I went to Glastonbury Festival for the first time; here are some scattered thoughts and best-ofs.
- Everyone tells you how massive it is, but nothing can prepare you for how absolutely massive it is. It’s less a “festival” and more a pop-up theme park, or even a city. It’s one of the most remarkable places I’ve ever been.
- There is so much stuff beyond the headline music acts. Without even going near a stage, you stumble across all sorts of exceptional art: gigantic sand sculptures, roving Rajasthani brass bands, angels on stilts, an installation about immigration, a woman in a bird cage above a bar twirling a flaming sword … the list goes on, and on, and on. The Theatre and Circus stages have some really impressive performers too (I popped into an outstanding arial acrobatics show at one point). And that’s just the acts: there are also two gigantic fields full of activities and workshops, where you can learn anything from woodworking to metal forging, willow weaving to guitar making. You could very easily spend the entire festival without seeing a single musical act, and you’d still have a phenomenal time.
- The sheer diversity of available entertainment is amazing, too. I think I had a completely different experience to most of my friends; I expect there are some people with whom I didn’t overlap at all. The size and breadth means you can tailor your experience to your tastes — there really is something for everyone.
- Even if you don’t love their music, the big-name musicians are almost universally great. I’m not a particularly big fan of Dua Lipa, Little Simz, Coldplay, or Janelle Monae, but all delivered really fun and memorable shows, and I’m really glad I saw them. Justice, who I like but don’t love, were particularly incredible, with the best lighting rig I’ve ever seen (absenting U2 at the Sphere, which doesn’t really count).
- The slightly-less-famous acts were even better, in my opinion. Sampha and Michael Kiwanuka performed two of the best sets of the whole weekend, with absolutely rapt audiences and stunning music.
- And it was particularly wonderful to see acts from around the world that I’d otherwise never see. Artists like Ustad Noor Baksh (who I’ve previously written about here), Arooj Aftab, and Mdou Moctar all completely blew me away — and it was very special to watch them with a big crowd of other (mostly English) people absolutely loving it too.
- While I did plan my schedule quite meticulously, some of the festival’s best moments came from randomly stumbling across stuff, whether it was a New Age DJ and flautist playing to a tiny crowd under a mushroom in the woods or a former-TfL-worker-turned-comic-accordionist playing in Rimski’s Yard, one of the most baffling spaces I’ve ever been in. And because of the aforementioned size and density, moments like that come along constantly.
- The Tree Stage, which I gather is new, was absolutely lovely — baffling, but fascinating, ambient sets that you could lie down to. Listening to Jon Hopkins’ new album on its 360-degree sound system was a real treat.
- Everyone was remarkably nice and kind, staff and fellow attendees alike. And it all felt blissfully uncommercial and relaxed (almost no ads in sight, anywhere!). Though the hippiness comes with its downsides: I was particularly irked by the number of anti-nuclear-energy signs and pro-homeopathy tents.
- It certainly wasn’t perfect: it was too busy, especially at night, and queues made moving around pretty unpleasant at times. I suspect the organisers need to cut capacity by about 10% (around 20,000 people). That will result in higher ticket prices, but frankly at the current price it’s an absolute bargain, and you could easily charge double and have people feel they’re getting their money’s worth. They also need to better match stages to artists: some overcrowding, such as Bicep and Avril Lavigne, was completely predictable and avoidable, while others were put on stages that were too big for them. With a bit of reshuffling and smaller crowds, it’d be close to perfect.
My favourite performances, in chronological order: Jeanie White, Dar Disku B2B Nabihah Iqbal, Sampha, Dua Lipa, Ustad Noor Baksh, Arooj Aftab, Michael Kiwanuka, Mdou Moctar, Hagop Tchaparian B2B Anish Kumar, Justice.
Essayant 