G1T

I was there too, aged 16, and completely agree with everything you've said, especially the life changing bit. I didn't get to their dance tent gig that year either, but two tracks from it appeared as B sides on the 'Breathe' CD single not long after, and you can just hear the incredible energy all over it. Saw them at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall in October that year, and it's still the best gig I've ever been to ever. Mind blowing.

Oh, and another vote here for the Queen of Cups. We live in town too, but despite walking past it most days, we only went there for the first time the other week. It was exceptionally good, nearly all vegetarian apart from a couple of choice meaty bits from the exellent Stephens' Butchers round the corner. It's not a budget option, but actually for how much we ordered and how good it was I didn't think the price was that unreasonable at all. Also, if you're interested in picking up bits of old festival memorabilia, then the Oxfam shop on the market cross end of Northload Street generally has a good selection of stuff around the time of the festival. The festival donates boxes of spare stuff to that shop from time to time.

Also has some early festival posters that I suspect are originals.

Yep, back in October they had The Farm on the Friday night and Billy Bragg on the Saturday, all for Michael Eavis's birthday.

Genuine question. Would there be people out there up for volunteering to help with something like this? It never occurred to me that there might be until I read this thread. I did a good chunk of the original map creation for Glastoearth back in 2010 (the project wasn't my idea, but I did put a bunch of work in to help with it), and I've been thinking of ideas for something bigger and better ever since. Won't say more at this early stage, but in essence the only thing that's been holding me back is the idea of having to create all the maps single handedly again. If there were people out there willing to volunteer time to it as a non-commercial / creative commons community project, then that would potentially remove the one remaining blocker to building something awesome. If anyone is interested, want to send me a PM?

FWIW this was my first year in 15 years where I attended without working. I really, really missed working, and will be looking for a job on site next year for sure.

I always have a cry when Billy Bragg plays 'A New England' on the Friday night, but this year his trans rights speech in that set set me off too.

My favourite was yesterday. Don’t know if it was shown on the tv at home as well, but when Dave Grohl ran on at the start of the churnups set, the tv camera for the screens at the side of the stage tried to show a shot of him. Only a flag got in the way. So the emotional start of the surprise gig was just a shot of someone’s flag. Brilliant.

The ticket gets you into the site. Where you can get into when in the site depends on the wristbands you have. The wristbands you get are slightly separate from the sort of ticket you come in on. To get into the interstage area behind the Pyramid, you either need (from memory) a hospitality or production wristband. Lots of people on staff / performer tickets don't get these. Depends who gave you the ticket and what role you're doing when on site.

'You Suffer' by Napalm Death. Although it may, tbf, be longer than 10 years since he's performed that song. In fact, come to think of it, he may never have performed it at all. Still though, stranger things have happened at Glastonbury before now.

The poster's printed on white paper. Surely that means the White Stripes will be joining him. The word 'farm' clearly shows The Farm will be on stage with him too. The word 'hello' has ELO in it, meaning the whole Electric Light Orchestra will be there. The word 'ready' is, I'm sure, an allusion to Simply Red, so Mick Hucknall will be joining him on stage. 'Elton' is clearly a reference to Ben Elton, who therefore will be there. The question mark at the end of the sentence suggests Therapy? will be joining him too. The poster in the photo is also clearly in the sunshine, and who was it that was walking on sunshine? Katrina and the Waves, so I imagine they'll be joining him on stage too.

Raining its arse off in Glastonbury town right now.

Top tip for the healing fields is to go into their welcome tent just next to the main drag at that entrance to the field and tell them what you're after. They'll point you to people who can help, and (I think) tell you how payment works for it all too. Far easier than wandering round and asking people at random.

I miss the days when people did weird sh*t at the festival because of LSD.

Page and Plant played the Pyramid in 1995 and included some Led Zep stuff in their set. I only watched it on TV at the time, but it's still one of my favourite Glastonbury sets of all time. I sometime stand in the Pyramid field and think about the fact that set happened there. It's all on Youtube pretty much, and a lot of the footage captures the 'old Glastonbury' too. For example, the guy in the audience playing along on his digeridoo at 0:42 in this video is something you don't see any more.

I've got the bootleg recording of that set. It honestly didn't sound that great. I mean, it's fine, but it sounded pretty bog standard really.

For those that listen to Worthy FM, just found out that long, long time presenter Daddy Teacha died earlier today. He was, well, an absolute legend of a human being. Am heartbroken.

80’s Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket has a suspiciously Glastonbury shaped hole in his schedule.

Love that so much. I’d say the whole thing is the best advice for a newbie you could get.

A tent? There’s posh.

I spent an evening drinking with some of the team behind it last year. You’re not wrong. As the Divine David once said “this is not an act, this is a state of being”. 🙂

Apologies if this was posted already, but I did a search and couldn't find it. Anyway, the line up for Rimski's Yard in 2023. Always good to see the likes of Pronghorn, Professor Elemental and RSVP.

The cider bus serves exceptionally good cider, some of the absolute best around regardless of the festival imho. Their hot mulled is an annual treat for me, and if you've not tried Burrow Hill's Somerset Pomona or Kingston Black drinks, I'd hugely recommend them. However, they're proper Somerset cider makers, which may not appeal to everyone if it's not their usual drink. Brothers is descended from Babycham.

Agree with all of that, but for me, there's also something so fun about adding in interesting work with interesting people to your festival experience, rather than just rushing between stages. The festival's got an awesome work culture at its heart, and I love experiencing that. Through a set of circumstances, I'm not doing my usual crew job this year, but have ended up with a ticket that would pretty much give me five days of my own time for the entire festival. Chatting to another crew friend last night though, I mentioned how odd this felt, and he's suggested I come and do some work onsite with his crew, in return for basically nothing as my ticket and so forth is already sorted. I'm seriously considering it. It's the sort of thing I could never even slightly understand until I did work there. Back in the day there was no way I'd want to work and miss things. After 15 years of working there though, the idea of just being there without any work to do feels unright.

I had 2019 off as we'd just had a kid a couple of months before the festival. I really struggled not being there, it was only the second one I'd missed since 1997, and I live locally too, so the only option seemed to be to go away somewhere completely different on holiday for the week, and pretend it wasn't happening. This worked fine, until we drove home on the Tuesday after the festival, and came through Pilton. We stopped to let a van out in front of us, and it was of course being driven by my (then) Area Organiser, followed by some other crew members in the car behind. Cheers universe for the big reminder... This year, we're both going, and bringing the kids. On day trips, but still.