Glasto - Day 2
After a slightly better night's sleep (it's all relative), I was still up and ready way before there was any music to listen to - yesterday's chaise longue was calling to me, but I knew I was going to start the day at Woodsies which would have involved a 40 minute round trip, so I just found a spot in the shade (it was gonna be a hot one) and planned out my musical targets for the day. And from my personal preferences, I came up Rick Astley (both by himself and doing his Smiths thang with Blossoms), Sudan Archives, Erika de Casier, Rina Sawayama, Melanie C and Christine and the Queens - and I also had a couple of instructed visits from my daughters for Raye and Aitch (despite me telling them I wasn't going to like Aitch!). I knew I was setting myself up for failure because Rina and Mel were playing at the same time on opposite sides of the park, but the weather was also going to play a part because by 11am when the music started it was hot, hot, HOT!
The Last Dinner Party
This was a somewhat random starter for the day based on a recommendation from the BBC website - I quite liked them, but they'd definitely been listening to their mum's Siouxsie albums and it felt a bit odd to see a load of young things making such an old sound.
Rick Astley
Just down the road at midday at the Pyramid stage (which has pretty much no shade), Rick did his solo slot - and the lad had a great time! It was pretty cheesy, but it was heartfelt cheese and he was very appreciative of the attention - he had a decent size crowd. I was expecting a left-field cover or two and he didn't disappoint - he made a very decent fist of Harry Styles's "As It Was", less so of AC/DC's "Highway To Hell", but apparently that was because he didn't have his drumming trousers on. Which isn't a phrase I imagined I'd ever be typing.
RAYE
You could tell I was already slowing down (partly due to it being Day 2 and partly due to the weather) because this was my first set of consecutive acts on the same stage. I knew I knew one Raye track ("Escapism" but I never remember it's called that - it's the "drunk calls, drunk texts, drunk tears, drunk sex" song) but apart from that I was coming to this blind on the back of a recommendation from my eldest. And she was really good - an old head on young shoulders with a cracking voice to boot and a really sweet personality shining through. She'd also made her band put on their best clothes so they were all look proper smart up there - I got a real "Amy Winehouse at her best" vibe about the set and I'd say it's well worth checking out.
Right time to wander over to our first gig on the West Holts stage, which isn't my usual hang-out being mostly soul/funk/world music which I tend to appreciate more than enjoy. But, before we got there, we had a quick detour via a festival legend
Beans On Toast
He's been playing Glastonbury for years but I'd never caught him before - he reminded me of Billy Bragg in terms of song style and banter, but with far more illicit substances involved. And then he launched into a story about how Billy had inspired him growing up and now they were mates and how Billy had recently told him a story where he was talking to a young music fan and explaining the sort of thing he did, to which the fan replied "Oh - you're like Beans On Toast then?".
Sudan Archives
I went to see her entirely because of being made to listen to her album last year - there are a load of interesting sounds on there and I thought it would be fascinating to see what she did with them all live. She started off with some technical issues - but boy did she style them out and went on to deliver an interesting and varied set. I've never seen anyone wear a violin in a holster before but she really knew her way around the instrument - she made some fantastic noises with it. However, all in all, I'd say it was impressive rather than lovable and I didn't get the impression the crowd warmed to her - but the intense heat at this point probably wasn't helping.
And back we go to the Pyramid stage, under orders from the daughters
Aitch
"Go and see him" they said. "He'll have loads of special guests" they said. So, did he? Did he fuck. He made some vaguely acceptable rappy noises all by himself until I got bored and left - at which point he brought Anne-Marie on. I can live without having seen that though...
And off we go on another tour of the Other-Woodsies-Pyramid stages...
A punk supergroup? What can possibly go wrong with that? The playing was actually better than I expected but Billy Idol was really very annoying and I can only begin to imagine what the kids thought of it all - I suspect there were quite a few happy punks in the audience though.
