I know it's only Glastonbury Festival, but I like it, like it, yes I do!

The Rolling Stones (view from the crowd)

Glastonbury Festival 2013

Wednesday 26th to Sunday 30th June 2013
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 4AZ, England MAP
£205 (secured with a £50 deposit) - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 177,500

Last updated: Mon 24th Jun 2013

At last! After a two year self imposed hiatus Glastonbury Festival returned to the festival calendar, and will be remembered as the year The Rolling Stones topped the bill and a giant budgie perched on the main Pyramid Stage and breathed fire.

It doesn't really matter who else played, in fact there was so much to enjoy about the Festival, that the rest of the burgeoning line-up became secondary to just soaking it all in. From the farmer's market, via the myriad of food stuffs on offer to the cabaret and theatre, from the kids field hosting everyone from Dynamo to CBeebies to the site art, stalls, and the people who attended the five full days of fun.

What will more quickly be forgotten will be the weather with a colder than usual breeze, and rain at the early start of the event creating the all too familiar Glastonbury mud under foot before the sun blazed. Glastonbury was at face value what we've pretty much come to expect from the UK's biggest and arguably best festival.

Entering the Festival for the first time it was clear that there would be some changes, zig zag (theme park) type fencing awaited the throngs, who queued to be early through the gate and rush to the most desirable site spots for camping. Although in fact camping was much less congested in many of the prime locations, I guess the new pre-erected Worthy View and the busy campervan fields took off some of the pressure.

Once inside it was clear there were a few changes to the layout. Firstly the Spirit of '71, was back but with a much better design than their inaugural year and the Glade Lounge had joined it. Where the Glade area was previously had become a pizza outlet, and Arcadia had come over to join them. Moving to alleviate the congestion late at night in the South East naughty corner, with the areas that remained also relocating and in some cases being totally reborn.

The most striking of these was the new look Shangri-La which saw the whole area re-designed with a heaven and hell theme, A striking Hell Stage and opposing White structure of Heaven dominated, with the golden 'lanes' hosting areas and corrupted oddities themed on the seven sins. All topped off with striking artwork, and a much more adult theme. This year Festival goers had a mission to enter heaven and it's mud free relaxing chambers. The only problem being the admin angels, and the fact that often a dodgy silver wristband just didn't cut it. I missed a few venues from the previous design, the main being 'Fish & Tits' which had been replaced with the lurid 'Sick, Sick, Sick' and it's voyeuristic pornography theme. But soon replacing my favourite venue was the new 'Love Bullets HQ' lined with thousands of real bullet cases which created patterns across the walls. Nearby the white coated Labrats experimented on humans and their senses, and Icy Gays carrying out their soul enemas. Even though Heaven was also home to the Snakepit, I preferred the hedonism of Hell.

With the new layout, crowd control lanes, and so much else on across the site, publicised in the free programme and lanyard guide, the late night area was much easier to navigate.

The moving of Arcadia meant Strummerville could expand, and the Unfairground had more room to breathe. Trash City was gone with that area filled by Block 9 who moved in with their NYC Downlow, the tower block with tube train inserted, and the new outdoor Genosys stage which looked terrific at night. Add to this some bizarre walkabout activities, and some hands in the air tunes and a bar or two and it felt a well suited new home.

Further out, nestled against the fence was a new bigger Temple Stage made of old lock gates, joining it in The Common was The Lost Picture Show, Copperdollar, Rum Shack and the memorable well lit vista of The Cave replete with waterfall. Beside it was the gentler Glasto Latino with food stalls, and rather addictive slices of salsa dance.

It felt as though the South East corner had ironed out the creases and has space to throw a few new treats in the mix in future years.

Across the old railway track in the West the dance area got a makeover and re-named Silver Hayes. A strong line-up across the six stages made it attractive to those who love their bleeps and beats. The most eyecatching venue was the impressive Sonic Stage a massive venue, edged by glowing cubes, and awash with projections that always seemed to be hosting a crowd. Returning venue the BBC Introducing (moved more into the fold) was joined by the new look Pussy Parlure Nouveau, and for some reason a giant boat.

