HoTWire

Yeah really should be, lots of material under their belt, always maturing as a band and phenomenal live. Their KEXP appearances have all be brilliant, for anyone un-initiated that is reading this 🙂

I would very much like Brutus and All Them Witches from that line up for Glastonbury. Others I'd like to see for sure, but suspect unlikely for Glasto's usual picks (not to mention their absolute disgust for anything remotely heavy).

Think we were not far off that (although numbers a little skewed by only seeing one and a half acts on Saturday thanks to the heat). I just feel position wise and booking wise female artists got done badly this year, particularly with the amount of available talent.

So early on West Holts feels like a demotion from that position, for an act that has a new (very well received) album last year. I was being hyperbolic for the sake of drama 🙂 However it did feel like a certain area of music that is currently thriving got rather short shrift this year. I'm sure there are some behind the scene reasons for some acts that are currently touring not getting stage time, and for the ordering of the stages, but still... a gripe is a gripe, and that is mine.

*WALL OF TEXT ALERT* I'll preface this with the following: I run events myself (not to the scale of Glasto obviously), and usually if someone is complaining about something we are already aware of the issue. Assuming someone from the festival team even looks through this (and I'm hoping they do), they are likely aware of most/all of these things, there could be very good reason things aren't different. Caveat: I live locally and travel in each day, so can't speak to the camping side of things. My number one gripe would be how far I have to walk from the car park to the stages 🙂 Gripes: Shade: this has been a problem for the last few years. This year I ended up with heat exhaustion (my own fault for trying to go from Gate C to Woodies to see Rick Astley, it being too crowded so heading to the Park all in one trip), I went to the lovely Peace Gardens near The Park which is shaded and a good place to not be surrounded by noise. That having been said, outside of that area it was a bit of a nightmare trying to find some decent shade. Suggestion: Not sure how feasible it is, but sails between the tent pole formations around the edge of the stages could provide much needed shelter (think three points of connections between three of the flag poles). Ghettoisation of heavier music: Sure that isn't Glastonbury's main thing, but shoveling off anything remotely heavy* to The Truth stage at some ungodly hour (to the point where Skindred got moved) gives me the feeling that Glastonbury's relationship to heavier music is basically the same as Cate Blanchetts. Which is funny considering the amount of acts in the genre that are more inline with Glastonbury's supposed ethos than say The 1975...... *I guess The Hu were on West Holts, whilst they are very much great they are also one step removed from a gimmick act. Hyping up "the moment" to dangerous degrees: It is great to have a headline about viewing figures and crowd sizes for certain acts, but it is often creating potentially dangerous situations. Also it is a bit f**king rude to everyone else on the bill when by the festivals own marketing and promotion they are almost guaranteeing a smaller audience for the other acts on site. It isn't about there being obviously larger crowds for some headlines, it is the relentless pushing to make something happen, it sucks the oxygen out of the wider festival (happens with Legends slots as well previously). Poor cross stage curation: Clashes at festivals are inevitable, part of the whole experience, even more so when you have a broad taste in music. Glastonbury does seem to want to pit acts that are clearly going to attract similar crowds against each other at times. I'm guessing the stages work relatively independently, and I know there are so many moving pieces when attempting to put together a line up with change over times etc, but sometimes it feels like just a little more communication could make things make a bite more sense. With some of these acts even moving them forward or back by an hour or even half hour, or moving to a different day (if possible) would make for a better audience for the acts themselves. Which also brings me in to the next point... Glastonbury apparently hates female acts: I'll ignore the headline stuff here, that is hard to book, I'm sure there are massive amounts of negotiation and that stuff goes in to it all, I don't give a toss about the headliners to be honest. I'm more wondering why the hell Beth Orton was on so early on West Holt, why wasn't she high up in Acoustic or Avalon (if you think she isn't deserving of a spot higher up on the 'main' stages). More than that why was she scheduled opposite Gwenno and CMAT, there are three artists right there that share an audience and would make for an absolutely fantastic run on a stage. A pattern that played out a number of times across the weekend. Poor poor show. Be better. To be fair the positioning thing isn't restricted to female acts. Why wasn't Ben Howard much higher up? Why was Fred Again.. not headlining? Absolute madness. With all that being said, I had a good time, lots of the site improvements are very welcome. I'm possibly one of the few that feel that Carhenge was a nice replacement, it adds a good bit of breathing room in what was a ridiculously busy area. The new paths are great. I'm sure come a wet year we'll see a benefit from the woodchip and new walk ways that have been changing the consistency of the earth over the last couple of years. The crowd management (to me at least) seemed a lot better this year. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk