Monday, June 13, 2005
The Jesus, Mary and Glaven Chain
And suddenly, I'm going to Glastonbury.
The last time I went was with the Website, in the days before the Nemesis was the Nemesis and I still liked him enormously. Almost had an interview with my favourite band - it fell through, and I was grateful because one grumble or grunt from them (they were notoriously sullen interviewees) and I would have been crushed. My problem with meeting my idols is that I would require them to be impressed by me on some level. Unlikely, mostly. I would feel like a worm. A dead worm frozen on a pavement in the shape of a question mark.
I was always gobsmacked by the ego-suicidal audacity of people who would trot up to the famous and notorious and demand autographs, kisses and attention, and brazenly say boring sycophantic things. I could hardly get the questions out in interviews. I found it hard to greet that singer once even though he'd been the first to say "hey, I know you from somewhere" - we got into some sort of conversation and then got interrupted by some bloke going "Hello, you're him aren't you?". No wonder they go mad. Society just puts its manners on hold for the famous but expects them to be models of decorum and politeness and spend most of their time giving even more of themselves. . .I just didn't want to add to that, I didn't want to be another hungry mouth chewing on them. And also, to some extent, I still wanted to believe that they'd fallen out of the sky.
"If celebrities didn't want people pawing through their garbage and saying they're gay, they shouldn't have tried to express themselves creatively."
Anyway. Yes! Glasto as I will happily refer to it - I was prepared to hate it. Reading (or the Carling Weekender as I will never ever refer to it because I labour under the misapprehension that it makes a damn bit of difference) has showers in the relatively civilised backstagey campy bit. Glastonbury has not a single shower on site, at least none that I ever found. I feared the mud. I feared the huge crowds and isolation. But when I got there I realised that all the hippy waffle about it being a special place with a unique atmos was bang on. I had a single pint of pish on the Friday night and went to see Spiritualized with the Nemesis and got absolutely off my face on my own serotonin. Just the excitement of being there. Looking at Jason Pierce in silly silver astronaut trousers, listening to this music that seemed like it was being bounced off the stars and soaking into the dark grass.
And I watched the sky get light from a hill and I spent a night wandering around marvelling at the size of the place and the sense of burgeoning positivity and ooh, and I found some friends and crowdsurfed for the only time in my life to my Favourite Band and then I ran into someone else I hadn't seen for years, and we sat around a fire and made up new words and laughed. Every now and then I ran back to the Website's portakabin and typed up some gushy nonsense and uploaded it and then went off to look at Queens of the Stone Age, who are as one disgruntled punter said "what punk was supposed to kill off", but the bassist was buck nekkid so it was the spectacle, like.
It was all this that made me think that you should grab every opportunity and suck its blood until you swell up like a dog tick. (K had another one, because I am a bad mother, but he scratched until it fell off. Its tiny green corpse is somewhere in the house, unless he ate it. Good dog.) I am a terrible neophobe, and I'm even nervous about going this time because it takes organisation and carrying unwieldy stuff and making sure things don't get lost or nicked and worrying, but I know I'll have a great time because I think it's very hard not to have one of those there.
Looking at the line-up I have the usual planning panic. Too much choice is no choice at all - choose one thing and you're twitchy that you might be missing three other better things. The thing to do is not care. (Always nice, for a change.) Reading is bad enough with its four stages - there's one worn spot where you can hear at least three of them at once - but Glastonbury has twenty things going on at any one time. I will be a guest of Lost Vagueness, so for a good part of the time I will probably be fannying about in evening dress watching burlesque - hurrah! - but I'm making note of who I'd like to try and see. If the fates decree.
Wants
The Boyfriends - my mate's band from t'other night, opening the John Peel stage - the one thing I will not miss on pain of dysentery
Elvis Costello - ooooooooo
The White Stripes - how anyone could ever believe they were brother and sister boggles me
Hot Hot Heat - my Other Favourite Band for a bit, never saw live
Interpol - moody-yummy
Coldplay - properly, like, powerful and affecting
New Order - just to gawp at Peter Hook who looks like some kind of alcoholic orang-utan
Estelle - hey, token black girl!
Martha Wainwright - don't know if I like her but she is the sister of. . .