Add to these two impressive new venues the Gully and The Blues which I thought were great and felt more a part of the unique DIY ethos of the Festival. Silver Hayes itself felt at times a bit too much of a wide open space and needed something to break up that biting cold early evening wind. The catering too was a bit limited, and I couldn't find any proper cider in the area although it served the best jerk chicken I found on site at 'Tasty Treats'.

However the security here were atrocious, probably because of the crowd a 'dance' area attracts. Firstly someone tried to rob my daughter within seconds of us entering the area, and secondly if you're going to create a reggae vibe busting people for smoking weed is not the way to do it. I was told on Friday about the security policy, so on Sunday my intention was to watch from Natty to The Congos via Dreadzone, but I got out of dodge after feeling quite out of place. I could just muster a laugh at Bristol Hi-Fi on Sunday, who kept asking "where are all the weed smokers?" Only for the security to nip and bust those with arms in the air, until quickly no one replied. More Guantanamo Bay than Montego Bay!

I can't imagine the green fields having the same security. The fact there were so few smokers, meant there was a very low dreadlock count in the area. It's very hard to bring Jamaica to a dance orientated arena, and for me this experiment failed. We run behind the rest of Europe for providing a proper platform for our reggae scene, and I defy anyone who saw The Congos to not say there's a place for their sunshine tunes at a festival. I'm probably being a bit harsh, I feel the new dance-remix has great potential, and it's only in it's first year, no doubt Silver Hayes will be back even better in future years. It needed to change and this is definitely heading in the right direction.

I think it does highlight that Glastonbury is a Festival that attracts all sorts. Those that attend the festival to hang out in the older areas of the festival which mix green issues, leftwing politics, and permaculture refer to the more mainstream parts of the Festival, the main stages that feature the most commercial acts as 'Babylon' and have done for decades. This cultural divide can be defined by whether you went east or west, and if you did so, you got a totally different experience.

Usually the areas east of Leftfield, like West Holts, Avalon, Acoustic, Greenpeace, and Croissant Neuf have in recent years been a refuge from the crowds and the mud. However this year it seemed there was more people in these areas. Yet it was only the areas immediately around the Pyramid, the Other Stage, and at times around the John Peel that felt at times really crowded. These areas seemed perpetually full of those hurrying heatedly from hot act to act, or embedded in chairs all day in front of the stages and not taking time to get into other areas of the Festival itself. Of course the weather helped, easily traversable wide paths meant you could get from the middle of the festival to areas like the Acoustic, Stone Circle or The Park in a very short time, and this seemed to inspire many to explore further field.

Those that did found the crowds to be friendly, a wide variety of foods on sale, a chance to sign a petition or too, and even local scrumpy and nettle beer. I'd like there to be more scrumpy available, I mean it is the county that makes the stuff. Although the 'Apple Shack' was the find of the weekend for me.

Another new arrival was the new William's Green area, providing an old school festival feel with wooden site art, a lot of seating, a giant Ecover Bee, and a new bar with a big screen showing Wimbledon. The area seemed to fit well and spread out the numbers of people and the nearby food court proved popular too.

The Festival had also created new long drops and it felt as though there were less cubicle toilets around. The new designed toilets appeared to have a flaw, as in some areas they attempted to capture their users with the seating collapsing into their cavernous contents, a worrying design flaw.

On the plus side Glastonbury seems to be increasingly doing away with any on site advertising, and I can't remember seeing any major names advertised on site, even the drink companies on site had a low profile. Conversely another new trend was the merchandise selling at Arcadia, Shangri-La, and even the Underground Piano Bar, I thought that a bit odd.

