Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts 2005

After the weeks of anticipation it was finally here, the highlight of the year, Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts! The run up to ticket day was quite stressful after the trauma of sitting up all night in 2004, watching crashing ticket application screens and listening to endless engaged tones, while my best mate Sooz only managed to get her ticket at the eleventh hour. This year we were well prepared for the same struggle with access to
four computers and three phones, but the butterflies only lasted 23 minutes! We didn't fully relax until we finally got the tickets though, arriving by courier a week before the event. Not everyone was as lucky, but Zane and I, Sooz and boyfriend Steve, and mates Jason and Craig were all in. Hurrah!

 

Motley Crew

Our Camp

This year we went up on the Wednesday afternoon to make sure we got our camping space of choice by the Pyramid stage. Up went the tents and flagpole and out came the beers - we were there!

The weather reports had been varied but optimistic and Wednesday was lovely. We actually fell asleep at about 8 in the evening after the adrenalin rush of actually getting there, but woke again at about 1.30 when the party started.
The atmosphere in the camping areas was excellent, everyone was so happy just to be there and every so often the whole place erupted in the traditional shout of festivals everywhere (if you don't know what it is you don't go to festivals!)

By about 4am I'd gone to bed but Zane wobbled off to the Stone Circle to see the sunrise. Every morning a crowd of people gather to cheer the sun rising over the festival site. It was too cold for me but I regret not making the effort. However, when he finally returned at 7 am he kept us all entertained with his vodka fuelled "conversation”. I felt quite odd being the sensible one for a change, and quite smug in the knowledge I'd be hangover free when the worst was yet to come for him! Thursday was a beautiful day, and after a while we set of to rediscover the site. There are no bands on Thursday but most of the stalls, bars and food places are open. It was surprisingly full although getting there early has become more and more popular. I dragged poor Zane all over the place until he finally protested and we had a refreshing cup of chai which is sort of like warm spicy Baileys, which seemed to do the trick.

The weather reports predicted rain on Friday morning and sure enough I woke at 4.30 to hear spots of rain on the tent. By the time I'd dragged everything in from outside, the rain had set in in earnest, but we were hardly prepared for the mother and father of all storms that followed! We've seen similar in Sweden, but to lay in a tent for 5 hours listening to the thunder and lightning was something new. Of course we had no idea of the devastation occurring elsewhere on the site, at the time I was just worrying about a repeat of the mud of 2004 - this storm was much worse. It finally stopped just before midday and the sun made a  welcome appearance, accompanied by a huge cheer from the whole site. We started to emerge from our tents and assess the damage. Our little group was quite disturbed by the small stream running through the middle of our camp, until the news and rumours of the havoc caused elsewhere started to filter through.

A beer tent had been struck by lightning and split in half. A stream had burst its banks and swept away the people camping at the bottom of our field. Others had woken up to find their airbeds floating in 2 feet of water. Pennards was particularly badly hit with people finding their tents floating downhill in torrents. Many poor souls had to be rescued while they watched their tents get almost completely submerged with their possessions lost or ruined - in fact 2000 people had to go home. Hundreds of others were temporarily housed in the welfare and church tents. There were some funny stories - one girl was so obsessed with chasing her bottle of vodka along a campsite torrent that she was oblivious of  all her other belongings floating away. She got the vodka though! Other people were paddling along in a canoe - what on earth made them bring that with them? Emergency supplies of wellies were brought in and on some stalls fights broke out in the haste to buy them.

The Other Stage became a mudlake and audience numbers were lower than usual

What we were dancing in probably explains my slightly pained expression...

On Saturday night (well, Sunday morning) we went to the silent disco. This is a Dutch invention, where you are given
a set of headphones to listen to the music. There are two DJ's and you tune into the one you want to listen to. It's hilarious without the headphones on, watching people freaking out to silence, or if it's something everyone knows it sounds like a very bad mass karaoke as they all sing along. Then, when you've got the headphones on you see people dancing all wrong because they are tuned in to the other channel.
Genius.

On Sunday we made an effort to break away from the bands (apart from Brian Wilson for a good old beach Boys singalong and the Wailers for a good old dance) and see the  other parts of Glastonbury properly.  We usually wander round the Greenfields, Avalon and the Stone Circle, as we did this year, but 2005 was the discovery of Lost Vagueness. Carnesky's Ghost Train (creepy), the Twisted Cabaret (hilariously brilliant), the weddings
in the Chapel of Love and Loathe, the comedy tent, all excellent and what sets
Glastonbury apart from all other festivals and why they will never match up.
We missed loads (the Midnight Carnival, invisible Circus and the Casino, even though Zane took his suit in anticipation), but roll on 2007, we'll be there!

I must just mention that my all time funniest moment was the Miniscule of Sound, the world's smallest niteclub. It holds
about six people and is complete with mirror ball, animal flock walls, bouncer and cheesey music. We danced to the rivers of babylon with four complete strangers (it was packed), you could feel the love! We couldn't stop laughing!!!