Glastonbury

team47b

Just heard on R4 that the number of people this weekend in Glastonbury will increase it to the size of Sunderland.

Not really adding to the appeal

seanoconn

I went to Glastonbury one year with Victoria Beckham and she was a right miserable bitch

Talk about stick in the mud

team47b

Ok S, I see your Victoria and raise you a Brucie...

Bruce Forsyth is to appear at Glastonbury this year.

Someone should point out to him in advance that those 'Access All Areas' badges the girls backstage wear don't mean what he might think

thegreatdivide

I’ve played popular music hits at Glastonbury a few times (in the Stonebridge Tent). We got to camp way up on a hillside overlooking the whole festival and at dusk it really did look like a town. Pretty amazing. But once you get into the thick of it it can be really grim. The open pit toilets are stone age and it’s the whitest, most middle class festival out there. Everyone is called George or Sally. It pays well though ;-)

2009 - Like this year it pi$$ed it down on the Thursday then a humid quagmire for the next few days – not good.
2010 – A dust bowl – the best one. Hardly slept for three days, then got home and all I had to do was dust down my clothes.
2011 – Roasting on the Thursday then torrential rain on the Friday so stayed in my tent reading Cycling Plus with a MASSIVE hangover and hating everyone. I also had a fractured arm and ended up throwing most of my kit away, getting in a taxi and heading for Bristol airport.

No more Glastonbury for me.

laurentian

I've been quite a few times. First time in 1984 - cost me £20 and you could drive in and camp next to your car. The festival handed out free firewood and there was nothing you couldn't buy . . . and plenty you wouldn't want to. Almost all of the vendors had arrived just like us with tickets just like ours who then set up bars, cafes and other "centres of commerce" all, I have to say, at reasonable prices.

I loved it because it was a "counter culture" experience. Just about the only "media" coverage would be John Peel playing a set from the festival months later on his radio show. No police, no phones, no cashpoints, no sponsorship, no theft.

I have just spoken to somebody who's daughter went yesterday. They have paid £4,000 (four thousand pounds) to stay in a winnebago that will be there waiting for them.

As a cultural phenomenon, Glastonbury is spent.

The fact that we can now get wall to wall live TV coverage with "look-at-me-at-Glasto-aren't-I-cool-and-edgy" Radio 1 DJs says it all really. TV was the final nail in the coffin as the BBCification gradually took hold. In their desperate attempt to capture the zeitgeist, the BBC have destroyed a once stellar event.

It is little more than an over priced, over-hyped middle class family camping weekend now and its a shame. For me and my mates, it was an annual escape from reality to a hedonistic orgy of counter culture, amazing music and excess.

Its now Center Parcs with music.

It's just part of the "season", I strongly suspect that a large proportion of the clientele also go to Henley, Ascot and Glyndbourne.

I have been going to several festivals a year since I was 18. For the last few years, I have chosen to travel abroad to festivals and am going to Portugal on Wednesday for that very reason. For the last two years I have been able to get festival tickets with camping, return flights and car hire for less money than a standard ticket to Glastonbury. Last year the headline acts at the festival I went to were Radiohead, Stone Roses and the Cure not to mention the dozens of other top acts. Same bands, cheap food and beer, not full of Emmas and Tristrams with their Boden clad offspring in those daft trailer things and I know the sun will shine.

Would I go to Glastonbury now? If I was given a ticket, yes I definitely would, but until then you can keep it.

AchillesLeftKnee

Glad I'm not alone in finding the "Glasto" thing to be soul-crushingly naff.

Pross

Never been, never want to go and the same applies for most of the big festivals. However, I would have loved to go to the earlier versions as described by Laurentian above. They probably had proper festival bands back then as well, I've never got how pop bands have infiltrated the festival 'scene'.

Modern day festivals seem to just be a big capitalist revenue maker which seems to be the antithesis of how they began!

mfin

Plus, there's no really good bands in the last few years, and so you get Arctic Monkeys headlining, which were a good 'buzz' band when they started, but not really in the league of the best possible headlining acts around.

Of course, something like the Stones still counts, as they were collosal in their time, could say the same of bands like U2 ...but these bands like the Arctic Monkeys that only really have half a good albums worth of great songs get to headline massive festivals, and it's not even a matter of taste as such.

