Sitting next to Paddington Bear at the Train Station, waiting for a friend also trekking down to Glastonbury this year, I was feeling confidently prepared: new red wellies ... check ... fluorescent fleece skirt, trendy fleece jacket, gloves, beanie with ear muffs, leggings ... check ... bright red wig and false eye lashes ... check ... rain coat and umbrella ... check. I am, after all, an old hand at British festivals now. No more damp, muddy socks, chilblains or mysterious rashes for me.And then, in a perverse stroke of fate ... the sun comes out, stays out and it's 30 degrees everyday the entire weekend. Damn.
Mustn't grumble. The heat and dust gave Glastonbury a new sheen - extra shiny from all that sweat. Fleece was soon replaced as the dress de jour by as little as possible, including vast quantities of sunflower pasties (the burlesque kind not a Cornish pie) . Occasionally, a flag could be seen crashing in the mosh as its bearer finally succumbed to heat stroke. After trying to coordinate six people at this year's festival I can see their value (apart from often being very witty and elegant). They avoid digital reems of standard festival texts such as ... 'we're by the 18th pylon on the left side as you face the southern stage next to the paramedic with the orange bag directly opposite the Water Aid tower about 50 people from the back'.
Time also buckled under the pressure of the heat. Beginning with calm in the cool of the morning, birds even getting a tweet in edge-ways, but then defying Einstein (or maybe agreeing with him quantum me
chanically speaking) it accelerated in all directions. Beer-slowed wandering between performance tents gives way to the final purging late night rush of Shangri-la and Trash City's dystopic Hades of acid house flame throwers.Exhausted, we were belched into the autobahns that are jammed in a haze of dust and tungsten. 'Keep moving, straight ahead' until finding the turn to Green Fields and the tent powered by bicycle where the haze thickens and slows the spin and the final dissolution of boundaries, and I wonder if the naked druidess in the corner is getting cold yet. Finally, a kind of stillness and calm returns as the disbursed regroup in the right tent (and there's now an app for finding it, bless you Apple!), and time comes to a dead stand still.
This movement is a choreographed miracle. 180 000 people in various states of clarity, and no fighting. Men even appear capable of peeing in the right place. What happens to us when we exit the barricade, I wonder. And what serendipitous magic leads us to wander to the Glade just when Nneka, who noone had heard of before, launches into the blistering 'Focus'. I am now a fan. It's always the unknowns that make a festival, although Fat Boy Slim remixing Eye of the Tiger is up there with special moments. And forget all those indie bands with their dark shirts, dark guitars and dark lyrics (yes, I mean The National). Give me two camp old men with feathers in their top hats singing 'West End Girls' any day (bless you Neil Tennant).
Thanks also to Toots and your Maytals for seemingly infinite minutes of dancing on a Sunday afternoon; thank you Grace, the Agitator, Beans-on-Toast, and Frank Turner for an acoustic set with Billy Bragg that served up some politics with my folk; and thank you Sarah in the Green Fields ... even if we did have to pedal the bike to get the power to the sound system at two in the morning.
