Glastonbury Festival 1990. Some snaps and the programme

[scorp]

scorp, I knew Bongo, her partner was called Offshore. They ended up starting The Offshore State Circus and mid 90's onwards tended to park up in London in a decca.

[Sawdusty surfer]

Small world, eh.

[scorp]

Indeed,I also know George from years back. George/April's lad Casey was at our place on and off for a few weeks before Pilton this year doing a load of sanding for me.

[Sawdusty surfer]

Hope Casey's OK. He's had a few ups and downs in his life. Small world... Where are you based, approx at least? I'm near Brighton. I fancy a beer at times with local Glastafarians.

[scorp]

That's good news, re Casey. Taunton is a waaaay from Brighton :-( Nice place, though.

[TheNewUnion]

I'm about as far away from some of these posts as it's possible to be, but is a really fascinating insight into (what is for me) a totally alternative lifestyle. Thanks for sharing the stories, really interesting.

[scorp]

I'm about as far away from some of these posts as it's possible to be, but is a really fascinating insight into (what is for me) a totally alternative lifestyle. Thanks for sharing the stories, really interesting.

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp

[TheNewUnion]

I totally understand that we wouldn't have the Glastonbury we have now without the Glastonbury we had then. I'm thankful for all that went before that has made Glastonbury what it is.

It's just that all these tales seem so alien to me. The hippy trail , the travellers, battle of the beanfield and the "riot" in 1990. It's so far removed from my relatively cosseted lifestyle that it seems to be from a different world, yet the more I go to Glastonbury the more aware I become. Wierd really, as the thing that put me off/scared me off the festival in the 90's was the whole "traveller" thing. You're scared of what you don't know I guess. Now I wish I'd gone back then because with hindsight it looks awesome.

Edited July 11, 2014 by TheNewUnion

[scorp]

Just a brief, pixellated vid from 2003 in the ballroom. it was manic at night.

[scorp]

I totally understand that we wouldn't have the Glastonbury we have now without the Glastonbury we had then. I'm thankful for all that went before that has made Glastonbury what it is.

It's just that all these tales seem so alien to me. The hippy trail , the travellers, battle of the beanfield and the "riot" in 1990. It's so far removed from my relatively cosseted lifestyle that it seems to be from a different world, yet the more I go to Glastonbury the more aware I become. Wierd really, as the thing that put me off/scared me off the festival in the 90's was the whole "traveller" thing. You're scared of what you don't know I guess. Now I wish I'd gone back then because with hindsight it looks awesome.

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp

[grumpyhack]

Just to show my age. My first two festivals were Bath and Shepton Mallet which inspired and mutated into Glasto.

I'd be happy to see a few of these bands on the line up today.

Bath Blues Fest Poster 69

Bath Blues Fest Poster Shepton Mallet 70

[Sawdusty surfer]

I'm not scary, honest.

[TheNewUnion]

I'm over "the fear" ☺ , I like spending time up in the green fields now, just watching the world go by. Never made it to Shangai La at night, but that's age/brokenness rather than anything else!

The difference between my world and those worlds is unfathomable really, but I've spoken to some brilliant people over the last 6 Glastonbury Festivals, long may it continue.

[scorp]

I'm over "the fear" ☺ , I like spending time up in the green fields now, just watching the world go by. Never made it to Shangai La at night, but that's age/brokenness rather than anything else!

The difference between my world and those worlds is unfathomable really, but I've spoken to some brilliant people over the last 6 Glastonbury Festivals, long may it continue.

[scorp]

And then there are the "upper crust" hippies [some of whom went on the hippy trail!!! and helped Glasto]. There is a very strong Winston Churchill connection; she has a footbridge at or near the theatre and avalon named aftre her, bless her soul, and i mean that. This piece is by Michael Eavis, and is about the late Arabella Churchill: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/arabella-churchill-key-figure-in-glastonbury-festival-767454.html

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp

[Sawdusty surfer]

As had already been said it is interesting how the whole SE corner and Arcadia has developed. A huge proportion of ticket buyers think that there are no travellers at Glastonbury anymore.

