Festival review by : Martyn, Chris & Holly Charsley

Glastonbury Festival 1999

Friday 25th to Sunday 27th June 1999
Worthy Farm, Pilton, nr Glastonbury, Somerset, England
£83

Last updated: Wed 7th Aug 2013

In the seventies I'd been determined to go to the Glastonbury festival.
Lack of a strong enough sense of adventure (and money) put paid to that. The eighties was a recession filled melee of work, redundancy, work, marriage, babies, you get the idea. No Glastonbury for me then.
The late nineties finds me in middle age, separated and with two teenagers to keep amused. When the eldest, my son Chris asked if we could go to Glastonbury this year I just said yes.
So we went, we saw and I was deeply depressed that I'd waited so bloody long before making the pilgrimage.

To be fair I've no idea how I would feel if it had been a wet one like the previous two years. Seasoned festival goers assured me that the mud and the rain makes little difference when "you can party for 24 hours a day for 3 days solid, man!"

Thursday 24th June.
Arriving at Worthy Farm on Thursday morning, the first thing that struck me was the scale of the event. Regular Radio1 listeners will have heard the staggering list of stats but seeing it for the first time is amazing.
Guided by two tired offspring we pitched our tent in what seemed like (and luckily for us turned out to be) a perfect spot.
You know those little gaps you leave between tents when you go camping. Huh! forget that at Glastonbury. Leave a gap and some punter will pitch a tent in it! And they did. Compared to many we came off quite well and enjoyed a relatively civilized camping experience during our stay.

Once settled we embarked on a self guided tour, taking in the Healing Fields where you really can find somebody who knows an unorthodox method of alleviating any number of ailments. We idled away half an hour at the Sacred Stones. Truth to tell it had nowt to do with getting in touch with the spirits but more to do with watching bags and people flying over the 3 meter high security fence and then getting chased by exceptionally large men in Land Rovers. Great free entertainment. They caught loads of sleeping bags but no owners.

It had already become quite hot at 09:30 and it didn't get cooler. By 17:30 it was oven like and seemed to be getting hotter.

As the sun went down on our first day the temperatures became a little more bearable and the trickle of arrivals turned to a stream. We collected firewood and built a fire for warmth (it got cold!) and sat drinking tea, planning exactly how we were going to see as many acts as possible from Friday onwards.
We had eaten Italian a little earlier. Pizza, pasta, crepes with spinach and mozzarella, lovely. The following three days found us eating from every country on the planet. Whatever you fancy you'll find it. We sampled South African, Caribbean, Thai, Chinese, French, English, (I just fancied fish and chips one night) and Indian.

We got into our bags at 01:30 on Friday morning, but it's very difficult to sleep. Middle aged fuddy-duddy dads need shut eye.

Under 30's just want to booze, blow and party. That's precisely what they did and they continued until around 04:45 when either they collapsed or I actually fell asleep I don't know which! Oh! I forgot to mention that every other Bar and food outlet on the 600 acre site also has it's own sound system and is under strict instructions to have the volume cranked up to maximum at all times.

Friday 25th June.
Festival goers were now pouring onto the site from every direction at a truly frightening rate. What were sparsely populated camping fields became desperately overcrowded. Tents were being pitched over farm tracks, deeply rutted by passing tractors and cattle. Still, needs must as they say.

Our tent was about 100 yards from "The Other Stage". This was the second largest of 6 main stages around the site.
The six stages comprise about one third the number of venues at the festival. I went with some wild notion about catching everything. I didn't have a prayer!

11:00. The Other Stage. Doves. (Used to be SubSub) They've ditched the synthesizers and boom box and gone back to real instruments. Splendid stuff.
Right after they finished their set we rushed off on the half mile trek to the Main "Pyramid" stage (which hasn't looked like a pyramid for years) to catch Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Bjorn Again! were performing. They were actually very good and I found myself embarrassing the kids enormously by singing along to Fernando and Dancing Queen, like a good 'un.
Me and a few hundred other old fogey's I hasten to add and some not so old too! Ian, it transpired, couldn't make it because he's unwell. No details but I'm sure you'll join with me and wish him a speedy recovery.

