Kula Shaker - review by : Joe Swarbrick

Glastonbury Festival 1999

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

Last updated: Wed 7th Aug 2013

Other Stage, Friday 25th June

So, no-one likes Kula Shaker then? They're naff and tacky and pretty much universally hated? Well where did all these people come from then?

OK, the crowd wasn't as big as REM's (big surprise) but it was one of the largest Other Stage crowds of the day, if not the weekend. And yes, the mystical mumbo jumbo of Kula Shaker's lyrics and idiom may be a bit naff, but it's meant to be funny. Something that everyone crowded round the stage at eleven seemed to realise, unlike countless music journalists.

Opening with Hey Dude, Mills and co. set the place alight with a ridiculously fun performance, playing all the good tracks from their two albums (although sadly not Grateful When You're Dead or 108 Battles Of The Mind). Kula Shaker just fit right in with the whole Glastonbury Spirit, a bit mystical, a bit stoned, a bit stupid. They just work.

The undisputed high point was 303, a song about Glastonbury anyway, that really summed up everything about the festival. Then they played Govinda and left, no encore (was this a policy throughout Glasto this year?). A truly hilarious and generally fun set, nothing to reduce me to tears, except perhaps tears of laughter at Crispian singing stuff he obviously has no idea about. And therein lies his genius. Brilliant.