My first Glastonbury Festival experience more than lived up to my expectations. The Green Fields, in particular, were fantastic. Pedalling to contribute to powering amp equipment, perusing the Greenpeace field and learning about their current campaigns, painting a paper-mache jigsaw-puzzle ball as part of a community art piece and watching stone-masons at work were enough reason alone to step away from the main stages for a while.
However, in terms of music, these were my top 5 Glastonbury Festival highlights:
FIVE: Scissor Sister Sunset
Watching the sun go down behind the Pyramid Stage on Saturday evening, whilst the Scissor Sisters were joined onstage by Kylie Minogue will remain with me for a long time...FOUR: Tie My Very British Kangaroo Down, Old Chap
This is the only video I could find online of this version of the Rolf classic. Rolf Harris gave one of the best performances I saw all weekend, and yes, I did see some of the other acts! Skip forward to 4 minutes 35 seconds-ish to hear what I'm talking about... mad!
THREE: The Chain
Once again, I'm afraid you'll have to skip over the first song (which I believe has made it onto the Twilight soundtrack, if you're interested in vampires at all) and you will find the finest cover of The Chain you're ever likely to hear. And I thought I liked Fleetwood Mac...
TWO: The King Blues
Militant ska: It should be a new genre. At any rate, it describes this band quite well, and if you get the chance to check out their music (the album, 'Under the Fog' is a good start) then do! The Leftfield tent was completely packed at half past seven on the Sunday evening, and it was definitely worth missing Faithless and MGMT on the main stages.
ONE: The Edge
For those of us who love U2 and were more than a little disappointed when they had to pull out of Glastonbury, and who were already quite excited to be watching Muse headline the Saturday evening, and who were exhausted after spending eight hours that day checking wristbands on the gates, to watch the lights go down for the encore and hear the opening notes of 'Where The Streets Have No Name' in a distinctly 'The Edge' style could not possibly have been more perfect, even if Bono was there (but I didn't say that).