We grabbed a bite to eat and got back in time to see most of what for me was a revelation.
I'd been determined not to like the Bare Naked Ladies. I couldn't help myself. Great tunes. Great Lyrics. and a finale that had a few thousand people screaming for more through tears of laughter as the guys went through a medley of songs by 911, Puff Daddy, Tupac, The Beasty Boys, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Celine Dion! to name but a few.

15:00. The majority had dispersed and so we made our way to as pretty near to stage front as possible.
This turned out to be a wise move since at 15:30 a vision of scarlet loveliness stepped up to the mic and Blondie launched into a set that took your breath away. Two reasons. Firstly Debbie Harry CAN hold a note and second they definitely sound better than they did at Barbarellas in Brum in 1978. She still can't dance!

We caught Wilco at 18:00 on The Other Stage. Many critics have compared Wilco to REM. I dunno why. I've never been a huge REM fan although I like their stuff very much but Wilco? More like a mixture of REM, Steve Earle, and Jimi Hendrix! Bloody great though! If you haven't already, go listen to Summerteeth by Wilco.

Back to the Pyramid for 19:00 and an hour of post Nirvana mayhem with Courtney Love's Hole! Ooooh Matron! Excellent!

20:50 and we're in a massed choir singing songs from Paul Heatons back catalogue. The Beautiful south performing flawlessly as you'd expect.

Food. Drinks.

Struggle back into the arena before the Pyramid Stage to spend an unforgettable hour and a half in the company of Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills. They left the stage at 25 past midnight after a mind-blowing performance rounded off with a communal rendition of "Its the end of the world as we know it" ( and we all felt blimmin' fine) as if you couldn't have guessed!
Nice!

Hells teeth! that was Friday. Saturday gave us Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, Ash ( It rained for their set, we got soaked and a few hundred of us pogoed to Lose Control and Kung Fu, I was 17 again!), Cast on the Other stage...not bad...I preferred the La's! Underworld did the Biz at 21:20 and at five to eleven... James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore took to the stage and once again we were blown away!

Sunday the 27th.
We haven't bathed for three days. We reek of wood smoke. (and other types of smoke...man...) I'd missed bits of the side of my face with the sunscreen so I look like I've got leprosy and it's not over yet!

It only rained for a few minutes Sat'day pm. Saturday night it fair chucked it down but by eleven a.m. Sunday it was dry and sunny although less hot.
At eleven thirty a slight but perceptible lull fell over the festival as more or less the majority observed a two minute silence in memory of Jean Eavis. She died recently following a struggle against cancer. Michael, her husband and owner of Worthy Farm had intended to give up the festival following this one. It transpires that with the loss of his wife he no longer has any reason to retire to the sun and is now committed to continuing with Glastonbury into the foreseeable future. A fitting tribute to Jean, perhaps, for it was she who, from what I can gather, refused to allow the festival to die in the past!

Al Green was on the Pyramid Stage at around twenty past three. I couldn't be there to see him. I wanted to, but Holly wanted to see Dogstar.

Why?

Because the Bass player is one Keanu Reeves. He's an actor I believe.
Critics. Their mums must love 'em. If they're so clever why don't they form bands and play and get rich?
Dogstar are by no means the best band I've heard. Not by a long stretch. They are by no means the worst. Indeed much of what finds its way into the top 20 in the UK is pitiful by comparison. If Keanu gets his rocks off playing bass in a band good luck to him. They were OK. Sunday's offerings also included The Delgados, Dodgy, Dr Didg and Snowpony. Feeder, The Corrs, Mercury Rev, Tindersticks, Lenny Kravitz, The Fun Loving Criminals and Skunk Anansie. Senses working overtime.

D'you know mate?
What's that mate?
I paid 85 quid and saw all that lot and oodles more gubbins besides. If I'd gone to see all those bands separately It'd cost me an arm and quite literally a jolly old leg mate.
That's very true mate. Will you be going next year?
Try and blimmin' stop me!