Those in Foreign and unable to watch, just talk amongst yourselves for a bit. This probably won’t take long.
I’m referring to the coverage of the festival overall, not individual acts, so that is what I want to hear you vote upon. There are three voting categories: Marks out of 10 for each, fractions permissible.
If you change your mind after casting your vote, tough luck. It’s your first vote that counts. Comments and/or clips gratuitous but remaining optional.
Category 1: Content.
Category 2: Presentation.
Category 3: Value for License Fee.
My votes:
6 for Content.
8 for presentation.
8 for VFM.
A thread inviting the AW to put the boot into this year’s Glastonbury presenters…
Mike_H, you are Fearne Cotton and I claim my €5 (pounds, nein danke!).
Great value for money here – saw 15 bands and pay no licence fee..
Scores?
I sat all warm n toasty n watched PJ Harvey give a stunning performance on the live feed. You can avoid Whiley, Laverne n Co n see everything without interruptions
PJ by far the best of what I saw.
That’s what I’ve mostly done too, but all watched after live stream times. I am an expert at missing live streams of stuff I like.
Scores?
But if you just watched the whole thing on Iplayer (guilty) how can you award marks to the BBC’s content/presentation?
I s’pose the layout of the Iplayer is nice, but the content is just the acts, which you’ve said you don’t want us voting for…
I suppose it’s just that those acts are made available to us. I’ve watched everything via the iPlayer, so I’ve not seen any of the links or presenters (on past form, I’m not feeling I’ve missed much there), but I’ve seen some great stuff (Underworld and Mercury Rev) and I have plenty more lined up. It’s a thumbs up from me.
Content is who they chose to feature, given the number of acts and stages. Presentation is the camerawork and sound quality. Could also be the presenters/links if you did happen to catch the live feeds. I preferred to avoid the presenters and the ease/difficulty of doing this could possibly be a factor in some people’s marking.
I thought Ernest Ranglin was sub-par. Either he deliberately chose to not rehearse his band or he did not have the opportunity to do so. Nevertheless his set had it’s moments. Just not enough of them for a home viewer. Might have been a different story for those stage front and dancing.
The performance of Philip Glass’s Heroes Symphony was spectacular, IMO, especially the second section. It seemed to be very well-received by a surprisingly sizeable crowd too.
I enjoyed Sigur Rós, PJ Harvey, Anoushka Shankar and Squeeze. Quite a few others I’ve not seen yet.
Savages, Madness, Kamasi Washington, Last Shadow Puppets were all disappointing.
Looking forward to watching Ernest Ranglin & Philip Glass’s Heroes Symphony in particular later tonight.
Still a few others of interest for tomorrow and after.
I enjoyed Grimes and LCD Soundsystem.
1. I just saw acts. Overall 8
2. I avoided presenters, so 5
3. Ten. Great value from the Beeb I’d say.
I enjoyed Jeff Lynne’s ELO.
This was the way ELO always should have been presented from the star: 14 piece core line-up, plus almost as many again for the Glastonbury appearance.
3 or 4 guitarists, massive string section, a couple of keyboards and back-up singers. It sounded just like the records and Jeff looked relaxed and happy.
Quite a bit of it recorded I think ….
Really? Which parts? The guitars and individual vocals were certainly live. Hard to tell with the strings
I thought it was great this year – live feeds from each of the larger stages, what’s not to like? And a good number of full sets available to watch/get afterwards.
I only encountered annoying celebrity presenter interviews – “So, Trevor Nelson, did you buy your wellies especially?” – during the highlights shows. And a filmed item on how whacky Glastonbury town is. Those shows are for the general public, not the type who contribute to a music blog.
I know one of the techs, Del, who make the live streaming happen. It’s a massive technical enterprise. I’m very pleased they do bother.
I can watch from the comfort of my sofa, eat proper food, sleep in my own bed, and use a proper toilet. It’s the next best thing to going to the festival itself, and the license fee is about the cost of one ticket (and gets me access to telly the other 362 days of the year).
Even if I don’t like much of the music, the point of a festival for me is to see acts I wouldn’t otherwise pay to watch. If you just want to watch Adele, there are better places to see her.
10/10 all round – HD video, great audio – but knock a point off presentation for Jo Whiley.
I’m in Foreign.
Thanks so much for posting that link. I had too much on at the weekend to catch any of it. With sets from Kamasi Washington, Quantic All Stars, Earth Wind and Fire, Gregory Porter, Baaba Maal, Ernest Ranglin, Mbongwana, The Very Best and The Orchestra Of Syrian Musicians with Damon Albarn on iPlayer I say God bless the BBC.
10 out of 10.
I didn’t watch a second of it – not very much to interest me music-wise but the dealbreaker is the risk of seeing any amount of the Jo Whiley ‘look at us, we’re so cool, and everything’s amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing’ presentational smugfest.
Well, i didn’t see any of it live this year as our consolation for not getting Glastonbury tickets was a weekend in Liverpool to see Love Revisited, all paid for by my daughter as a Christmas pressie.. Great weekend, and great gig.
Anyway my dear wife always records masses of BBC Glastonbury, so we have only just begun watching it all. PJ Harvey was fantastic I thought; her last two albums have given her really strong material IMO. On the other hand I do think the festival line up is in steady decline with MOR headliners and a horrible proliferation of dull banal synth & keyboard bands. Why always film the same 4 stages? It would be great to see stuff from the Acoustic and Avalon stages for a change.
Yes, the presenters are twonks, with the exception of Mark Radcliffe. I do miss John Peel’s ascerbic comments.
6 for content
5 for presentation
10 for VFM
There were live streams from 6 stages this year: pyramid, other, Peel, west holts, park, BBC introducing. Only the acoustic, Avalon, Glade and Left Field really to choose from. When I used to go (in the years BC) I saw some great stuff on the acoustic stage.
Some stages are little more than a flat bed truck and might be less suitable for cameras – Bez’s Flying Bus, anyone?
I agree with you about headliners but that’s been going on for 15 years and it seems to be the buzz to get the festival in the news. One year I went, the Beautiful South and Texas were on the pyramid stage – I spent a lot of my time in the acoustic tent that year.
I wouldn’t go to the festival just to see a favourite act on the Pyramid stage, though – miles from the stage, dodgy sound, huge audience and the price. It’s the drifting between the stages and stumbling upon acts which makes a festival for me.