I returned from Glastonbury 2010 late on monday evening along with the first signs of a crappy cold. 9 hour stuffy coach trips are great incubators… It could have been worse, I did notice a couple of sniffles during the festival itself, but they seemed to stay away long enough! The lovely weather made for a more pleasant experience than last year – shame it’s exceptional. I still struggled with an inability to stay upright for very long. Fuck my life, or posture.
As for the music, I’ve compiled a little spotify playlist from the bands I managed to see albeit short and uncomprehensive. It can be viewed/listened to here: Glasto
A few highlights:
- Thom Yorke & Johnny Greenwood’s special guests slot on the Park stage, Friday – I think the initial rumours for this slot were The Strokes although I heard one whisper earlier in the morning of Thom Yorke. We decided we weren’t missing anyone important regardless of who it turned out to be so wandered up to the Park after food (and a French covers band). A stop halfway to visit the little boys hole over a cesspit was rudely interupted by Tommy upon finding out from a friend (my former student union president and recent tory party candidate) that it was in fact Thom and Johnny. The rumour had certainly spread enough to have a sizeable crowd already at the Park by the time we’d arrived and we managed to go around the outside to the south side of the stage which was slightly less packed (A trick to be repeated the following evening for Biffy Clyro). I’ll admit I’m not terribly familiar with Thom’s solo stuff but recognised a couple of the songs, the atmosphere itselfs pretty entertaining. The Radiohead stuff was great though and whilst everyone else wanted a repeat of Karma Police’s epic ending from 2003 I was ecstatic to hear Street Spirit, my favourite song for quite some time now.
- Frank Turner at Strummerville, Friday – I managed to see Frank three times over the weekend. The first was a rather packed showing at The Queen’s Head which in true indie form was made better by being in the minority of people in the crowd who knew ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends’. The second gig, at Strummerville, was in the early hours of Saturday morning, tucked away in the middle of Shangri-La and the Unfair Ground. It was strangely heartening to sit next to a huge campfire and listen to him very drunkenly belt out his earlier songs, although he didn’t give in to my request for Million Dead acoustics
- The Flaming Lips headling The Other Stage, Friday – I don’t know an awful lot of Flaming Lips songs (despite my housemates obsession) and indeed this highlight was more about the spectacle of the show rather than the songs themselves. Having chosen to stick with Broken Bells for a little while before heading down, this was viewed from a bit further back than the sound stage. I imagine the crowd would have been amazing. The sound really was amazing, as was Wayne Coynes on-stage banter.
One last thing
Whilst I saw dozens of opinions afterwards praising The National’s set on Saturday, it kind of passed over me. Partly because I’ve only recently gotten into them and partly because I was already struggling with back pain. They are a good consequence of Glastonbury though in that it made me listen to them a lot more and I do appreciate them moreso now. Similar can be said for Frightened Rabbit who I watched on the Sunday.
“Ada don’t talk about reasons why you don’t want to talk about reasons why you don’t wanna talk.”