Have never been to Glastonbury and confess that the sheer size of it would deter me anyway. However have just seen this years line up – Janet Jackson, Stormzy and Miley Cyrus?? They are either aiming to be wilfully perverse, targeting a different audience or scraping the barrel.
Either way it seems to be a shadow of its former self.
Has Glastonbury run its course?
by 58 Comments
Leaving aside questions of musical taste, or of Major-League names vs. lesser artists, I’d say the only way to gauge whether or not a festival has “run its course” is by examining ticket demand. Since this year’s initial ticket supply sold out within half an hour of going on sale, I’d say it was in glowing health. No personal reason to big it up – never been, never would go – just trying to be objective. Most Glastonbury regulars say they don’t go for the main stages, anyway.
No – it’s for the/a new generation.
You and I (and many Afterword groovies) are no longer it’s target audience. For many reasons. Many of our heroes are dead. Many of our living heroes are turfing out the same old nonsense. Many of our heroes are simply turfing out anything.
AND – Fleetwood Mac ( not ‘podiumed’) are going to go apeshit according to recent press speculation.
And let’s face it, would you want the ‘toilet experience’ when you could be at home, watching on TV and enjoying the comforts of your own toilet.
(Let alone the music).
Glastonbury ‘died’ in (fill in your last best year and describe). Mine? 82 was quite good – but was I there? I can’t remember.
Fear not, Steve – The Killers come to the rescue!
Haven’t been for a while – since Jay-Z I think, but probably will again at some point. When I do, the line-up will be the last thing I’ll worry about, it’ll be the weather that will be front of mind!
It’s a very long time since I last went to Glasto.
I concur with what @PaulVincent had to say. Ticket sales are good and there is a hell of a lot more going on there than just the main stage. At any given time there are about a dozen choices of things to do/see. Even back in the ’80s there were 3 stages plus various tent-based and open-air things to entertain.
No more making yourself really ill on cheap dodgy scrumpy and getting your stomach pumped at the St. John’s Ambulance tent and the drug prices are astronomical*, but you can’t have everything, can you?
* Health and Safety Gone Mad!!
I went for best part of 20 years and I could probably count the number of acts I saw on the main stage on the fingers of my two hands. I discovered hundreds of acts on the smaller stages, the kind of thing The Man would never put on the telly.
There’s so much on that you could quite easily go and never see any music.
As an aside, my next cafe vinyl afternoon coincides with Kylie’s set.
When I suggested we have a Glasto theme of The Cure, The Killers, Janet Jackson and Kylie, the cafe manager (a civilian) told me “they are too weird and not popular enough”.
!
Civilianism is increasingly extreme these days, to the extent that it can almost not be overestimated. It now excludes the most popular pop music that has ever existed.
“Oh he likes all that WEIRD stuff, like The Beatles”
Never been. TBH, multi-day festivals have never appealed to me.
I usually find something of interest to watch on the TV coverage of Glasto. Having seen this year’s atrocious line-up, I’m pretty sure I won’t be watching at all. At least I’ll avoid Jo Whiley’s simpering…
Never for me, a combination of Crohn’s Disease (in remission now for years) and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (requiring a machine) mean the festival experience would be impossible. I am going to the 3 day Solid Sound festival starring Wilco in asmall town in Massachussetts next month for the 2nd time. I am relatively roughing it this time by staying in a student’s dorm, but I will have a bed and the bathroom is close.
What gets me about Glastonbury is the enormous hype. I used to watch the BBC coverage, but am now turned off by the fact that everything is the “greatest ever”. And you can see most of the acts elsewhere throughout the summer anyway, most playing more or less the same songs. These Glastonbury perfomances are not as special as some people think.
I will also got to Bluesfest and Cityfolk in Ottawa, but these are city events where there is no camping and I can sleep soundly in my own bed.
Thing is, it’s not really about the performances at all. It’s the experience of just being there. It really is a magical weekend.
Not if you need to go to the bathroom 10 times a day! My only Solid Sound experience was “magical” too.
For some reason, Lauren Laverne was broadcasting her show from the Glasto site this morning, to the sound of JCB’s in the background. Either she’s been very clever by getting there early to avoid the queues, or it was just an extended free commercial for the Eavises on the licence payer’s shilling (which they certainly don’t need to sell tickets). Smacks of unnecessary indulgence to me.
Do you watch Blue Peter to make sure they have put sticky-backed plastic over the brand names?
Lauren Laverne isn’t giving the Eavises a free commercial, her BBC bosses are giving their wall-to-wall festival coverage (on the license-payer’s shilling) some advance publicity.
Probably pre-booking her glamping spot too, while she’s there.
BBC giving away free publicity? A bit like that “interview” with Cheryl The Alleged Racist Although She Did Say The Bad Word Cole on their website?
I repeat. It’s not “giving away free publicity”.
