Your most controversial Glastonbury opinions

[BenG92]

For what it's worth Primavera had an actively gender balanced lineup for the 2nd time this year, nobody noticed but it was arguably one of the best in the world. 

I'm just here for the drama though. 

[Furq]

The festival should be Thur/Fri/Sat, with a slower/relaxed exit on Sunday.

Most folk are there for Thursday anyway. It would allow more time to 'adjust' for the normal/working week.
 

 

[FloorFiller]

1 hour ago, ScarletBlaster said:

Only allow people to attend 3 out of 4 years (randomly) to allow new blood the chance to get in.

You see people going 25 years in a row and think how is that fair? It's so difficult if you've just got two of you trying for tickets when there are long established groups of 30+ who have been going for so many years in a row.

It’s not like those people who have gone every year have an advantage though, is it? They’ve just been incredibly lucky time and time again. Everybody has just as much chance of getting tickets and eventually your luck will probably run out (except us scousers, who seem to have somehow figured out the formula on getting our entire city tickets year in year out… or are just more willing to pay £500 to get snuck in in the back of a van). 

[JohnEW]

58 minutes ago, SamBuca said:

It was also called Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts at one point.

It still is.

[maelzoid]

Why do people get so wound up about "virtue-signalling" anyway. Why is it so bad to be seen as virtuous? I guess the assumption is that the person doing the signalling is somehow being dishonest or hypocritical...? But even so, just ignore them.

Thunberg and Zelensky took up such a small portion of the programme. Only a handful of acts mentioned Roe v Wade. The combined time of the lot of them was probably shorter than Hey Jude.

[maelzoid]

17 minutes ago, FloorFiller said:

It’s not like those people who have gone every year have an advantage though, is it? They’ve just been incredibly lucky time and time again. Everybody has just as much chance of getting tickets and eventually your luck will probably run out (except us scousers, who seem to have somehow figured out the formula on getting our entire city tickets year in year out… or are just more willing to pay £500 to get snuck in in the back of a van). 

I've always joked that the Seetickets server is located in Liverpool and that's why there are so many Scousers in attendance.

[balthazarstarbuck]

4 hours ago, Fake Encore said:

In other news, The Park Stage needs some thought.  The sound desk is too close and blocks the middle.  The right is down slope so you can't see it.  The left has the Stonebridge noise.  The hill mixes about 7 sounds at once.  There are no screens.

Jack White who sounded excellent but was ultimately a bit pointless, I was over-hot though TBF

Can’t stand the place. Miles away from everything else, terrible sound and vantage. Trying to do too much packed into too small a space.

Think I’m just gonna pretend it doesn’t exist for festivals going forward. Elvis could come back from the dead but if he’s on Park I won’t be there.

[K2SO]

There is too much focus on the dance/electronic music areas.

They dominate the nightlife; Pretty much everything on after headliners is some sort of DJ playing drum and bass, house, rave, etc... But comparitively very little of live music. I'd love to see more focus on different sorts of live music post-headliners. Whether it's local bands, tribute acts, open mic, etc. I just find next to no appeal to the nightlife due to the type of music that is played, as well as the sort of characters it seems to bring out.

I find that the dance music is what brings the utter tossers to the festival. The sort that piss up the side of a wall, push through crowds with no regards for others, etc. I don't like to stereotype it, but you know the type of person I mean. People in their early 20s, lads with a bucket hat, sunglasses and an open shirt, or girls wearing what is essentially a bikini with the same headgear... often with some sort of neon paint on their body.

I'm not saying to completely get rid of these areas, but I do feel like there needs to be less focus on it.

[CaledonianGonzo]

8 minutes ago, K2SO said:

I find that the dance music is what brings the utter tossers to the festival. The sort that piss up the side of a wall, push through crowds with no regards for others, etc. I don't like to stereotype it, but you know the type of person I mean. People in their early 20s, lads with a bucket hat, sunglasses and an open shirt, or girls wearing what is essentially a bikini with the same headgear... often with some sort of neon paint on their body.

You probably didn’t mean to, but you've also just summarised the crowd down the front of Noel Gallagher.

 

[SwallowOrSleepOnTheWetSpot]

20 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

Why do people get so wound up about "virtue-signalling" anyway. Why is it so bad to be seen as virtuous? I guess the assumption is that the person doing the signalling is somehow being dishonest or hypocritical...? But even so, just ignore them.

Yeah that's mainly why some people get wound up about it. No different than with outwardly pious churchgoers who don't practice what they preach. I don't think the virtue-signaling charge applies to anybody in this thread or at Glasto, but I can certainly think of anecdotal evidence of people who were absolute c**ts yet put up a whole charade of social justice buzzwords.

 

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by SwallowOrSleepOnTheWetSpot

[K2SO]

6 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

You probably didn’t mean to, but you've also just summarised the crowd down the front of Noel Gallagher.

 

The key difference is that the Noel Gallagher crowd tend to have their shirts buttoned up 😉

But you are right, they don't have dissimilar audiences. You do get some unpleasant types for all different genres, but the dance crowds often just seem downright disrespectful to me

[pedmills]

There are enough DJ & dance music stages now. It's Glastonbury's USP to have so much going on but it feels in the last few years that every bar is now turning into a music tent, every little corner has a stage crammed into it, everything has sound bleeding into it, you can't move for thudding bass. Shangri La has numerous sizeable stages now, when I don't feel like that was the point of it originally. Arcadia is just another dance music stage where Chase & Status and Chemical Brothers get booked, whereas I'm sure years back it was intended as more of a visual experience. There must be hundreds of DJs playing very similar music across the festival. I love that there is so much going on, but no more DJs and dance stages, please!