I mean, how many bands play on all the stages of Glasto over the weekend? ...and are the Arctic Monkeys reaaaaally in the top two bands there? If so, it's a sorry state for music. (I don't mind the AMs).

verylonglegs

Was just browsing though the festival section of the BBC website and it says the One Show is live from there this evening. I think that tells you how middle-England it now is.

Downward

How is wallowing with mud eating at burger vans and dumping in portaloos middle class now ?!

Glastonbury sounds horrendous.

bernithebiker

Well I thought Arctic Monkeys were pretty damn good.

Bozman

I went in 95, absolutely cracking weekend with plenty of quality bands and sunny weather, The only down side was the closing act...The cure, which gave us a damn good reason to leave early and miss the traffic.

john1967

Downward wrote:

How is wallowing with mud eating at burger vans and dumping in portaloos middle class now ?!

Glastonbury sounds horrendous.

It's middle-class because you have to pay a small fortune for the privilage of eating ecoli burgers and dumping in the most horrendous loos imaginable.

VTech

Last night was mega, the stones were good but would of liked a few more of the older tracks. Now to watch the race to top off an awesome weekend.

greasedscotsman

laurentian wrote:

...the BBC have destroyed a once stellar event.

It's still better than X Factor!

manoirdelourde

We've just got back from Glastonbury.

Yes it's expensive, yes it's commercialised, yes the food quality is variable, yes it's overcrowded these days, but we hired a camper van and took our 9 year old son and had a great time. It was a family weekend away, and that was exactly what we wanted. It probably cost the best part of £1500 for four days, but so what, to us it was money well spent, we had a great time.

Loads of things to see and do; circus, smaller stages, street theatre, it's not all about the big names (although we were 20 metres from the Pyramid stage for Dizzy Rascal which was a great show). We were also waaaaay back on the hill for the Rolling Stones, which to be honest was ok, but not outstanding.

It seems to me that the people that complain about Glastonbury either can't accept that success brings demand which brings commercialisation, or just can't afford it. I used to go to the British GP, but knocked that on the head due to the cost, but I don't bitch about those that still choose to go . . .

laurentian

manoirdelourde wrote:

We've just got back from Glastonbury.

Yes it's expensive, yes it's commercialised, yes the food quality is variable, yes it's overcrowded these days, but we hired a camper van and took our 9 year old son and had a great time. It was a family weekend away, and that was exactly what we wanted. It probably cost the best part of £1500 for four days, but so what, to us it was money well spent, we had a great time.

Loads of things to see and do; circus, smaller stages, street theatre, it's not all about the big names (although we were 20 metres from the Pyramid stage for Dizzy Rascal which was a great show). We were also waaaaay back on the hill for the Rolling Stones, which to be honest was ok, but not outstanding.

It seems to me that the people that complain about Glastonbury either can't accept that success brings demand which brings commercialisation, or just can't afford it. I used to go to the British GP, but knocked that on the head due to the cost, but I don't ***** about those that still choose to go . . .

That's great - glad you had a great weekend . . . your lad will be in a pretty small subset when he's in his thirties being able to say "I saw the Stones"!

For me your comment ". . . It was a family weekend away, and that was exactly what we wanted . . ." sums it up better than I ever could. That is exactly what you were after and looks like you had a great time - good on you. Its just not what I have ever looked looked for in a festival. As I said in my original post, if someone gave me a ticket, I'd jump at it but there are other festivals that tick more boxes for me personally.

VTech

laurentian wrote:

manoirdelourde wrote:

We've just got back from Glastonbury.

Yes it's expensive, yes it's commercialised, yes the food quality is variable, yes it's overcrowded these days, but we hired a camper van and took our 9 year old son and had a great time. It was a family weekend away, and that was exactly what we wanted. It probably cost the best part of £1500 for four days, but so what, to us it was money well spent, we had a great time.

Loads of things to see and do; circus, smaller stages, street theatre, it's not all about the big names (although we were 20 metres from the Pyramid stage for Dizzy Rascal which was a great show). We were also waaaaay back on the hill for the Rolling Stones, which to be honest was ok, but not outstanding.

It seems to me that the people that complain about Glastonbury either can't accept that success brings demand which brings commercialisation, or just can't afford it. I used to go to the British GP, but knocked that on the head due to the cost, but I don't ***** about those that still choose to go . . .

That's great - glad you had a great weekend . . . your lad will be in a pretty small subset when he's in his thirties being able to say "I saw the Stones"!

