Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival 2000

The most trumpeted new feature this year must have been The Glade.

The idea is to re-produce an Outdoor Rave/Free Party atmosphere in the middle of Glastonbury. The site was situated at the far end of the site between the Old Railway Line and the Other Stage in a small, errr... Glade of trees. It comprises comprised a partly cleared wooded area [ie a Glade - Ed] sandwiched between a large stage/DJ booth at the front and toilets, pathway and scrub to the rear, speaker stacks and a few hangings completed the setting. Capacity is a bit difficult to estimate, but maybe up to 3,500 without spilling into the neighbouring areas. There were also tents for chilling out and selling stuff, one a multicoloured Dome.

Over the 3 main days of the festival we only spent a total of about 7-8 hours between us there, most of this was on Friday and Saturday night. During this time, the music generally veered towards the Dirty Psychedelic end of Techno/Trance, which was fine by me. Other reviewers mentioned a bit of a jungle vibe there at other times.

The highlight for me was on Saturday night when local(ish) boys Eat Static played their second (at least) set of the festival. Although they were on ridiculously early the site was packed, with the bulk of us shaking our collective bootys to the sounds and a few sitting around the outside, indulging in the normal activities - you know, Talking Bollox, poncing Rizlas and trying to remember which day it was.

Their set was a bit different to that on the previous day in the Dance Tent, and appeared to include more older stuff, but let's not get into trainspotting, the point is that it suited the occasion perfectly. The funky warped sounds producing what can only be described as a wobbling mass of weirdoes, Contact with Aliens? - Not 'Arf Mate!

They were followed by Hallucinogen, whose first album I have, but haven't come across live. I caught what I thought was pretty much all of their set and enjoyed myself, except again it all seemed a bit early to get quite so weird and Looney as their music demands. I then moved on to the Other Stage to catch Leftfield and see if they had written any new tunes, fully intending to get back to the Glade afterwards, but I hadn't planned on being lured like a fly into the venus flytraplike sticky embrace of the "betterthanyouthink" Stage in the main market area! I did briefly pass thru about 1am, when I was sure System7 were on, but I was assured later on that they never showed and that Hallucinogen carried on thru.

All in all I think that the Glade is a great idea and that given a bit more time it will turn into one of the better parts of the festival. Its easy to criticise and I know the organisers of the Glade had to work within strict limitations on money and resources but in my opinion they need to work on; the sound quality, which was very variable depending on where you were, and the position which was too close to a walkthrough. They need to get more hangings, drapes, UV etc in the trees and maybe put up a few small domestents around the edges selling tea and water. Old settees and chairs and a big fire would improve the rave feeling
;-) The main problem is that it finishes toooooo early. It seems ironic that the festival is unable too allow the "official" stages to run all night and are now very strict in trying to close down anything noisy, unless it is in the middle of the Market area, where increasingly the better allnight happenings occur. Now whether this is to allow campers near the official stages to get some sleep or to increase the number of people spending money in the commercial area I don't know, but until it changes the Glade is always going to be a tad ersatz. In order to increase is realism, maybe they could try closing it down each night by being raided by Mr Plod and having all the gear confiscated?

The Glade, like most things in life, will get better as time goes on (especially if they agree to it running all night). The real thing can be tasted in the travellers' field (E15), but I'll leave it to you lot to Compare and Contrast.