It’s part of the setup for their coverage (an expensive large-scale annual occurence) of the festival. They are again spending a lot of money and resources on their Glasto coverage so they are making sure that the people who they expect to watch it know that it will be on. Viewing figures for previous Glastos have been good and they no doubt see it as a good investment of resources*.
No different from mentions of say the recent “Line Of Duty” series, in advance of it’s start.
*I wonder do the BBC have exclusive broadcast rights, that can be sold on to other interested parties? Potentially a good earner, if so.
Have to agree with you on the Cheryl interview. A peculiarly useless puff-piece.
There was no content in the programme that couldn’t have been done from the usual studio. Absolutely no reason to do an OB.
The Cure, Christine and the Queens plus Billy Eilish. That’s a winning trio of acts for me and I’m not even supposed to like the latter two of those since they are not meant for me or some such hogwash. Those two newish acts are a must see, on TV at least.
Add Pale Waves to that list, another I am supposedly 30+ years too old to appreciate. Offspring the Elder (16 next week) is a big fan. They are fans of, through their parental record collections, early Cure, Blue Nile, Cocteau Twins and Cranberries.
The thing about Glastonbury is you make your own. When I used to go I’d lurk around remote rave tents and Lost Vagueness by night, and a lot of folk music by day. I remember abandoning my friends who went to see Robbie Williams because Coldcut were on at the same time and there wasn’t a hope in hell I’d see that twat from Take That over Coldcut.
You can still do that. Haven’t been for years due to very small children, but they are old enough now to do it. And you know what? They mean that we’d need to do the kids fields and a lot of cabaret probably. And that would still be brilliant.
I went to every Glastonbury from 1979 to 1984. I went from the life-changed 18 year old to ‘I hate most of these people’. I think at the last Glastonbury I’d already had a week at Stonehenge, so Glastonbury seemed rather lightweight, and was already a wealthy holiday camp for the hip professionals. The first couldn’t have been better, and still had some edge. I reckon if you keep away from the big stages, you’ll be ok, but unless glamping and able to switch off from the trendy woke braying, it’s best enjoyed on TV, or recreated in the back garden (projector for Tv, decent YouTube glastonbury clips when telly is bad, sofa, relaxants, and a stumble from the bog and bed).
That’s the honourable Trendy Woke-Braying to you, my good man!
It’s certainly not an ‘indie’ festival anymore. Didn’t Shaggy play last year?? I know Emily Evis was recently bemoaning the lack of headline acts around these days; The Cure are a baffling one, I must say. I like them, but how many songs does the average punter know? Two? Boys Don’t Cry and Friday I’m in Love?
It’s probably the one festival that will keep going, as it has the cultural capital to unite different age groups. Personally, if I got a free ticket I still wouldn’t go.
Saw Rob’s band at Glastonbury a few years back, headlining Saturday night IIRC, and they were MONSTROUSLY GREAT and the majority of the audience seemed to be able to sing along with the majority of the songs. One of my mates – a huge Cure fan – stood right behind me and nearly deafened me during “10:15 On A Saturday Night”.
Yes, I think The Cure fall into the same category as, for example, the Pet Shop Boys when they headlined in that, once they choose to bang out a string of their hits, mass mental dot-joining occurs and yer casual crowd realise that they do, in fact, know a dozen or so of their songs by heart and many of the remainder (Boys Don’t Cry, say) are damn enjoyable tunes.
Thing with The Cure, though, is they’re just as capable of a fans-only set of 8 minute sludgy wigouts, so I’ve got my fingers crossed it won’t be that…
Nobody is mentioning the fact that it used to be a CND event. Presumably unnecessary now that nuclear proliferation is a thing of the past and we’ve got nothing to worry about.
It started as a CND fundraiser and quite quickly started supporting Greenpeace and Amnesty International as well. It’s still a big fundraiser for enviromental and peace causes.
The logistical side was turned over to professional event managers some years ago, when the sheer scale of it and the increasing difficulty of getting licensing approval from the local authority meant that the Eavis family were no longer able to cope with that side of the event while running the site as a farm for the rest of the year.
Yep, a mate of mine who lives near Glastonbury often does a few weeks work on the set up. He was a senior project manager on the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and is very well paid for his work.
IT nerd father of my daughter’s school friend contracts to the Beeb for months before. There’s a lot more to the broadcast and live webstreams than a shoulder camera and a boom mic in a woolly sock.
No Nukes still – but killing people whose politics you don’t like is gradely.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48488732
I expect that if this gains enough traction, these two bands will end up being cancelled. The wrong approach, IMO. This sort of of airhead arsehole behaviour should be confronted, not banned.
Huh…I well remember it being a CND festival. Serving , as I did many years ago in the RAF, I wasn’t allowed to go…just in case my morals got corrupted and I returned a left wing anti – establishment weirdo.
