Firstly, this is me in my garden with the flag we were intending to bring this year…which we had no idea would turn out to be so controversial.
When we heard the terrible news about Michael Jackson on our way to Trash City on Thursday evening, we decided to turn the flag into a tribute to Michael Jackson. Let’s face it the world feels a lot duller without Jacko. His O2 gigs would have been a spectacle, although some question remains about whether his body would have been up to it.
So we added a line “Moonwalk in Peace” and that seemed to hit the right tone (see this week’s NME left). On the subject of flags, in our opinion, and this is pot-kettle territory, there were too many this year. We say stop selling flags and poles on site, there’s nothing wrong with the odd DIY flag but who wants to see generic smiley faces and country flags blocking your view?
Anyway onto the music:
We didn’t see nearly as many acts as we intended to this year - blame the good weather and the cider, but of those we saw here are our highlights:
Ray Davies / Neil Young- we managed to cram both these in. Ray Davies was playing the acoustic tent with one other guitarist. Fantastic songs meant this turned into a glorious singalong to the ikes of Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Sunny Afternoon and Autumn Almanac - my only complaint being he did have a tendency to finish a song, then reprise the chorus for one last singalong, finish it again, then one more chorus…seems unnecessarywhen you have as many classic songs as Ray Davies. We left halfway through and made our way to the Pyramid, where we managed to catch just the last two songs of Neil Young. Despite only seeing 15 minutes, I still must mention him, for the superb version of A Day in the Life with which he closed the set. This was a noisy yet delicate epic which left me astounded and wondering whether I had made the right decision to avoid Neil.
The Specials- not as good as they were on their recent 30th anniversary tour but they still shook the Pyramid crowd. Highlights included Man at C&A and Message to You Rudy, which got the rudeboys skanking in the quickly-hardening mud as the sun came out for the first time that day.
Bruce Springsteen- I was really not expecting a lot here, having tried a number of times to like the Boss but always struggled with his earnestness. I only know about three of his songs and was prepared to be bored. However he threw a curveball by opening with a superb acoustic version of Coma Girl, one of Joe Strummer’s best solo songs and a paean to Glastonbury. That was a very nice touch. For the rest of the set Bruce was so energetic, diving into the pit to touch the crowd, and overunning to send everyone back to their tents happily Dancing in the Dark.
Dizzee Rascal- Dizzee got the crowd going with the superb Dance Wiv Me, before halting the set to play a medley of Michael Jackson songs, including Beat It, Billie Jean and Thriller, which got everyone dancing. This was no wake, this was a celebration, and the crowd soon went bonkers to Bonkers, one of the anthems of the festival.
Blur - Blur were superb from the off, although starting with She’s So High seemed a strange choice. Blur are not a band I have listened to very often since the days of Britpop, but they reminded everyone how many great songs they have, from a super-speedy version of Parklife (complete with Phil Daniels) to an extended singalong to Tender. My only gripes were that the set was low on numbers from the underrated The Great Escape - there was no Charmless Man or Stereotypes, or even He Thought of Cars, but otherwise we got forgotten classics from Parklife such as Tracey Jacks and a frenetic Jubilee, a sublime Out of Time, and the touching To The End, This is a Low and set-closer The Universal. This was redemption, from the days when they won the battle (Country House beating Roll With It to number one in the Britpop war of 1995) but lost the war when Oasis went on to outsell them and Blur were dismissed as mockney chancers, not real enough to love (witness a bitter Damon unable to discuss the Blur-Oasis rivalry on the Britpop documentary). Well the huge crowd gathered in front of the Pyramid certainly showed their love tonight.
Summary- The weather was almost perfect, some impressive but brief thunderstorms which didn’t do too much damage to the site, and by Sunday it was trainer weather. Which in our opinion was just as well, because we felt the line-up was lacking a little. There were too many gaps where I just felt there was nothing I wanted to see, which is fine as you could sit in the sun and enjoy a few ciders (the Park area is a particularly good place to do this, avoid the over-packed Jazz World area). The line-up didn’t seem to have been given much thought in terms of clashes - Bat for Lashes at the same time as Ladyhawke? Ray Davies, Doves, Neil Young and Animal Collective all at the same time on Friday night? And somehow we felt that the festival didn’t seem as friendly as usual, perhaps the great weather meant people were too wrapped up in enjoying themselves, but there were too many large groups and not enough mingling. And the chairs - don’t get me started on the chairs down the front of the stages with occupants who refused to move as you tried to get through. They fold up don’t they? The weather is good, what is wrong with the floor? Still, as ever, we had a great time, and are immensely looking forward to 2010.
They began their set with favoured opener Slow Life, the band taking to the stage in simple checked shirts as opposed to the glowing light-suits of previous years. This was a strong start, with Gruff holding up a huge “applause” sign during the harmonica solo.
Inaugural Trams involved Gruff holding up a cardboard cut-out of Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy for the wunderbar German rap. So the hits were brought out, the only slightly flabby section being Crazy Naked Girls, with its endless guitar solos, but who can really blame them, Gruff and Bunf were obviously having fun trading licks, and they had played a crowd-pleasing set up till then.
The set finished with The Man Don’t Give A Fuck, which considering the amount of families about I thought was particularly brave and rock and roll, before set closer Cosmic Trigger. The band left with signs held up reading “Thank You” and “Danke” and ”Woah!” - who could disagree with that? Keep it real SFA.
