Glasto - Day 1

 

I always go hard on the Friday in terms of walking between the stages to catch the people I want to see - on later days, tiredness kicks in and I accept that sacrifices have to be made, but on the Friday I'm totally "I can do this!".  For those who haven't been, the distances involved can be significant - walking from the Acoustic stage to the Park stage is a good 30 minute hike under optimum conditions and optimum conditions does not involve the presence of other people, so you often need to easily double that.  So planning is required, people!

My planning process is to pick the people I really want to see and then see who else makes sense to catch given the locations involved - I'm not saying spreadsheets are involved, but it probably wouldn't hurt things if they were.  Targets for this day were Maisie Peters (under instruction from my eldest), Flo (I reckoned they'd be perfect for the sunshine), Carly Rae Jepson (yeah, just for the one song), Pale Waves (they were great at Reading), The Churnups (the rumours had swung strongly from Pulp to Foo Fighters by this time), Billy Bragg, Freya Ridings and Hot Chip (I saw them 10-ish years ago and they were great).  So how did I do?!?

Well, things didn't start off great because I woke early after a terrible night's sleep and the tent was already boiling, so being somewhere else was required - the Park stage seemed to most likely area for some shade and somewhere to sit down, so I wandered up the hill to see what I could find.  And I'd have to say it was quite an inspired choice because I found this.

And so, after a very pleasing 90 minutes reading the paper and drinking coffee, I was in a much better place for the music that was just about to start on the nearby stage

Adwaith
I'd never heard of them, but sometimes that's best way.  In this case though, not so much - the music was perfectly fine but they did the whole "we're from Wales and so we sing in Welsh" thing.  Which I totally respect, but they also need to understand that means I can't understand a bloody word they're saying.  

Which meant it was time to move towards the Pyramid stage to catch Maisie Peters later and on the way there I caught up with

Ben Howard
I don't mind Ben, but I'd struggle to call him interesting and certainly wouldn't bother going out of my way to listen to any of his identikit songs.  However, it appears I'm very much in a minority because the crowd on the Other stage was soooo massive (possibly the biggest I've ever seen there) that it took me twenty minutes or so to walk about 200 metres.  And, in the time it took me to do so, I can confirm that all the songs I heard were indeed "perfectly fine".

Master Musicians of Joujouka
On the Pyramid stage as I got there, I was intrigued to listen to them because I had no idea what Joujouka was.  And having listened to them, I still had no idea but I can assure you I don't like it - it's a bloody awful racket.  

Maisie Peters
Whereas Maisie very much wasn't - she made some lovely sounds in the sunshine.  She's very Swift-ian (Taylor, not Jonathan) but she appears to have slightly more acceptance of her role in the drama - "this song is about my terrible, terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE taste in men"!  I liked her - she was very smiley and comfortable without being overly confident.  She's still on iPlayer if you're interested (and it's odd that Ben Howard isn't, because his crowd must have been about three times the size).

After which I headed ten minutes down the road to the newly named Woodsie's area (previously the John Peel stage, but there's a lot more than just the stage there now) to catch up with another of my targets for the day

Flo
They're very Destiny's Childish, with some lovely harmonies - perfect for a sunny afternoon!  My one quibble would be that maybe their dance moves could do with a bit more polish (they're very school talent show), but they made up for it with a great cover of Jamelia's "Superstar" and finished up with "Cardboard Box" which is, with good reason, the song they're best known for.  They're also available on iPlayer.

And then I retraced my steps, catching up with...

Stefflon Don
The crowd liked her, but she was a bit shouty-hip-hop for my tender ears I'm afraid - she's also on iPlayer if you're made of sterner stuff than me (and let's face it - who isn't?)

Carly Rae Jepsen

Well, I got to hear "Call Me Maybe" and "I Really Like You" but I have to admit that I spent a lot of time here being distracted by a most amusing trio of off-their-faces civil servants who alternated between telling me how important they were, offering me illicit substances and pleading with me not to rat them out.  One of them was meeting her minister at the festival the next day and a big part of me is wondering whether she still has a job.  Carly was VERY bouncy though - she was certainly happy to be a Glass-ton-berry and she's also on iPlayer.

...before ending back at Woodsies to tick off another of the day's targets

Pale Waves
They were great when I saw them at Reading last year - I do like a bit of female lead indie and they most definitely didn't disappoint.  It's a very Wolf Alice/Chvrches/Muna kinda sound - again, it worked well in the sunshine.  And they're on iPlayer as well.