For me your comment ". . . It was a family weekend away, and that was exactly what we wanted . . ." sums it up better than I ever could. That is exactly what you were after and looks like you had a great time - good on you. Its just not what I have ever looked looked for in a festival. As I said in my original post, if someone gave me a ticket, I'd jump at it but there are other festivals that tick more boxes for me personally.

Exactly, I would pay whatever to have been able to see Queen in concert. Things like these are defining moments in life that you will always look back on.
I saw Robbie Williams live a few years ago and that was an awesome event.

On_What

Went once, bought a £50 caravan out of the paper as my last festival experiences had been muddy. It was good and there were some class bands but agree with the comments above - it is overpriced and there are far to many people called Edmund

VTech

I cant understand why people keep saying its overpriced, I think general admission was £205 ?

Days of great acts, fun, atmosphere and all profit going to charities. In reality its one heck of a bargain.

laurentian

VTech wrote:

I cant understand why people keep saying its overpriced, I think general admission was £205 ?

Days of great acts, fun, atmosphere and all profit going to charities. In reality its one heck of a bargain.

I don't think its overpriced at all. Great value really when you see all that's on offer - the fact that 140,000 tickets sold out in 40 minutes is testimony to that. My problem is with the TV/Radio/Media coverage and how it has dumbed down the festival and taken "the vibe" away from it. That's for me, other people, like the poster above enjoy the way it is now and that's fine by me - just not my cup of tea.

Alain Quay

I don't really agree with the mega-millionaire bands dominatring each year. However, it's incredible that at prime time telly on Saturday night you get a long set by a band called 'Example' that just have nothing to offer.

keef66

Curiosity made me watch some of the Stones on Saturday night. At times I thought I was watching the Wonga advert. They really should pack it in now.

prb007

keef66 wrote:

Curiosity made me watch some of the Stones on Saturday night. At times I thought I was watching the Wonga advert. They really should pack it in now.

Went in 94, when it was all fields...
oh, wait a minute...
Can't afford to go, now, 2 kids plus camping plus grub would've been a £1200 weekend :shock:
Watched what I wanted on telly, will use the grand+ for a summer hol in Aug.

pinno

Avatar 4/10. Bit religous.
Sig 10/10 - its true.

Oh sorry, wrong thread...

peat

I've tried the whole 'big festival' thing and just don't like it. An endless sea of *easily pleased* humanity. Nightmare.

Glasto for example, i wouldn't pay money to see all bar 2 of the bands on the bill, individually. The line up is also getting weirder and weirder each year.

I like small festivals, but good ones are surprisingly hard to find now. Like sportive's, the market is totally saturated now as it's an easy buck. Then, when you do find a good one, they have delusions of grandure and try to grow it out of all recognition. I used to go to a really good one near Bristol called 'Fieldview'. £15 for the weekend, 750 capacity, family atmosphere, bands you've never heard of which you end up buying a CD from. Lovely. This year, its a Thursday through Sunday affair, £100 a pop, named bands, 3000 capacity. Not interested.

symo

Went in 94 to see the beasties and RATM was great, unfortunately the. Bbc showed it for the first time on telly and it was unrecognizable in 95, way to many people called Toby, way too over the top security, no real alternative bands play it now. It appears to be another tick list for guin and tarquin to attend on gap year.

the stnes Ffs, remember pwei, the levellers etc.

dai_t75

I also went and had a great time. My thoughts:

I don't think the ticket itself is overpriced at ~£200 for 5 days camping and all the entertainment (there really is something for everyone there). However, the food and drink is extremely overpriced. You could not find a bog standard burger van burger for less than £5 and a bottle of diet coke was £2.50. As far as I am concerned £7.50 for a (crap)burger and a bottle of pop is pushing it. Of course there are exceptions and there was some nice food there, but again that would not be under £6-7 for an average size portion. Luckily I carried all my booze in for the week on a trolley so didn't have to stump up for booze as well.

There were a lot of middle class people there. I did also notice a hell of a lot of boyo's like myself and also a hell of a lot of scousers. Read into that what you will :P

This was the third time I have been and have enjoyed them all, but I think this will probably be the last one for me.

morstar

Glasto 92 or 94 was my last big festival. Ripped my foot open on a tent peg chasing the scrote who unzipped the tent at 4am and lifted the gf's handbag. Got it back mind.
Isn't nostalgia wonderful.

symo

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts ... 3061271845