Glastonbury Diary

So I'm sure you've all heard about Amy Winehouse and her fan punching and Jay-Z and his Noel Gallagher punching (not literally) in fact you may have even seen more bands than I did on BBC but nothing compares to the experience of being there. I guarantee you that no matter what festivals you have been to in the world you have never seen anything to equal the size of the daddy of them all.

Click on the read more for Glasto Diary and Gig review


Wed 25th June
Arrive. Queue for 45 mins for tickets. Pitch tents & gazebo. Take comfort in the fact that there are no major bands on today and that we have to go nowhere and do nothing. Do anyway. Get drunk. Rest blur.

Thurs 26th June
Whole day of wandering around looking at shit and getting drunk. Watch a couple of godawful bands who's names were unavailable in the Leftfield stage. Rest blur.

Fri 27th June

First day of proper schedule music. Wander down in morning to get some food. Stop by the John Peel Stage to see somebody called Royworld. Stay for a song or two. Boring Coldplay like tunes provoke severe dose of wandering the fuck away from there. Check out vid below for yourself




Apres Royworld head back for post breakfast beer. Look at timetable. Nobody on for a while but Glasvegas are playing close enough to wander down. Go down. One song I know/like turns out to be the only song I know/like. Oh well.

Glasvegas- Geraldine

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Off to Jazzworld which coincidentally is right beside the Brothers Pear Cider stand. Nothing jazzy on, so Cider it is. 3 pints time its time for Ben Folds. Not my favourite artist but my ignorance of the chap has been mocked long enough so lets check him out. By all accounts a decent Folds peformance. Weather isn't magnificent while he's playing but he keeps the crowd in a good mood and finishes with a pretty amusing cover of Dr.Dre's "Bitches ain't shit".

Ben Folds- Bitches Aint Shit

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The hype machine has roled all over The Ting Ting's and so its time to see if they're worth the paper they're printed on. Head to John Peel Stage to find it more packed then apparently its ever been. Hardly surprising considering the afore-mentioned hype. Turns out they can actually play live. Considering its only two people on synthed up drums guitars and vocals then its quite surprising they fill the tent with sound in the way they do. In fact they do it so impressively that the only song that sounds quite lacklustre is the on that a lot of people turned up to see.

The Ting Tings- Great DJ

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Large blank gap for four hours between The Ting Ting's and final act of the day in which many bands I could have seen played. No idea if I did see them but next memory is turning up at Kings of Leon on the main stage. Perhaps everybody has a Kings of Leon phase. For some reason I have their first album and a copy of their second so I must have gone through one at one point but damned if I can figure out why. Prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt but after a hella long wait for them to come on stage and a boring as fuck first song that I don't know, followed by a boring as fuck second song that I do know I decide to bail to see if I can catch some of Sinead O'Connor or Seasick Steve. Fighting through the crowd at the Pyramid stage makes me miss both. Bummer. Rest of night = blur.

Seasick Steve- Dog House Boogie

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Sat 28th June

Drank late so rose late. Quelle Surprise. Quick joint to falafel stand drags me by John Peel again where a quirky little chick called Emmy the Great is waking folk up. Compares her album coming out to Chinese Democracy. "Thats not a Political joke its a Guns N'Roses joke". Remind myself to check out more of this little lady's stuff.




Unfortunately Emmy the great is not enough to wake me from a rotten hangover + rotten sunstroke. Decide to lie down for several hours so I don't miss the evenings festivities. Several hours later sleeping and an hour and a half in the cinema tent watching The Simpsons Movie (better on a second watch) and off to the Park area via the Pyramid stage checking out a bit of Manu Chao on the way who appears to be making the crowd dance like bastards.

Manu Chao- Merry Blues

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Arriving in the Park area just in time to see the second of half of Fight Like Apes who if you don't know are a fantastic shouty little Irish band and are here proving their ever growing awesomeness with a short but sweet set where they woo a small (and mostly Irish) but still significant crowd. Plus its recorded for the BBC and should be on the website but isn't at this time of writing for some reason. Not too good considering its supposed to be fucking promoting new bands.



Fight Like Apes finishes approximately ten minutes before MGMT are due to begin on the main Park stage. As we arrive however we hear The Last Shadow Puppets being introduced for their secret gig. This doesn't bode well especially seeing as I'm not buying into any of Alex Turner's bullshit or his side projects and naturally enough this little performance fails to impress me regardless of whether Jack White was in the audience or not.


The boding proved correct as well unfortunately as the sets thereafter ran 40 minutes later and despite the fact that it was Saturday night the curfew remained in effect. MGMT played a 5 song set ending with Electric Feel, Time to Pretend and then doing their karaoke rendition of Kids which consistently makes me like them less and less.

MGMT- Electric Feel

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Battles however I like more and more each time I see them and having them reduced to 4 songs makes me want to hit things especially when they were kicking as much ass as they were as they race through Tij, Tonto, Atlas and Leyendecker. Hopefully next time they play in my presence I'll see the whole set.

Battles- Leyendecker

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CSS, as somebody pointed out to me, you can see every other weekend at home but as I mentioned they were running 40 minutes late so by the time they started there was no running down to catch a bit of Jay-Z (unfortunately for me from what I hear). Still there's no denying that the Brazilians put on a good show and tonight is no exception. Its just a shame that they can't pull a full set out of the crowd for all the folks who really want them.

Saturday night ends. On to oblivion. Drink through the night until about 8 in the morning find ourselves in the grounds of the farm trying to see if we can see the Eavis's. Unsurprisingly we don't.

CSS- Let's Make Love (Calvin Harris Remix) Link Removed


Sunday 29th June

There are those who might call me little bitch but its become a tradition at this stage that the Sunday of any given festival will see me being as sick as a fucking dog and this particular festival is no exception. Such is this fucker of a rotten tummy that I only emerge out in time to see...Neil fucking Diamond.

Now I am one of those people who can say in all seriousness and without even a hint of irony that I have been to a Neil Diamond concert. Such is the state of my (and at least half our group) that we choose to punctuate the break in songs with exclamations like "Neil Diamond!!!" or "We're at a Neil Diamond concert". The crowd like him well enough however and if there was a prize for getting a crowd of people to sing along to "Sweet Caroline" then Mr Diamond would surely take it. As you can see from the picture below my body did not agree with the crowds sentiments.

Neil Diamond- Sweet Caroline

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While some went to The Verve and some went to Manu Chao doing his second gig of the weekend I and my wretched stomach went and watched the first screening of Wall-E. Good movie, still the sounds of the Verve kind of made me want to head down there and hear Bittersweet Symphony and what not. Next year I'll have to grow another set of balls.