Also a bit odd was the food pricing, which appeared to increase over the duration of the Festival, something I'm rather against. On Wednesday night I bought a tasty evening meal at £7 a head, returning on Saturday to buy the same dish for my daughter only to find it a pound more expensive. It seems that while beer had remained a constant price of around £4 a head, food had increased with a snack meal averaging around £5 (although there were smaller hunger stavers like Gandhi's Flip Flop's Samosas priced around £2), with a main meal priced at around £8. An increase on 2011, that I've noticed at some other festivals this year has not happened over the last few recession years. I should add though that many caterers slashed food prices on Sunday, as did stall holders so I suppose it all evened out eventually.

It's also worth mentioning the Glastonbury Free Press, as someone who spent 10 years in print publishing I was excited to hear that a Heidelberg Cylinder Press would be in action on site. These old school printers were the lifeblood of small scale printing, and created the rhythm that people like me would collate the pages together to. The newest piece on the machine broke on the first day and it took until late Saturday to fix it. In the meantime nearly a dozen printers published cards and posters on proofing presses using traditional letterpresses made of lead and wood. Creating small run mementos. An original and fascinating insight into the media, and I hope it makes a return in 2014.

Other traditional skills were also in abundance in the Green Crafts areas including forging, foraging, wickerwork, woodwork, metalwork, and jewellery work enabling attendees to create for themselves a unique something to remember their weekend. In the healing areas there was a chance to find times to soothe the body, and there was even spiritual sustenance from faiths across the religious spectrum.

This is without fully talking about the best bits of Glastonbury Bella's Field, and the Theatre & Circus Fields, a place to wander about grinning at those colourful people who populate these areas. Circus troupes, comedians, walkabout theatre, and new for this year The Summer House the place was alive with colour and noise thanks in part to the drier weather. One thing I must try to remember is to never try and catch a very big Australian comedian who's stage diving in a skimpy leotard, certainly a handful!

Overall Glastonbury has been running long enough now to not really have any major infrastructure glitches, and obviously has a line-up of great depth, enough to ensure that those who left the site tired but happy had their favourites to remember.

There's little point in trying to review the tiny percentage of acts I saw. It seemed though that there were less massive draws, other then the 100,000 plus who turned up at the opening of Mick and crew, and that, I felt, was a good thing. But I felt it was the heritage acts which provided the best atmospheres. The acts that multi generations new and could dance to. Those like The Stones, and Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, Bobby Womack, Kenny Rogers, The Family Stone, and their like who had great musicians on stage to create a fine feel good atmosphere. Well done to for the organisers in voicing their support of African acts across the main stages, it helped to offer a more diverse line-up to those watching.

It was not the strongest of line-ups Glastonbury has ever had, but it didn't need to be they had the biggest band on the planet headline. I think there's no point trying to out-do their production next year it will be almost impossible to beat. I do wonder how many people only rocked up to see The Stones, as the site seemed much quieter again on Sunday, but then again it was good to see other headliners who went up against them have decent crowds too. Both Arctic Monkeys, and Mumford & Sons proved a decent supporting cast that also went down well with the throngs.

All the respective areas seemed to have programmes to suit the kind of people who gravitate to them, and after my last review in 2011 where I felt West Holts had not found itself, it rectified that with a terrific line-up over the weekend, and dare I say it the best headliners for atmosphere?

I suspect tickets are going to be in high demand next year, and I wish everyone luck in securing a ticket to what is surely the greatest, and most diverse show on earth. It may only be a festival that celebrates rock n roll, but we like it, like it, very much.

Registration for 2014 is open already. Everyone who plans to the come the Festival must register, and that includes children aged 13, 14 and 15. Each ticket sold will feature a photograph of the person in whose name it is registered and will be non-transferable. Registration did not reserve or guarantee you a ticket when they went on sale, but if you don't register you will not be able to buy a weekend ticket for Glastonbury Festival 2014. Online registration for 2014 can be carried out by clicking here.

review by: Scott Williams

photos by: Karen Williams / Scott Williams