Blasdale Home

Thursday had ended with a few showers and the odd flash of lightening.  Friday I was awoken at 4.00am by the persistent sound of falling rain, which went on until 10:00.  I had to move stuff around the tent; it didn’t seem quite so waterproof these days.  At the sound of the rain easing, I was up and out in my underpants making a spectacle of my self in front of my neighbours.  Then it was on to making bacon baps and coffee, and chatting to my neighbours, the three girls who had materialised  in a tent next door overnight.

The grass outside was wet, and no sign of the Glastonbury mud on the campsite.  Still boots on today, and waterproofs would probably be good insurance. I walked over to the Pyramid Stage through quite a bit of mud.  Wet fields and thousands of footsteps; always result in the generation of mud.  As one compere over in the Circus Field said, stop walking about, come in and sit down, you are only making it worse for yourselves.

First stop for the day at Bjorn Again on the Pyramid Stage, where I had an excellent sing along to Abba’s greatest hits.

Most of the bands after Bjorn Again I had not heard of, so decided to try something a little different.  Went to the Circus Field and got drawn into a tent with rush matting by the comper who had said, stop walking about, come in and sit down, yeou are only making it worse for yourselves.  Oh and it had started to piss down with rain as well. Spent over an hour or so listening to a couple of shows which were mixtures of comedy and circus act.  The themes were juggling on top of monocycles, and getting the audience to participate in one way or another.

Moved on to the large tent, The Astrolabe in Glebeland Arena for an audience participation show by Jonathan Kay where eventually we were persuaded to go on stage, and were trained to sing and do basically silly things.  This was the training and indoctrination part of the show, because we were next taken into the outside world (it had stopped raining) and as a group had to accost strangers and act oddly.  Yes we went to one stage which was warming up for a gig, cheered and appeared as a big audience to a small band, and when we where acknowledged we all walked off to target someone else.   This time some poor targets at a coffee shop received our attention.  Yes we walked around as a co-ordinated team, singing, forcing others to sing and participate in stupid antics, forcing the mounted police to walk down our funnel of people.

When not having a specific target we walked around doing emu impressions.  Amazingly, a substantial part of the team stayed together for this hour of audience brainwashing.

Walked on up the hill and to the bar by the acoustic stage and cinema, and participated in a well-rewarded drink and then something to eat.  Had something somewhere to eat and then tried to walk from the other stage to the pyramid stage, and got stuck entirely as two groups of people walking in opposite directions tend to do.  I was aiming to see The Specials play.  Managed to make it there through the people and the mud in time to see the second song.   Afterwards it was Neil Young, but decided to see the Blockheads play over in Avalon.  Stopped by the Jazz Stage to pick up some grub.  Decided on some Arab food, chicken cooked in some kind of crust. 

Made it to the Avalon Stage with time to spare, but first popped into Trash City.  It was open and looked fantastic, with robot creatures, flame jets synced to the music.  It looked like some futuristic set from a scifi film.  Harrison Ford would not have looked out of place.  Really should have stayed, but the Blockheads at Glastonbury 2009 were calling.  Listened to all the classic hits, “Hit me with your rhythm stick”, “Reasons to be cheerful, part 3” and “My name is Trevor”.  Enjoyable.  The reason why I had to see the Blockheads was because Ian Dury was going to play Glastonbury the last time I went, back in 1999, and alas he never made it because of ill health, and he died the year after.

Back to the tent, against the tide of humanity who were exiting the main stages for the delights of the night clubs of Trash City, Avalon , Arcadia and Shangri-La.