Glastonbury 2005, part 3

[lnr]

Well, not much left to go:

Sunday morning began, as is traditional, with the Town Band playing on the pyramid stage. They opened with the imperial march from Star Wars, which is a glorious tune, and continued with various things including a medley with Beatles tracks in and the theme to Hawaii 5 O - which made me smile particularly since our band used to play it when I was a kid. We watched and listened from up at the tent, which was good for the loud bits but I think we lost a lot of the quieter stuff. After that the next act on stage were a belly dancing troupe! Mike and I went down to see them from closer up, and discovered the front near the stage was now like standing in a hay stack. But the dancing was nice to watching, especially in the sunshine.

After that we headed over to the John Peel tent hoping to catch a band called Client who Mike has vaguely heard of - only to discover while waiting and reading Q Daily that the entire programme had moved up a slot due to the headliner (Ryan something?) pulling out. So instead Gear were playing, and they were quite nice boring indie :-) Boring enough for Mike anyway, especially when we realised that in fact Client weren't going to be on next after all, because Hard-Fi had had to pull out too, so they were on in the evening instead. It was definitely a bit of a shock to find that the clashfinder (which Ned had printed out for us in advance, and which we'd highlighted and had relied on happily all weekend) was no longer our friend - at least for that stage. But worse news from Q was that Cake was cancelled. I'd been quite looking forward to seeing them, and for Ed they had been the expected high point of the weekend. Bum.

This news all left a bit of a gap in my intended schedule. We wandered over to The Crown near the Other Stage to catch Rick and Ed, hearing a bit of Thirteen Senses on the way past (Mike rather disparagingly said they sounded lots like Coldplay) and bought some beer, then suddenly realised that in fact because Cake were no longer on we could go and watch Jools instead, which we'd all ruled out because of the clash and promptly forgotten about. So that's what we did, and sat in the sunshine pleasantly chilled out for a while. Faye and Art spotted me as I wandered past them and texted a hello ("was that you in the pink stripey hat?") so when Jools took his bow I wandered over to join them for Van Morrison, and was pleased to fing doop too. Faye lent me sunblock, Art bought me chips, doop bought me cider - I definitely owe you all a pint. And we sat and talked and listened, and chatted to the nice couple sitting next to us and their smallish boy. And well, it was *great. He played a lot of lovely feel good music and we did. And as he played Gloria near the end doop and I got up to dance, and were briefly caught in the act (short video clip avi, 3.4MB) - oh dear oh dear. Joools and Van together with the sun beating down was just perfect glastonbury relaxation for me though. Glorious.

After he was done I went for a wander, pottered up through the circus field and looked in lots of the shops and at the strange statue things. Tried on rings with no success, and looked at cute cuddly frogs, but in the end didn't buy anything. Then back through the main market area stopping for some food and just taking it easy, while Brian Wilson played. More nachos to eat, this time with Buffalo chilli, which was indistinguishable from ordinary beef actually, plus guacamole and sour cream and cheese and salsa - yum. Then it was time to potter back to the main stage for Garbage. Tried to get hold of various people but failed entirely, so find myself a spot to the right of the sound stage where I could see both stage and screen and settled down to sit comfortably through a good set. Shirley Manson stealing a blow up sex doll from the crowd and climbing on top of it and crooning a song into its face was priceless. And she bounded back and forth along the stage in her stripey minidress with great energy. Lots of the hits, good stuff. Well worth seeing.

The rearrangement of the John Peel stage meant that the next band on were LCD Soundsystem, and Bright Eyes were going to finish. This cheered Mike up no end since it meant he could go see Tori Amos in the acoustic tent without missing the latter. But while just about everyone I know seemed to go with him, and apparently it was very good, I decided LCD Soundsystem were more my cup of tea. The sea of mud en route was gone, and I had time to buy a couple of odds and ends: a very pink studded belt for me, a couple of bracelets for Mike and a squeaky duck keyring for rjk (not that I'm pred or anything) and to grab a waffle with strawberries and chocolate sauce, before joining a very long loo queue and having an amusing conversation with a couple of people in front of me. Not that they'd been taking E and turning extremely cheery and garrulous as a result or anything - oh no. LCD Soundsystem were good anyway, though I did feel I'd have done better to go inside to listen, and to have heard the album a few more times before seeing them live.