Rufus Wainwright - who is mahvellous and the gayest thing on two legs
The Bravery - if there's time, I want to go and admire their hair and listen to the enormous whoops of glee when they do 'An Honest Mistake' which is one of the greatest songs of the last five years and I'd stake my reputation on that but I don't suppose I have one anymore so, huh
Pestilence
The Thrills - fucking simpering breathy schmindie
Fatboy Slim - fucking smug backward-facing buffoon with too much money
Goldie Lookin’ Chain - fucking ironic talentless industry in-jokes
Squarepusher - fucking NOISE (although I could go for 'My Red Hot Car' which is meant to sound like 'My Red Hot Cock' - only that and nothing more)
Chas & Dave - fuck, really? Fuck
Keane - fucking bleating dithering wannabes (although I'll allow 'Everybody's Changing' at a pinch)
Athlete - fucking see above
Bodyrockers - fucking grunting novelty student-dance nonsense
Nonsense
Mad Staring Eyes
Shpongle
Damn!
Kangaroo Moon Peatbog Faeries
Jerry Fish and the Mud Bug Club
Crusty goddam why not dead yet
Eat Static
Dreadzone
Stereo MCs
Ozric Tentacles
Levellers
(I have seen three of these, and eaten sandwiches with one of them. God help me.)
Guilty Pleasures/Curiosities
The Undertones - they can't not play it, can they
Darren Emerson – closest thing to Underworld? or just impenetrable house tomfoolery?
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - hmm
Van Morrison - a lot of people will be disappointed
Glenn Tilbrook and the somethingorothers - I'm getting old
The Tears – Brett et Bernard, il pleut bien ou il pleut merde?
Ash - always, always good. I'm still young actually
Soulwax - always always always good, and not nearly as Belgian as you'd think
Guilty Pleasures - put that in for a joke but there really is someone called that
Things I should want to see but couldn’t give a rat’s ass about
Brian Wilson - I know, I know, but. . .
Babyshambles - never cared
Le Tigre - never been alt. enough
The Futureheads - that Kate Bush cover was rubbish
British Sea Power - can't see it myself
Art Brut - maybe after the hype has evaporated
The La’s - yeah, yeah, he's a genius
Bloc Party - whatever
I've got just over a week to see if my tent is still inhabitable. It hasn't seen daylight for at least three years.
It was 2002, when I was last there. I did Homelands and Reading the same summer.
I liked to party.
Oh, I just found from my scribblings at the time that there was no nudity on the part of QOTSA. Just my fevered imagination, then. I did see Keith Allen dancing around with his trackies round his ankles and his tiny knob out but that was nothing, but nothing to write home or anywhere else about.
Oooooo!
The last time I went was with the Website, in the days before the Nemesis was the Nemesis and I still liked him enormously. Almost had an interview with my favourite band - it fell through, and I was grateful because one grumble or grunt from them (they were notoriously sullen interviewees) and I would have been crushed. My problem with meeting my idols is that I would require them to be impressed by me on some level. Unlikely, mostly. I would feel like a worm. A dead worm frozen on a pavement in the shape of a question mark.
I was always gobsmacked by the ego-suicidal audacity of people who would trot up to the famous and notorious and demand autographs, kisses and attention, and brazenly say boring sycophantic things. I could hardly get the questions out in interviews. I found it hard to greet that singer once even though he'd been the first to say "hey, I know you from somewhere" - we got into some sort of conversation and then got interrupted by some bloke going "Hello, you're him aren't you?". No wonder they go mad. Society just puts its manners on hold for the famous but expects them to be models of decorum and politeness and spend most of their time giving even more of themselves. . .I just didn't want to add to that, I didn't want to be another hungry mouth chewing on them. And also, to some extent, I still wanted to believe that they'd fallen out of the sky.
"If celebrities didn't want people pawing through their garbage and saying they're gay, they shouldn't have tried to express themselves creatively."
Anyway. Yes! Glasto as I will happily refer to it - I was prepared to hate it. Reading (or the Carling Weekender as I will never ever refer to it because I labour under the misapprehension that it makes a damn bit of difference) has showers in the relatively civilised backstagey campy bit. Glastonbury has not a single shower on site, at least none that I ever found. I feared the mud. I feared the huge crowds and isolation. But when I got there I realised that all the hippy waffle about it being a special place with a unique atmos was bang on. I had a single pint of pish on the Friday night and went to see Spiritualized with the Nemesis and got absolutely off my face on my own serotonin. Just the excitement of being there. Looking at Jason Pierce in silly silver astronaut trousers, listening to this music that seemed like it was being bounced off the stars and soaking into the dark grass.
