F@#! Glastonbury

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Well what can I say about this year’s glasto, it started with me getting my Tipi nicked and went down hill from there, and I missed The Specials. In fact I missed pretty much everything. I don’t think I have the requisite fortitude for that festival anymore. It’s like Ong Thanh meets Blackpool during a dysentery pandemic. (”Hey maaan, you weren’t there Maaaan”)

Four quid for a tepid brew with a dead wasp in it, pfft. Maybe I’m just getting old.

If it wasn’t for Apples and Snakes very own Pete Hunter lending me a spare tent I’d have had to fashion a shelter out of spent glow sticks and discarded K wraps. Cheers Pete, you’re a gent.

The first thing I encountered as I entered the main site was a bar selling over priced, urophagic lager to a bunch of sludge sodden wreck-heads who probably thought ANC was a clothes shop for dyslexics. It was a massive red, gold and green marquee hilariously named the Nelson Mandela bar. Did someone really think that this would be a fitting accolade? Maybe it’s just me, but taking the name of one of greatest political icons of the last century and using it to extort money out of crapulent punters in a cynical commercial enterprise seems somewhat incongruent with the festival’s original ethos?

The areas around the main stages managed to maintain all the menace of a Burnley night club at kicking out time but with rotting litter and sloppy Friesian arse pancakes to add to the ambiance.

Some waggish charmer acquainted himself with me by shouting “OI KNOBHEAD, WHERE THE F@#! ARE YOU FROM YOU SCRAWNY C@#!?”. There was a brief exchange, and to cut a long story short, we decided not to become pen pals.

I remember when Glastonbury was mostly hemp sandaled, bean weavers, too banjaxed on hippy lettuce to maintain eye contact for more than a nanosecond, never mind get all up in your stuff. I kind of expect to get grief in the street most places; I sport the obnoxious haircut of a Shoreditch wanksatchel and I dress like a Victorian rent boy, but Glastonbury? It used to be a haven for those who enjoy presenting an alternative aesthetic, these days parts of the site are as welcoming as a dance tent portaloo after a batch of gippy pills.

Thanks to the combined intellects of myself, John Berkavitch and Andy Craven Griffiths we missed out on our chance to do poems on the telly (we turned up at the wrong time, and possibly at the wrong tent), which sucks, because being on the numpty-box is one of the few opportunities I have to convince my mum I’m no longer a career shoplifter.

During my gig I was competing with the mighty Horace Andy, which wasn’t easy cos they’d given him much bigger speakers than me. The stage he was on was literally a stones throw away from my stage, but throwing rocks at reggae legends is wrong, so I decided to do poems instead.

I meandered through my set bearing the casual insobriety befitting my location. This intemperance continued solidly until midnight on the Saturday night when suddenly I came over all afflicted. Perhaps it was the fact I’d forgotten to eat that day, more likely though it was the vat of intoxicants, capped off with a bucket of Baileys Chai that did for me. I’m not proud of myself; Far from it, I promised myself I’d have a sober festival season. No more trembling, dry mouthed gigs, hacking up a packet of Amber Leaf between each poem as the audience stare at the lighting rig trying to work out how they’ve managed to confer me with such an off green hue.

Nothing brings the punishing unease of a hangover into sharp focus quite like a tent full of impassive faces expecting you to entertain them for the next twenty minutes. Not that it’s anyone’s fault but my own, Glastonbury picks at my foibles like a buzzard at a barbecue. Most of my issues with the place have far more to do with my own social shortcomings than the event itself. Big crowds make me fractious, steadying my jitters with a medicinal brandy or whatever is only ever going to be a temporary suture and the benefits rarely out weigh the inevitable furry tongued pity fest.

So the night wore on, all hot sweats and fretful shivers. It would be indelicate to go into details so let me put it this way. Everything that could be purged was, aggressively and at length.

At eight o’ clock on Sunday morning having spent a sleepless, angst-ridden night staggering between a borrowed tent and plastic, faecal reeking porta-prison. I decided I needed to be in my own bed, to vomit in my own toilet, to claw at my own pillow. As I was feebly packing up my mud-spattered ephemera, other more robust poets came and spoke words at me.  I stared at their faces, desperately wanting to engage but only managed to muster an assuaging nod and a queasy smile.

It took me seven hours, a bus, two trains, a taxi and seventy English pounds to make the 25 mile journey from Pilton to Bristol (don’t ask). I‘ve never been so happy to crawl into my own bed.

In retrospect the most impressive thing about Glastonbury was the speed in which t-shirts unsympathetically punning about the untimely demise of Michael Jackson hit the site. If you want to sartorially insult someone within six hours of their death, you can’t go far wrong at Glasters.

All in all it was the usual sleep deprived, cash haemorrhaging, soggy arsed, vomit fest. Obviously I’ll be back next year.

That all sounds a bit grim but I’ve done some lovely little festivals since Pilton. I’ll tell you all about them soon.

But in the mean time…

OTHER NEWS:

Upcoming gigs:

Latitude festival, Suffolk.

Saturday the 18^th 10pm

Sunday 19^th 11:20am

The Monday Night Alternative

Nowich Ars Centre

Monday 20^th July

Speakeasy

The Glass onion

Peterborough

Tuesday 21^st July

Oral Cabaret

The Maltings

St Albans

Wednesday 22^nd July

Wax Lyrical

Colchester Arts Centre

Thursday 23^rd July

Howl

Cramphorn Theatre

Chelmsford

Friday 24^th July

Port Eliot Festival

St Germans

Cornwall

Saturday 25^th July

Also I should take this opportunity to give a shout out to my new MPoY mentor Tony Walsh. We’ve only been working together for a few days but already his help and guidance has been invaluable. Nice one Tony.

That is all, happy Monday.

tagged under: Byron Vincent.Gigs.Glastonbury