It seems nearly all the rest of the gang (Mike, Ed, Jamie, Rick, Ben, Johnny, Ned) all came over for Bright Eyes. Mike led me and Jamie into the crowd and got separated from us during the first track. Then there was a long pause. There was a technical problem but he just stood there looking like a muppet and was a bit cross with us for not being enthusiastic enough. A couple of tracks later Jamie decided he'd had enough and went to find something more cheerful. And at the end of that track there was another glitch and another silence, and we were encouraged to clap our credit cards together because it was all for making Poverty History, and to be honest at that point I think I decided he was a bit of a wanker. I'd had enough of being in the increasingly bemused and pissed off in places crowd, and headed for the edge and a sit down. Moments later Johnny emerged too, and joined the others who it turned out were right at the back edge, and they all decided they'd had too much and left. I stayed however, and despite the repeated cynical jabs at John Peel and Make Poverty History the music remained good so it was worth it, even if it was the oddest gig I've ever seen - especially for a finalé! He cheered up a bit right at the end though, for the amusing reason (which I couldn't see from my spot on the floor) that a naked girl came on stage and snogged him lots. Way to go. And soon that was that.

Mike and I wandered to find the others, and discovered Jamie where expected. Later determined Ed, Rick and Johnny were backstage and after much faffage Jamie headed off to sleep and Mike and I were brought out passes and could go in to join them. They've got quite a nice bar behind the East dance tent it seems, with sofas and big tables and chairs, and a DJ was playing too. We didn't stay terribly long though since Johnny was shattered and needed to be up in the morning and we left him nodding off into his pint. The pie stall next door turned out to be a favourite haunt of Ed and Rick, and we were tempted into trying their wares. Real mushy peas for the first time in ages, plus pie and mash and cheese and gravy: great. We wandered off stuffing our faces (having decided the silent disco queue was just too much) and bought some "recycled fuel" on the way back to the tent to light a campfire. It was strange up in the field since various gaps had appeared from people leaving early, and with the lack of landmarks people kept getting lost. But it did mean there was more space to light the fire in. Which promptly went out several times and had to be coaxed with lots of loo roll and torn up stella box. By the time it finally got into its stride it was 4am and we were flaking out, so we went to bed just as it was beginning to get light.

Monday morning it was kind of sad to wake up around 9:30 and know it was time to go. We packed up in reasonable time, and Jamie kindly gave me, Mike and Ed a lift off site in the car, which was quite a hike away. It's annoying being the least fit one because you're constantly struggling not to get any more left behind than you are already and going as fast as you can the whole time, while they're pottering more gently *and* get to rest a bit while waiting for you to catch up now and then. We made it eventually though, and the drive off site only to 15-30 mins or so, despite the usual dire warnings to avoid the busy times and the fear of mud. We drove off through the pretty countryside in the sunshine, with the car complaining of all that weight. Reached Chippenden station in time for the 12:55 train to Paddington, and hence missed all the crush of queueing for buses and trains, which was fabulous. And we spent the train journey chatting and playing I-Spy with the people on the table next to us: 3 teenage girls and the mum of two of them, who hadn't been able to get Glasto tickets this year and were heading off to London to see Coldplay as a treat to make up for it. They seemed really nice, and it helped the time pass.

And with a tube across to Kings Cross and a semi-fast from there to Cambridge we were soon home. Snogged farewell in the station carpark before Mike and his bike headed one way and I headed another to get home and unpack a little and get clean and sleep. A quiet end to a loud and wonderful weekend. Can't wait for the next time, and even now several days later I wish it hadn't had to end. Taken my camera in to be developed today, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have some pics to go with all this text.