Wednesday - there is a God! Ciao and until our next set of adventures.
I haven't seen a thunderstorm quite like this one for a while. Lightning hit three of the stages, one of the dance tents partially collapsed underneath the weight of water, and all the Friday morning acts were cancelled. We had it remarkably easy, however. Audrey and I got up fairly early to survey the damage, so were able to purchase a pair of the very much
in demand wellington boots (gumboots). One of the camping stores reported they sold over 4 tons of wellies that day, all I know is people were waiting for over an hour in lines to buy them, and they were completely sold out by about 10am.
It only took a couple of hours for the 120,000 people tramping around the farm to churn up everything into the thickest mud you have ever seen. I mentioned we had a great campsite - we were up the top of a hill. Some tents, particularly those in the green fields section of the farm were in a valley. At least one entire campground was submerged fully, and we saw many tents sitting in a good foot of water. As you can imagine, there was a fairly large exodus of people who had already had enough.
Well, we had our wellies and a great waterproof tent, so things could have been much worse. It was time to see some bands! About 10am it stopped raining constantly, but we would have random showers throughout Friday. Audrey was in a surprisingly chipper mood, I think she realised there was no escape! Here's the bands we
saw on Friday...
Friday
- The Thrills
- The Zutons
- Hot Hot Heat
- Maximo Park
- Bloc Party
- M.I.A.
- Krafty Kuts
- The Killers
- The White Stripes
Maximo Park, Krafty Kuts and The Killers were the highlights of the day.
Saturday morning dawned with a light mist covering the festival, which was not to let up throughout the day. The mud had begun to congeal and get really deep and sticky in places - The Other stage was an absolute cesspool! We were planning on checking out a couple of bands there, but after half an hour or so had to leave just so we could stay sane.
Kaiser Chiefs and Ash put on an absolutely rocking set on the main Pyramid stage, but the highlight of the night (and the entire festival) was Coldplay. They put on a stunning show, with lights, fireworks, and a large portion of the 152,000 total people at the festival singing along. Highlights were the cover of Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head, done in classic Coldplay style, and the finale Fix You off the new album X&Y.
Saturday
* Kaiser Chiefs
* Ash
* Echo and the Bunnymen
* Coldplay
Sunday started with a slightly grumpy Audrey, getting a little sick of the incessant mud and lack of showers, but the sun was out so we took a long walk over to the far end of the site, through the Green Fields hippy area, up to the Stone Circle (a set of ancient rocks put into the hillside), and through the Lost Vagueness, a trippy section of the site with a wedding chapel, a circus, all kinds of crazy people and pretty much anything else you can think of.
We ended up back at the Jazz World, stayed there for a while until it was obvious there wasn't going to be any jazz or indeed any world of anything, then hit up the stages for some more music. The sun had been out all day and was doing a remarkable job of drying up the mud, there was still some large puddles scattered about but with the addition of a lot of hay the site was getting back to being fairly navigable.
Sunday
* Soulwax
* Atomic Hooligan
* Young Blood Brass Band
* LCD Soundsystem
* Mylo
* 2 Many DJs
* Basement Jaxx
LCD Soundsystem was amazing, very percussive but very cool, Mylo was great but we only stayed there for a few songs, it was unbelievibly hot in the dance tent. 2 Many DJs was a great disappointment, they played hardcore techno and the crowd was huge and obnoxious, so we moved over to see Basement Jaxx who put on a rocker. Audrey was dancing up a storm, and the crowd was jumping.
And that's pretty much it. We packed up and left early Monday morning, made it back home by 1pm. It was an amazing experience, not one I think I'll be able to convince Audrey to come to again but one which we both had some incredible times at. The festival is so massive you could easily spend the entire weekend without seeing a single band, there's just so much to do and see, and things change so much depending on what time you're there. The Lost Vaugeness at 4am is very different to the same place at 10am...
Enjoy the photos!
- michael
Advertisement
Tot: 0.245s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1787s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Rachel
non-member comment
Awesome times!
I am so happy you are on such a great adventure! I can totally 'hear' Michael's voice in the monologue of the events!