Maggie Rogers
And I'm pretty certain they won't have hung around to listen to a smiley young American - but maybe they should have because there was a lot of positivity to enjoy here. She was having a great time and belting out some fine tunes in the sunshine - what's not to love?
Rick Astley & Blossoms
I've seen a couple of online videos of them doing their Smiths thang and been impressed so was looking forward to catching them live. Or, more accurately, sitting in the sunshine outside the tent because I could get nowhere near it to see anything. And a very enjoyable set it was too (better on iPlayer that from 100 metres away) - it felt a bit karaoke at the time, but as I read in a review somewhere they're actually doing a public service in separating the art from the artist (no, not Johnny - the other one) and introducing it to a new generation. And they're doing a great job of it - it feels like being on a bigger stage wouldn't have been the worst thing for this.
Lizzo
Hmmm - this was an interesting one. There was a lot going for this - she had massive stage presence, fine songs and a HUGE crowd (I reckon the second biggest of the weekend). And I enjoyed it - but I also tired of it very quickly. About four songs in, I was like "OK - what's next?"
So where did I go for something slightly different? I made my first visit to the Acoustic tent this year which is often a firm favourite of mine - fine music and not too busy, but it rarely makes it to the iPlayer.
Glen Hansard
A man who has had various musical personae over his lifetime - depending on your age you may know him best from The Commitments, The Frames or Once. Here he delivered a folky-ish set which was nicely mellow, but he finished it off with an audience request of "Revelate" which made me very happy because I never thought I'd get to hear it played live.
So now it was decision time - Rina or Melanie C? One was a 30 minute walk which was probably going to be available on iPlayer and the other was a 10 minute walk which wasn't - easy choice, really!
Melanie C
This was actually the second time I've seen Ms Chisholm live in a year (the slightly less attended St Albans Pub In The Park being the other one) - she's great because she doesn't take herself too seriously, but puts on a good show with a selection of more tracks than you realise you know and she does enough Spice Girls tracks to keep people happy. And even though she was on one of the smaller stages, there were a lot of people there having a very good time - I suspect she'll be back on a bigger stage next year, quite possibly with some of her friends, if some of the hints she were dropping are to be believed.
And, like last night, the artist I really wanted to see was just too far away so I headed back to my hill - but it wasn't nearly as quiet tonight because of this gentleman...
Fatboy Slim
The hill was VERY crowded indeed - I had to climb pretty high to find a space. And it soon became clear it really wasn't worth the effort - I'm sure Mr Cook was there, but it really could have been anyone pressing play on the tape recorder. There were flashes of Fatboy classics, but it really wasn't any different from any of the other dance stages.
So a bit of a flat end to the evening unfortunately, but there was plenty of fine music throughout the day, with my personal highlights being RAYE, Rick/Blossoms, Glen Hansard playing "Revelate" and Melanie C. The people I would have liked to have seen but missed were Rina Sawayama (a fantastic set which is well worth watching), Erika de Casier (I could have easily seen her, but completely missed that I was close to her), Lewis Capaldi (I'm not sure why he never made it on to my list!), Loyle Carner, Jacob Collier and Christine & The Queens (I was just too tired - but somewhat surprisingly I didn't hear anyone say they were there the next day!).
Someone who was talked about the next day was Lana del Ray and not for the right reasons, although there seemed to be a lot of people blaming anyone but her for not being allowed to finish her set. I even saw some "it wouldn't happen to an old dude" nonsense and I can assure you it would because I was there when it happened to Bruce (but at least he turned up on time). Glasto are very strict on their curfews! However, LOTS of people were very complimentary about Lizzo and most people were nice enough about Guns'n'Roses, but would have preferred a set slightly more front loaded with hits.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable day - my only quibble was that it was, at times, just too HOT. But that's much better than many of the alternatives, so I shouldn't really complain. It also didn't stop me doing the most walking of any day - 27,000 steps covering 20 km.
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