It will definitely be remembered as a muddy one, that’s for sure! My daughter can talk for hours on the different types of mud; its consistency and texture and her favourite types! A little bit of mud is not too much of a problem when it’s wet, it is when the mud starts to dry out it becomes more of a problem. It turns to glue. Getting out of the Other Stage field after Jessie J was nigh on impossible. My feet got stuck with every step and it was very painful struggling with my boots. Other than that, I’m not complaining – we were due a muddy one really.
I am complaining about the line-up though. It was not impressive at all. The people I did see, I enjoyed very much on the whole. I’ll do a music round-up tomorrow. In the first couple of Glastonburys we came to, the dance music entertainment consisted of a fairly smallish blue tent in the corner of the market walk-through near the Other Stage (then the NME stage) and the odd unofficial sound system that cropped up here and there. Yes, it did need increasing, but not to the extent it is now surely? An entire dance village, The Glade, and all the dance music in the Shangri-la, Trash City and Arcadia areas. I really wish that less money was spent on all those performers, and more money on the bands on the main stages.
I spoke to someone who had recently come back from the Isle of Wight Festival and the line-up put Glastonbury totally to shame. I want to clarify that I’m not a person who just sits in front of the pyramid stage and never experiences the whole of Glastonbury. Several years were spent almost entirely in the kidz field, we always try to spend at least one afternoon in the circus big top; I love wondering around the theatre areas and the Green Fields, but I do like to watch some really good bands too.
Of course, the problem with mud is, it takes so long to get anywhere and uses up so much more energy, you often aren’t bothered to to walk all the way up to The Park when you want to be back at the Acoustic tent a couple of hours later. We missed some of the smaller acts we would have liked to see, which is a shame and now, afterwards, it feels like the festival was a bit empty.
You may be able to tell by now that this Glastonbury wasn’t perhaps my favourite. We worked out it was our thirteenth one, so maybe it’s a good thing there’s a gap next year to revive our enthusiasm. I’ll still miss it terribly though, and I’m so depressed now that it’s over. It was also a good time to move things about a bit. This year was the first time I’d seen so many changes with various stages moved to new areas and a couple of brand new stages, and the green craft field looking very different. I personally liked these new touches. I hope there aren’t too many more though or I’ll start getting lost!