Roy Gurvitz (ME mentions him in the vid posted earlier in this thread "and Roy will folloew them in his tow truck if anyone breaks down) used to run illegal bars, in 1990 he had The World Cup Bar with a load of old TVs showing the matches. This evolved so in about '97 he set up a Ballroom with a hidden Casino. The first year was particularly funny. You had to dress in a ballgown or a suit to get in, but most ticket buyers then were trying to look like travellers at the festival clothes wise...and the only people onsite that could comply with the dress code were travellers .....so we all ended dressing the way punters were trying to avoid, the. way they normally looked. Huge irony and role reversal. This was still an illegal venue. Over the next couple of year it became official as ME liked it so much and then it expanded into the full Lostvagueness............all run by travellers that everyone thought weren't at the festival anymore.

Sadly Roy lost the plot in about 2007 on the Thursday before the festival and had a massive public fall out with ME. (I posted full details of this at the time on here under the pseudonym 'Blimbus') The following year SL was launched using all the old LV crew.

Sorry to ramble but the point i'm making is that travellers (or ex-travellers) are still there in huge numbers, running SL Block 9, Unfairground, Mutoids, Arcadia and most of core site crew are travellers, many second generation.

(Wish I could find the relevant Blimbus posts, had fun reporting that saga........seems to have got lost in the ether tho' )

Could type for hours about all this stuff.

[scorp]

First, congrats to grumpyhack above for his post and the images, and for being there when some of us weren't. Look at the ab fab line ups at the bath show. wow! The Byrds. Jefferson Airplane. Etc. Wow, again. Terrible shame about Lost Vagueness. It rapidly became the spiritual home of plebs like me ... and the Etonites i mention above. We loved it. Smoking spliffs and drinking cheap champagne we bought at the bar; 125% heaven, especially in those days when there was no ban on smoking inside anywhere. And yes, oh the irony of the new agers dressed up to the nines while the fest goers were trying to look all or rather new agey. On that point, it's likely that the social changes and relaxed dress code etc, across social classes,in Britain, which have happened despite the growing wealth divide, are a result of the social flattening Glasto effect, which flourished in places like Brighton/similar before spinning off all over the place. Well, I hope so, anyway. If so, the new agers and hippies [and, i very much hope, hybrids like me] have reached the light that was at the end of the tunnel, or summat like that, lol. i.e. what they fought for has come to fruition, to a degree, anyway ... thanks in part of course to Micheal Eavis, too, and his first wife, and daughter Emily. Eavis, by the way, contends he was conceived on Silbury Hill. How cosmic is that, man. :-) I could be contentious and say it all started 200+ years ago with the rebel and Romantic poets, and Mary Shelley, and her women's lib mother, but I won't. oops i just have. But Shelley himself fought for many of the things that the real ethos of Glasto is, and of course coined the term "free love". Yes, William Blake used it earlier, but not in the 1960s free love context that Shelley did, looong before the 1960s.

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp

[TheNewUnion]

Pick one of those posters, chuck in a bunch of current indie bands and people would be flipping their shit if that were the 2015 line up!

[scorp]

Pick one of those posters, chuck in a bunch of current indie bands and people would be flipping their shit if that were the 2015 line up!

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp

[grumpyhack]

Jefferson Starship (Nee Airplane) are still working and touring. Saw them a couple of years ago at the Cambridge Rock Festival. Paul Kantner chain smokes and it was amazing to watch him play lead guitar with a plectrum between finger and thumb and a fag between two other fingers of the same hand.

Would still be a good call for Glasto.

There aren't many joys in getting old but one benefit of my age has been seeing so many great bands in their infancy and then following their journey. Things like Led Zepp before they took off and Floyd in their early days still playing relatively small gigs.

Edited July 11, 2014 by grumpyhack

[scorp]

Just to show my age. My first two festivals were Bath and Shepton Mallet which inspired and mutated into Glasto.

I'd be happy to see a few of these bands on the line up today.

Bath Blues Fest Poster 69

Bath Blues Fest Poster Shepton Mallet 70

Edited July 11, 2014 by scorp