My Post on MelodyTrip.com
"That’s it for another year! After many months of excitement, anticipation and (I can’t avoid mentioning it) some controversy, Glastonbury Festival 2008 has been and gone! And what an awesome Festival it was!
Glastonbury is a festival like no other; it is one of the largest, and undoubtedly the best festivals in the world, the sheer scale of it alone is overwhelming, and arguably every year it is getting bigger, and better! It is also one of the world’s most talked about festivals, and has caused a lot of media coverage this year, mainly about 2 big issues. Mud, and Jay-Z.
The former, is the bane of Glastonbury, and nearly tarnished the Festival’s reputation in previous years.
The latter was a ridiculous non-story, that should never really have hit any headlines, in my opinion. The audience at the festival is treated to a more varied choice of entertainment of any festival I’ve been to, you can watch a massive Pop/Rock band in one field, amongst 100,000 other people then walk a short distance to another field, sit around a campfire in a Tipi and listen to an African drumming session amongst a small bunch of hippies. There are over 26 stages, not counting the countless smaller stages that pop up amongst bars and stalls, and randomly in hidden corners, and there is a fantastic mix of live music, shows, cabaret, art, craft, discussion, comedy, poetry and storytelling dispersed around the beautiful green Somerset valley.
The fact they had Hip-Hop on the Pyramid stage should never have caused such controversy. There’s such a massive mix of music on site, hip-hop fits in fine, and as far as I’m concerned is nothing new for Glastonbury; and from what I hear, Jay-Z was amazing, so it all ended happily ever after for the newspapers and internet forums.
My weekend? Brilliant. The site was looking beautiful and green when we arrived, the sun was shining, and the place was buzzing with a great atmosphere (relief-fuelled maybe?!). The torrential downpour on Thursday night threatened to ruin the weekend, but before long, the sun was shining again on Friday, and the mud hardened and everything looked amazing again!
For the first time I camped across the valley from the Green Fields, in the Dance Village. Not my ideal choice for camping, but the backstage area we were in gave me reason enough, and it was nice to see more of Glastonbury than in previous years. My favourite area of the site has always been the North end, near the Green Fields, Healing Fields and the Jazzworld Stage. This year, I added The Park to that list. A fairly new venue/area, this year it was an lovely place to spend time, and the hill looking down at the main Park stage made for a great time watching bands. The idea of moving the traditional Hippy Tipi fields out of their secluded woody field onto the hill above the Park seemed a bit of a weird one, but I can see why; the Park is a festival in itself, bigger alone than many festivals I’ve been to, and I love the atmosphere there; the Tipis all add to that feeling.
Bests and worsts… hmmm that’s a difficult choice.
Best – wandering around randomly, Cider in hand, and stumbling across some of the best music of the festival, by bands I’ve never heard of on smaller stages. Most of the fun at the Festival can definitely be found away from the main stages. Pull yourself away from the Pyramid Stage and Other Stage for a night, don’t worry about the headliners, and just go with the flow. You’re always guaranteed to discover something that’ll blow your mind. Preston Reed, and Bizali in the Jazz Lounge, ‘The Hat’, in a small café stage, Gypsy music in the Green Fields. There’s so much more to see at this festival that just the Main stage acts. I barely visited the Pyramid Stage this year, and I think I had a much better time for it. There are other Festivals within this Festival, it’s such a shame to miss out on all of this choice by restricting yourself to a timetabled tour of the big Stages. This is what I love about Glastonbury, you can make your own Festival, you can do anything, see anything, at any time of day or night.
Worsts – the toilets? Too obvious maybe. Maybe the security staff that decided they had to douse everybody’s fires out in the Park Field.
It doesn’t matter, at Glastonbury the bests always far outweigh the worsts, and this year was no exception. Fantastic.
Jake Greenwood
See my photo-blog of Glastonbury 2008 at http://glasto2008.blogspot.com" - http://my.melodytrip.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3vkyn2a61krwr