I had to leave Pale Waves a bit before they finished to try and find a space at the "secret" Churnups gig - by this time everyone KNEW it was Foo Fighters (he'd been posing for selfies on the train) - did I succeed?

Foo Fighters

No, not really.  That was one BIG crowd - certainly top five I'd ever seen on the Pyramid stage at that point, but it was overtaken a couple of times by the end of the weekend.  I was waaaay at the back and although the sound was still fine, the sun was just in the wrong place which meant that I couldn't see a bloody thing.  I'm also more of an admirer than a fan of the Foos work, which means that after three or four tracks (which included "Learning To Fly" which is definitely one of my faves of theirs) I was pretty "OK, what's next?".  And my next thought was "Hold on?  If everyone's here, who's watching Chvrches?" (and yes, they're on iPlayer too)

Chvrches
And the answer, as I found out about fifteen minutes later, was "not a lot of people" because I was about five people back from the front!  Which rarely happens - I like being that close but I just can't be bothered fighting my way forward, or in some cases having to battle just to stay there.  I like Chvrches though - "The Mother We Share" and "Recover" are fine tracks, which you can check out on iPlayer along with her interesting costume revamp and her amusing wardrobe malfunction.  And, if you're eagle-eyed, at 42:06 you can see this dodgy geezer.

At which point, I had a dilemma.  I love Billy Bragg who is the artist I've seen most over my lifetime (it helps that he plays every Glasto) but I also love Freya Ridings who I've seen a grand total of zero times - and they were pretty much playing at the same time.  Fortunately, the Leftfield and the Avalon stages are only about ten minutes apart, so I decided on a brief blast of Billy before heading to see Freya.

Billy Bragg
And boy, did I make the right decision as his opening line was "Unbelievably, it's 40 years since the release of Life's a Riot - so I'm going to play the whole thing through straight".  Which, for those not in the know, takes 16 minutes and he finished up with "A New England".  So that seemed a perfect time to leave - I'm sure I would have enjoyed the rest of his set, but you have to accept that sometimes sacrifices are going to have to be made.

Freya Ridings
At first, I thought I'd made the wrong choice coming to see her because the sound was terrible with her voice really low in the mix - I could see people around me looking at each other trying to work out what was going on.  But the rest of the crowd seemed mostly happy enough so I moved about twenty metres towards the middle - and everything was perfectly fine!  And once that was sorted, it was all much more enjoyable - possibly a little heavy on the heartbreak, but they say "write about what you know" and the girl certainly seems to know heartbreak.  And she finished with "Without You" and "Castles", both of which are very fine tracks.

So with 100% of my targets hit for the day hit so far, I only had Hot Chip left on my list.  But they were on the stage furthest away from where I was and all good runs come to an end somewhere so I settled for heading back to the Park stage to end the day where I started with

Fever Ray
Or not actually to the stage, but sat up on the hill behind it - the music was fine (nothing more) but it was a nice chilled end to the day (and my feet definitely needed a sit down).  And, watching it on iPlayer, there's all sorts of weirdness going on there that I couldn't see from my hill!

So, the musical highlights of the day for me were Pale Waves, Chvrches and Billy, but there was very little disappointment throughout the day.  The people I would have liked to have seen but couldn't fit in were Hot Chip (obviously, but they're on iPlayer, so I will check them out) and Warpaint (one track available on iPlayer) - I also imagine Laura Mvula would have been nice in the sunshine.  And finally, I heard a lot of people saying nice things about Texas, Fred Again and Gabriels - the reports on Arctic Monkeys were a little more mixed with a lot of people saying they were too depressing.  One comment that rang particularly true was "if you like them, there was plenty there to like" but I can also understand that at festivals people rock up to a stage all day and expect to hear the hits and it doesn't really do anyone any favours if artists decide not to play that game.  I also have to say having seen all the iPlayer links for pretty much everyone, I really have to wonder who Ben Howard pissed off to not be on there given the size of his crowd.

In between all the music, I also managed to go up the Ribbon Tower (for the first time ever) which offers some impressive views over the site - at least until you look in the opposite direction and realise you could just climb the hill behind it to get even better views.  I also managed a wander around Shangri-La (which is quite the interesting area) in a quiet evening period (late at night it gets so busy you can't actually move - which kinda defeats the point to it) and Arcadia in not such a quiet period.

All in all, it was a lovely day with great music and great weather - and I was very tired by the end of it, looking forward to a great night's sleep that I absolutely knew for certain I wasn't going to get.  One final point - all the iPlayer links are only active for the next month or so, so get a move on if you want to watch any of them.

Day 0
Day 2