And I watched the sky get light from a hill and I spent a night wandering around marvelling at the size of the place and the sense of burgeoning positivity and ooh, and I found some friends and crowdsurfed for the only time in my life to my Favourite Band and then I ran into someone else I hadn't seen for years, and we sat around a fire and made up new words and laughed. Every now and then I ran back to the Website's portakabin and typed up some gushy nonsense and uploaded it and then went off to look at Queens of the Stone Age, who are as one disgruntled punter said "what punk was supposed to kill off", but the bassist was buck nekkid so it was the spectacle, like.
It was all this that made me think that you should grab every opportunity and suck its blood until you swell up like a dog tick. (K had another one, because I am a bad mother, but he scratched until it fell off. Its tiny green corpse is somewhere in the house, unless he ate it. Good dog.) I am a terrible neophobe, and I'm even nervous about going this time because it takes organisation and carrying unwieldy stuff and making sure things don't get lost or nicked and worrying, but I know I'll have a great time because I think it's very hard not to have one of those there.
Looking at the line-up I have the usual planning panic. Too much choice is no choice at all - choose one thing and you're twitchy that you might be missing three other better things. The thing to do is not care. (Always nice, for a change.) Reading is bad enough with its four stages - there's one worn spot where you can hear at least three of them at once - but Glastonbury has twenty things going on at any one time. I will be a guest of Lost Vagueness, so for a good part of the time I will probably be fannying about in evening dress watching burlesque - hurrah! - but I'm making note of who I'd like to try and see. If the fates decree.
Wants
The Boyfriends - my mate's band from t'other night, opening the John Peel stage - the one thing I will not miss on pain of dysentery
Elvis Costello - ooooooooo
The White Stripes - how anyone could ever believe they were brother and sister boggles me
Hot Hot Heat - my Other Favourite Band for a bit, never saw live
Interpol - moody-yummy
Coldplay - properly, like, powerful and affecting
New Order - just to gawp at Peter Hook who looks like some kind of alcoholic orang-utan
Estelle - hey, token black girl!
Martha Wainwright - don't know if I like her but she is the sister of. . .
Rufus Wainwright - who is mahvellous and the gayest thing on two legs
The Bravery - if there's time, I want to go and admire their hair and listen to the enormous whoops of glee when they do 'An Honest Mistake' which is one of the greatest songs of the last five years and I'd stake my reputation on that but I don't suppose I have one anymore so, huh
Pestilence
The Thrills - fucking simpering breathy schmindie
Fatboy Slim - fucking smug backward-facing buffoon with too much money
Goldie Lookin’ Chain - fucking ironic talentless industry in-jokes
Squarepusher - fucking NOISE (although I could go for 'My Red Hot Car' which is meant to sound like 'My Red Hot Cock' - only that and nothing more)
Chas & Dave - fuck, really? Fuck
Keane - fucking bleating dithering wannabes (although I'll allow 'Everybody's Changing' at a pinch)
Athlete - fucking see above
Bodyrockers - fucking grunting novelty student-dance nonsense
Nonsense
Mad Staring Eyes
Shpongle
Damn!
Kangaroo Moon Peatbog Faeries
Jerry Fish and the Mud Bug Club
Crusty goddam why not dead yet
Eat Static
Dreadzone
Stereo MCs
Ozric Tentacles
Levellers
(I have seen three of these, and eaten sandwiches with one of them. God help me.)
Guilty Pleasures/Curiosities
The Undertones - they can't not play it, can they
Darren Emerson – closest thing to Underworld? or just impenetrable house tomfoolery?
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - hmm
Van Morrison - a lot of people will be disappointed
Glenn Tilbrook and the somethingorothers - I'm getting old
The Tears – Brett et Bernard, il pleut bien ou il pleut merde?
Ash - always, always good. I'm still young actually
Soulwax - always always always good, and not nearly as Belgian as you'd think
Guilty Pleasures - put that in for a joke but there really is someone called that
Things I should want to see but couldn’t give a rat’s ass about
Brian Wilson - I know, I know, but. . .
Babyshambles - never cared
Le Tigre - never been alt. enough
The Futureheads - that Kate Bush cover was rubbish
British Sea Power - can't see it myself
Art Brut - maybe after the hype has evaporated
The La’s - yeah, yeah, he's a genius
Bloc Party - whatever
I've got just over a week to see if my tent is still inhabitable. It hasn't seen daylight for at least three years.
It was 2002, when I was last there. I did Homelands and Reading the same summer.
I liked to party.
Oh, I just found from my scribblings at the time that there was no nudity on the part of QOTSA. Just my fevered imagination, then. I did see Keith Allen dancing around with his trackies round his ankles and his tiny knob out but that was nothing, but nothing to write home or anywhere else about.
Oooooo!
