goonerben

Announcing a third Dublin date on Sunday 30th really would be incredibly helpful at this point!

To add to this: Foo Fighters never play consecutive days any more (even when doing multiple nights in the same city) - all that screaming means Dave's voice needs time to recover. Dua Lipa, especially if she has new music, seems nailed on. Wasn't the "lost" female headliner for this year supposed to be Rihanna? Booked, then fell through when she got pregnant, and replaced with GnR? If I were betting on this, I'd be going for Dua Friday, Foos Saturday, and Rihanna or somebody like Coldplay Sunday - based on what we know at the moment about likely release/touring plans.

The thing I hate most is that a major side effect of nitrous oxide seems to be an inability to pick up those f**king canisters and put them in a bin. Saw far fewer of the little silver ones this year - but quite a few of the big blue ones that are 40x the size.

Courteeners set in Woodsies looked great - sort of regret going off for a Foo Fighters set that I found a bit 'meh'...

Haven't Blondie consistently been in the category of "they just aren't all that good live" for a couple of decades now? Thought the vocals were really poor this year (although possibly when compared to other aging singers, not all that bad) - but not a great surprise as they just aren't a great live act in general.

The crowd at the Other Stage was huge - especially by the end as people migrated from GnR (underwhelming), and Fatboy Slim (couldn't get close enough to hear properly). There's also a fair argument that she should have been headlining the Pyramid - she sold out 80k tickets for her BST show in a flash, whilst GnR are still trying to shift theirs. I'm guessing they were already committed to GnR by the time that became apparent, and couldn't really switch them around. But when she made noises about being too far down the poster, in hindsight she had a point - who had a bigger crowd all weekend? Elton, Arctic Monkeys and Foo Fighters?

As well as the hair admission, she also said (words to the effect of) "they are trying to get me to change my setlist". Presumably they were trying to get her to cut songs, to allow the big ones at the end and a finish within curfew. But she said (again, words to the effect of) "I'm just going to play on - and if they cut me off, they cut me off". So - she knew she was late, and she knew there was discussion about a hard curfew. Am assuming she either thought they wouldn't dare cut her off, or didn't really care either way. All a real shame, because as others have said, the set was shaping up to be one of the highlights of the whole festival, and the crowd in that field was enormous.

Agree with the above - when the full lineup was first published, both Annie Mac and The Blessed Madonna were there for an hour each. I also can't remember who the other one was.

That (choosing between the kids) is literally what I need to do next Friday. One kid wants to see Arctic Monkeys, the other fancies Hot Chip. It does feel like Arctic Monkeys have successfully followed Radiohead in splitting their audience. I know plenty of people in each of 3 camps: 1. Just want to hear stuff from the first 2 albums. 2. Mostly want to hear stuff from "AM". 3. Actually quite like the new stuff. Which I suspect is why the audience at some of the recent shows (from the videos I've seen) seems a bit "flat" at times - there are very few songs that have the whole crowd up for them. And even for some of those, they seem to insist on playing them slower than the recorded version, and/or singing off key. They aren't making it easy to have a full crowd that's bang up for the whole show! I'm going tomorrow and will likely also see them next Friday (sorry to my Hot Chip-liking daughter!) - but am not as excited as I would have been before the last couple of albums (I'm in camps 1 and 2 above).

I was there - my first Glastonbury (having done Reading plenty of times before that). I was also in the Pyramid field mainly to get a decent spot for Coldplay. Loved the Faithless set - not as life-changing as it obviously was for you, but definitely a lesson that "most things are better live vs the recorded version"! Also - Glastonbury 2002 - how EMPTY was it, compared with now. First year of the superfence, virtually no gatecrashers - I think they only sold around 60,000 tickets that year!

My Out of Office from last year... I will be in a field (with more than 200,000 other people) at the Glastonbury Festival, between Wednesday 22nd and Sunday 26th June. You can see what is going on at Glastonbury via the BBC's live webcam, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/glastonbury/webcam I will likely be without either phone signal and/or phone battery for much of the time. If your email is urgent, try forwarding on to Person X or Person Y. I'll be back online from Monday 27th June.

I assume we are expecting this long-awaited Foos UK tour announcement around the same time? Wouldn't surprise me if they announced big stadium shows for Summer 2024 - maybe next Monday, with tickets on sale the week after Glasto - and a 75min TV advert scheduled in nicely to send demand off the charts.

From SecretGlasto on Twitter just now...

Wow - that seems.....suboptimal.

If you end up with Box Office collection for tickets, is there any ablity to drive close to the Gate A portakabin, pick up tickets, then drive off and into a car park? Supposed to be staying (and parking) in Sticklinch, so very much trying to avoid a long walk around the roads at the edge of the site.

Loaded up on a couple of boxes of these, in preparation for the festival. Figured I'd carry a few around, buy the odd drink that comes with ice, and use that ice for these. Trouble is, they are absolutely delicious, so am half way through the initial purchase, and not much hope of many cans surviving until next Wednesday. https://mothdrinks.com/

This is all completely true - and I think the big risk is making changes that risk chipping away at the whole vibe of the place. But still, given most people think that overcrowding is the #1 problem, this seems like a massive group of people to say "there is nothing at all we could do here".

On the numbers and overcrowding. Aren't there something like 70,000 people working in some capacity - many in return for a ticket? And a typical volunteer/worker might do 3x 8hr shifts across the 5 days. There must be massive scope to change the maths around this, to do something like: Pay the people who are working. Have them work more hours across the festival. Have fewer people working (and therefore on site). So would it be possible to have (say) only 30,000 workers, on longer shifts (working around twice as many hours as they do now), paid and funded by an additional 20,000 public tickets sold, and therefore with 20,000 fewer people on site in total? Or possibly not exactly that - but this feels like a HUGE chunk of people where some creative thinking could be in play.

Biggest: 2003, Kings of Leon on a Friday early evening slot in the JP - you could not get near the tent.

I think it’s right that e-SIMs aren’t available for PAYG - on any network. I’m on O2 Pay Monthly - so I called O2 and turned that into an e-SIM. Then I went to the Vodafone website and ordered a (physical) PAYG SIM, on which I’ll get a data bundle for the festival.

It was fairly normal last year - not overly Tory! I went for it because we're bringing (14 and 9yr old) kids - so it gives you a car park in the next field, no need to carry a tent - and they can go to school on Wednesday and come down afterwards, with no need to fight for a spot. It was £900 this year for a 4-person tent - so £45 per person per night - about the same as a hotel. There was a "pamper parlour" last year, but I don't think this was advertised at booking time (which was in late 2019 remember!). And it wasn't advertised on any of the official pages about Sticklinch for this year. So I think people are reasonable to expect it might be there - but Glastonbury have in no way duped them if it isn't.

(Some of) the natives of Sticklinch aren't happy with the lack of hair straighteners this year, it seems....

Last year I found that none of the "official" bars (i.e. the ones near the big stages) seemed to be able to take cards. But pretty much all of the food stalls, and the "other" bars (San Remo, Stonebridge plus all the independent ones) took cards. So yes, bring cash just in case.

I agree with this - just...boring when I've seen them before, and everybody I know who's seen them says the same.

Surely the biggest crush is going to be on the routes away from the Pyramid after The Churnups, as people rush to flee Royal Blood?