You’d have run the risk of being brainwashed by that evil communist lickspittle Moscow lackey, monsignor Bruce Kent, and you should be thanking your lucky stars for the fact that you narrowly missed getting outed to your superior officers by that nice Michael Heseltine’s spooks, who were there in force, disguised as hippies.
You’re not that wrong actually. I was seriously advised that there would be undercover , er, agents?, people?, on the lookout for people like me. With my short hair, beret and combats. ( Not actually Captain Sensible.)
“Scuse me sir, I have reason to believe you can turn me on” etc
CnD? CnD? We’re not goin on after Chas n’ Dave
My best experience of Glasto was in 1988 and 89 because I was lucky enough to have a backstage press pass. Things I recall-
The Waterboys staying on long after their set and playing songs around a camp fire.
The Communards tour bus arriving and seemingly full of young tanned boys.
My friend Sue giving Van Morrison a t-shirt she’d made and he signing her copies of ‘Astral Weeks’ and ‘Moondance’ and being generally very nice.
Queuing up behind members of U2 (who weren’t playing I don’t think) and Naomi Campbell for coffee.
A NME journalist (it may have been David Quantick but I’m not sure) wearing a t-shirt with my band’s name on it.
Having come prepared with plenty of other of my band’s t-shirts I gave one to the Hothouse Flowers lead singer and he said he’s wear it onstage. I was thrilled. But he wore it tied around his head and then threw it into the crowd after one song. Bastard.
Interviewing Rolo from the Woodentops and winding the tape round the wrong way spo it was unusable. Rolo never knew.
Going to the loo and finding Elvis Costello standing next to me. I was too scared to say anything.
Climbing a muddy hill to ask Lawrence from Felt if he fancied giving an interview. Him saying no. Climbing back down again.
My friend Sue seeing Richard Thompson strutting around and she saying ‘who the hell does he think he is?’ (She had no idea who he was).
Lawrence from Felt… literally waiting for the 80s to be over.
Yes, he made Morrissey look like Frank Carson.
ffffffttttt!
*coffee / keyboard / screen interface event*
Actually, Mozzer increasingly does look like Frank Carson, if he’d put contacts in…
Don’t be modest, tell us the name of your band
Twas always the mix of mega mainstream and everything else. There will be countless Afterword friendly artists across the vast number of stages. Reading was always the Indie/Rock fest but Glastonbury has always been a real jumble of all sorts including Pop.
Only been a couple of times but headliner on Saturday in 1992 was the, then Chart Topping (and quite dreadful) Shakespeare’s Sister. Same thing, bigger audience and bigger budget hence global megastars are on the bill.
What would you prefer? The Levellers, Ozric Tentacles and Waterboys headlining the pyramid stage?
Hm, I dunno – in 1992 Shakespears Sister were very current and were actually the cutting edge of pop (hey, don’t laugh). The three acts mentioned in the OP (“Janet Jackson, Stormzy and Miley Cyrus”) surely all peaked at least a decade ago (and in Ms Jackson’s case, more than a quarter of a century ago)?
Was Stormzy even around a decade ago?
I know nowt about him so checked his Wikipedia entry and it says Stormzy came to prominence a mere 5 years ago. I know Pop is fickle and fast-moving these days but he’s hardly ancient history is he?
Stormzy is a grade A superstar, at least in the UK, almost guaranteed number one with every release. He’s also a stellar live performer. He’ll smash Glastonbury. I’m sure he’ll go down a ….er…. storm.
Well I was into him 10 years ago, before he was even aware he wanted to be a musician. I was an early adopter. So there.
Stormzy!
Whenever I hear his name I’m reminded of “oooh , foxie” from Citizen Smith
Miley Cyrus is currently one of the biggest popstars on the planet who has just released a new album of well received material.
And who was rather good playing the 1 big weekend in middlesbrough last weekend. I wasn’t there – watching The Orb in Stockton, as it happens.
No one can say she ain’t got the chops, whatever you think of the material.
Actually The Waterboys at Glastonbury in 1986 and 1988 (or was it ’89?) were by far the best band I saw on the Pyramid stage or any other. I reckon the current incarnation would probably blow away any of this year’s contenders too.
The 1986 set was good enough to be released on (semi-official) CD and is heaps better than their later official live album. Their set from 2015 was great, too.
I’m sure Mike Scott and his raggle taggle chums will be waiting in the wings to steal the show should Miley or Janet Jackson come a cropper in a Portaloo
And I gather the Cannes Film Festival now shows films in colour.
I find the thought of being in that mass of people terrifying!
I used to really enjoy it when there was a gang of us meeting up there* but I wouldn’t want to be there on my own.
*Actually 2 gangs, as there were the contingent from where I lived in West Wales for 12 years (about a dozen), as well as the other mob (eight of us) from Watford, where I was brought up and where I returned to from Wales.
Sadly the Welsh gang all stopped going after a friend’s step-daughter was killed in a car crash returning home from Glasto one year. Then us Watfordians lost interest soon after.