Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis was the first to admit that Glastonbury 2007 was too “middle aged and respectable” last month. In a conscious effort to pump youth into the festival next year, more tickets will be offered via phone lines to bypass the hordes of IT consultants equipped with supersonic broadband connections. Will it work? Probably not. Perhaps a wiser strategy would be an online questionnaire asking simple questions like ‘do you prefer Face Book or MySpace?’ or ‘what’s the difference between CSS and DSS?’. If anyone suggests Face Book as an answer or claims to know what DSS means, then they’re not on the list.It’s hard to escape the fact that the UK’s best loved music festival has become a tourist attraction, full of middle aged couples seeking that fabled Glastonbury Moment. They arrive armed with camping chairs, 10 megapixel cameras and ridiculously complex tents with built-in dining rooms. Then they set about creating a Glastonbury Moment which, in reality, means drinking pear cider at 11am, having a semi-pissed snuggle and crying along to Rufus Wainwright in the rain. It’s not going to be long before The Sun lists the places to obtain the best Glastonbury Moment, Cadbury create chocs to eat at the Glastonbury Moment and GMTV does a morning broadcast capturing Keith Chegwin’s Glastonbury Moment.
After a seven year break, I decided to revisit Glastonbury in 2005, excited by the prospect of new bands like The Boyfriends on the new John Peel stage which turned out to be the size of my garden. The bigger stages played host to James Blunt, Fatboy Slim and other acts I expected to avoid by not visiting Wembley Stadium at Christmas. Retiring to my tent, a stranger asked “have you seen my genie?” waving a lamp at me. “No, what does he look like?” I replied, gazing at his attempt to build a fire. “MC Hammerrrrr!” he said, before a security guard sprayed gunk on the fire and asked him to report to the ominous sounding ‘Central Office’ which I assumed was an Abu Girab style detention centre for people who started unauthorised fires or had lost their genies.
Half the fun of any music festival is being able to get drunk and run around like an excited child, dancing like nobody is watching, despite the hordes of BBC 3 cameras and camera phones. But I suspect the Glastonbury security guard who pissed on the fire (not literally) might take issue with that, enforcing a running speed restriction and detaining anyone suspected to be drunk.
Reading festival is the polar opposite of such demented restrictions. Older than Glastonbury, Reading festival has been entertaining rampant, angry, pissed up students since 1971 and it’s the only place left with a real rock n’ roll atmosphere. 50 Cent played for 20 minutes in 2004 before being attacked with bottles of piss and a camping chair, proving that Reading Festival, despite losing the ‘Reading Festival of Rock’ title years ago, is still the place to be when it comes to teenage anarchy. Camp overnight and the whole site turns into a giant frat party style idiot-riot and it’s a million miles away from the muck, middle agers and M&S picnic blankets at Glastonbury. This year at Reading festival, you’ll get to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, The Kings of Leon and Eagles of Death Metal. James Blunt wouldn’t last 5 minutes.
Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis was the first to admit that Glastonbury 2007 was too “middle aged and respectable” last month. In a conscious effort to pump youth into the festival next year, more tickets will be offered via phone lines to bypass the hordes of IT consultants equipped with supersonic broadband connections. Will it work? Probably not. Perhaps a wiser strategy would be an online questionnaire asking simple questions like ‘do you prefer Face Book or MySpace?’ or ‘what’s the difference between CSS and DSS?’. If anyone suggests Face Book as an answer or claims to know what DSS means, then they’re not on the list.
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