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What A Whinge... (Stalker@Glastonbury)
This page is provided only for information, it does not apply to the 2002 festival.
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Nice, Nice, Nice.
It's Thursday afternoon and I'm here at Glastonbury. Nestled snugly in the womb of the Glastonbury Website Office, situated in the affluent backstage area behind the main stages, dripping with laminates, wristbands and, er, rainwater. It's wet. Yes. All those old stories of it always raining at Glastonbury; yes, yes, I know. Never let it be said that I'm a pessimistic old flibbityjib; no, for the last three weeks the weather around these parts has been surprisingly good. We've had plenty of sun and last weekend in particular was a scorcher. Surely a good indication of things to come. Stop me if you've heard all this before.
Those out there optimistically predicting good weather, quoting stats of the previous few year's June conditions and drawing parallels of weather patterns were, for once, not shouted down. In short, we all bought it. However, I still went out last weekend and bought myself full waterproof gear and the trickiest pair of wellies I've yet seen, so I suppose I do look on the black side a bit. Ah well, I'm not one to moan. And with wet-weather gear in the bag, nothing can spoil my festival (give us a few days on that one and we'll see what we can do! - Ed).
So I'm up on Wednesday morning, 6.30 - bright and breezy, and already my head is filled with fanciful notions of having my crew, the tardiest bunch of losers you could ever hope not to meet (except my wife of course, she's OK), assembled and out of town by 8.30; Never Gonna Happen. Aiming to be on site and at the office to catch the 11am meeting I eventually show my face at about 12.30 to find that I'm among the first to show up, which is a good start in my books. And then I am notified of my brief. My mission, I'm told, is to be generally difficult and intrusive towards everyone I meet, perhaps take a photo or two. And if I have to upset them in the process? Well, I'll just be asked never to show my face at the festival again. This is certainly a job for a special kind of hero; I may need some beer to facilitate this operation.
The gates open at 9am Wednesday and almost immediately tents start appearing wherever you look; the Green Fields are looking busy already as the punters - not needing to drive for several days - set right to work, busy in the consumption of maximum alcohol in as little time as possible. But not me.
Ade B, (second in command of Cognetive - the outfit charged with creating this fine site) and myself spend an extremely large portion of the day in various production offices around site trying to secure the relevent passes for all the crew. Nice work if you can get it. We're treated to a couple of brief showers at various intervals, but it's nothing that really dents the firmness of the ground. After all, the mudbaths of '97 and '98 were, in part, attributed to appalling weather in the days leading up to the festival. Loads of heavy plant driving around churning things up; you just don't need it. So yes, it rains, but we're not scared, big strong children that we are.
After all the choring I'm quite worn out. Even when the site isn't a total mudbath it's so uneven (must be something to do with all those cows...) and BIG; 200 acres in fact. That's not something you can get across in a hurry. Apart from getting horribly sweaty and puffy it don't half do your ankles in. Neglecting to partake in the festivities on the Wednesday evening, I decide that the smartest move will be to chill 'round the campfire for a while, have a few cans of Stella and then get my head down so that I'm pink and perky for Thursday's full on 11am meeting. Now, what was that phrase I used a few paragraphs up? I believe it went along the lines of 'Never Gonna Happen'. The lovely folk I'm camped with are 'Doing Glastonbury', not working like me. As they have absolutely no intention of keeping the noise down between the hours of 1 and 7am, nosebleed techno and staccato laughter permeate the micro-fine fabric of my tent which (surprise) offers NOTHING in the way of acoustic insulation and results in me tossing, turning and wrestling an insufficient blanket from my greedy wife. Cow!
I can hardly storm out there demanding respect for those that have to work, this being Glastonbury, so I remain silent. Irked, but silent. By the time I'm up and about at 9am clearing the empty beercans from the camp and returning it to something resembling tidiness, I simply cannot help myself with a loud rendition of my favourite Radiohead numbers. "Come on, you lot; 'I'm a creeep!'".
Not so chipper at 9 in the am, eh? Hah.
After getting my shit together I venture out into the big wide world armed with a digital camera, let's see how many people I can seriously upset with this thing....
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Here For Part Two.....
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