[jimmillen]

32 minutes ago, K2SO said:

There is too much focus on the dance/electronic music areas.

They dominate the nightlife; Pretty much everything on after headliners is some sort of DJ playing drum and bass, house, rave, etc... But comparitively very little of live music. I'd love to see more focus on different sorts of live music post-headliners. Whether it's local bands, tribute acts, open mic, etc. I just find next to no appeal to the nightlife due to the type of music that is played, as well as the sort of characters it seems to bring out.

I find that the dance music is what brings the utter tossers to the festival. The sort that piss up the side of a wall, push through crowds with no regards for others, etc. I don't like to stereotype it, but you know the type of person I mean. People in their early 20s, lads with a bucket hat, sunglasses and an open shirt, or girls wearing what is essentially a bikini with the same headgear... often with some sort of neon paint on their body.

I'm not saying to completely get rid of these areas, but I do feel like there needs to be less focus on it.

Some valid points there about the predominance of electronic/dance late on…

Maybe skip the gross generalisations about the audience though? 

[worstmanonroad]

41 minutes ago, K2SO said:

There is too much focus on the dance/electronic music areas.

They dominate the nightlife; Pretty much everything on after headliners is some sort of DJ playing drum and bass, house, rave, etc... But comparitively very little of live music. I'd love to see more focus on different sorts of live music post-headliners. Whether it's local bands, tribute acts, open mic, etc. I just find next to no appeal to the nightlife due to the type of music that is played, as well as the sort of characters it seems to bring out.

I find that the dance music is what brings the utter tossers to the festival. The sort that piss up the side of a wall, push through crowds with no regards for others, etc. I don't like to stereotype it, but you know the type of person I mean. People in their early 20s, lads with a bucket hat, sunglasses and an open shirt, or girls wearing what is essentially a bikini with the same headgear... often with some sort of neon paint on their body.

I'm not saying to completely get rid of these areas, but I do feel like there needs to be less focus on it.

You really do sound like a right old tosser tbh

[SwallowOrSleepOnTheWetSpot]

1 minute ago, Barry Fish said:

I think we can sleep comfortably when Greta speaks out about climate change and american women speak out over the rights to their own bodies that it comes from the heart.

I think the originally poster basically has his head up his arse on this one.

Agreed, and being a virtue signaler has also become a rightwing slur.

[smogo]

The southeast corner is terrible. Not the areas, the venues or the lineups, but the fact that it's all cramped into that part of the site that's so small it needs an irritating one-way system. Those areas need to be moved and integrated into the main part of the festival grounds somehow, maybe in the dead centre, but with more space between them. I don't have any big idea how, but the entire layout needs to be scrapped and rethought.

And if those horrible rocky roads could be tarmacked, my feet would be very grateful.

[hurdy]

5 hours ago, wilko8 said:

Because you don’t achieve equity by treating everyone equally. 

A sentence that can never be said too many times

[K2SO]

11 minutes ago, worstmanonroad said:

You really do sound like a right old tosser tbh

I'm only 28 🤣

[steviewevie]

33 minutes ago, K2SO said:

The key difference is that the Noel Gallagher crowd tend to have their shirts buttoned up 😉

But you are right, they don't have dissimilar audiences. You do get some unpleasant types for all different genres, but the dance crowds often just seem downright disrespectful to me

riff raff

[CaledonianGonzo]

2 minutes ago, smogo said:

The southeast corner is terrible. Not the areas, the venues or the lineups, but the fact that it's all cramped into that part of the site that's so small it needs an irritating one-way system. Those areas need to be moved and integrated into the main part of the festival grounds somehow, maybe in the dead centre, but with more space between them. I don't have any big idea how, but the entire layout needs to be scrapped and rethought.

And if those horrible rocky roads could be tarmacked, my feet would be very grateful.

You can only get in and out one way, but there isn't a one way system.

[steviewevie]

33 minutes ago, pedmills said:

There are enough DJ & dance music stages now. It's Glastonbury's USP to have so much going on but it feels in the last few years that every bar is now turning into a music tent, every little corner has a stage crammed into it, everything has sound bleeding into it, you can't move for thudding bass. Shangri La has numerous sizeable stages now, when I don't feel like that was the point of it originally. Arcadia is just another dance music stage where Chase & Status and Chemical Brothers get booked, whereas I'm sure years back it was intended as more of a visual experience. There must be hundreds of DJs playing very similar music across the festival. I love that there is so much going on, but no more DJs and dance stages, please!

yeah, it's all very 90s anyway. Surely something new is needed, something more meaningful and cerebral...are young people still dj worshipping droids like I was?

[Isaact]

The Truth stage usually has live music at all hours, and at least one of the smaller bars in Shangri-la usually has some kind of live music.

Rum Shack had live hip hop most of the time I went in there too.

It's not all DJs in the SE corner.

[CaledonianGonzo]

14 minutes ago, Isaact said:

The Truth stage usually has live music at all hours, and at least one of the smaller bars in Shangri-la usually has some kind of live music.

Rum Shack had live hip hop most of the time I went in there too.

It's not all DJs in the SE corner.

We saw an absolutely shit-hot, Stonesy teenage R'n'B band tear the roof of the Rocket Lounge on the Wednesday night.

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by CaledonianGonzo

[MEGABOWL]

28 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

You can only get in and out one way, but there isn't a one way system.

There was definitely something on Friday. I couldn’t go back from the Unfairground back into the IICON field.

[MEGABOWL]

I don’t agree with the generalisations about the Dance music crowd at all.

I do think it’s a fair point about it being too predominant though. It doesn’t even have to be live stuff but there could be more decent sized venues playing the kind of stuff they have in Williams Green, Stonebridge etc. More rock, soul, funk, pop etc.