Thursday, July 30, 2015

Glastonbury Festival 2015

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Oh Glastonbury, you got me again.  I thought this second visit would be so much easier than the first - we were staying inside the festival in a tipi, some of my favorite bands were playing (even headlining!)  and having been there before we were old pros. We even knew where the secret piano bar was.  But guess what?  It still went by in a flash, and we still didn't get around to everything we wanted to do.  I  now realize that is completely impossible and one of the maddening yet enchanting thing about the festival.  You are going to miss 95% of it no matter what you do.  It's all about choices, and it definitely keeps you coming back for more.
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The tipi thing worked out really well.  There were clean compost toilets, showers, a fire pit and a cafe, and we had a lovely huge tipi to enjoy.  It was pretty noisy, with music coming at us from about six different locations during waking hours Friday-Sunday (including a never ending drum circle in the Tipi Field next door.)  The hour-long lines for showers were also inconvenient, but at least there were showers.  I just don't think I could do the whole five days without them. Between the mud, all the walking and the fact that there's no better way to revive when you're hungover or tired, that is a necessity for me. We missed some things about our posh campsite last year - namely the lovely people running it, parking close to the tent and the real double bed we slept on, but the prime location of the tipis made up for a lot of that.
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The benefits of being inside the festival were only slightly offset by the misery of having to carry our belongings all the way across the site from Gate D to the tipi field without a backpack or a cart.  That was kind of our own fault though.  Would you go on a three mile uphill hike with two overweight, sagging duffel bags?  Don't answer that.  We ate all our meals in the festival this year, but there was a lot of turnover in the food vendors - and sadly many of the ones I enjoyed last year were missing.  I was also chagrined to notice the prices went up by about a pound across the board, so most meals/sandwiches, etc. were around 8-12 pounds, or about 13-18 bucks a meal.  Seeing as I ate only one real meal every day it wasn't terrible, but when your one meal isn't very good it's a bit of drag.
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We did try that Tabun pizza, and it was the best thing we had.  Tied for second were the lobster dripping in herb butter, and the raclette - both down by the Pyramid Stage. The lobster stall was a little overwhelmed, but when I finally got my lobster it was almost worth the crazy long wait.  On the plus side of the wait, met and chatted with the guys who do the visuals for Flying Lotus - one of them even chivalrously gave me his lobster when mine came out looking scrawny and I sent it back. (Picky? Who, me?)  The raclette boys had the whole set up - broiling the wheel of cheese under a heater and then scraping it off onto little paper boats filled with new potatoes, bacon and pickles. (Pro tip: get it with the fries instead of new potatoes.)  I would have pictures and even a video of that for you, but I managed to lock myself out of my phone and lost all of my pictures from Wednesday and Thursday when I had to restart it as a new phone on Friday (which was not easy in a remote location like that, let me tell you!)
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My music highlight this year was definitely Florence and the Machine.  She stepped up to the headline slot at the last minute when planned Friday headliners Foo Fighters had to cancel because of Dave Grohl's broken leg.  She absolutely killed it - I almost didn't go because I was by myself, but I am so glad I did. Her cover of Times Like These by the Foo Fighters was the perfect homage. I got as close as I possibly could and I've never been at a show with more energy and enthusiasm.  I loved it so much I bought tickets for her show here in October as soon as I got home.
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I was committed to changing it up and getting around to as many new experiences as possible this year, and going in the "back" of the Rabbit Hole was close to the top of this list.  We went on Thursday since we figured the lines were only going to get longer throughout the weekend.  When you finally get to the front, they usher you through a thigh high door into a room decorated Alice in Wonderland style, where they ask you riddles, spin you around and generally just try to disorient you as much as possible before sending you through a lighted tunnel to a tented dance club area - there is a little outdoor space and a second smaller tented area too with a live band. Adjacent to this is an even more exclusive "VIP" area with a central outdoor fireplace and live music -  it was rumored there was a hot tub back there this year too.
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The Rabbit Hole seemed a lot more crowded this year - Since it's tucked up at the top of the Park I think in years past a lot of people didn't make it all the way there, but that seemed to have changed.  We were there for the "Secret Massive Finale" (below) - which was Mark Ronson doing a DJ set.  I also made it to see Fatboy Slim in Silver Hayes this year - a lot of people complained about the venue being dangerously overcrowded, but we were kind of off to the side and didn't notice any problems.  Arcadia was also pretty spectacular this year with their newly added baby spiders, and one of my festival highlights was seeing The Age of Glass at the Bimble Inn at 1 AM on Monday. (Can you tell I spent quite a bit of time enjoying the nightlife this year?)
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I did still manage to get around to a few daytime sets including Alt J, where we discovered the joy of  a lazy afternoon up on the hill surrounding the Pyramid.  The sound is really surprisingly good up there.  We were right in front of people's tents - must be an interesting experience to have that view all weekend.  We missed Lionel Ritchie in the Sunday "Legends" slot - he drew the largest crowd of the weekend just like Dolly Parton last year. We opted for a catered Sunday lunch at the Deluxe Diner in Shangri La instead, but I caught some of Lionel on the taped coverage. It looked like he put on a good show and was tickled by the fantastic reception from the crowd.  I also heard but did not see the Dalai Lama's Sunday morning speech. Another side benefit of being in a tipi, we were close enough to the Green Fields to wake up to it coming through over the loudspeaker.
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We found the piano bar - which wasn't very difficult at all.  All day Wednesday and Thursday you could see and hear them building it, just off to the side of the Kings Meadow (Stone Circle) - people wandered through during the day and played the piano occasionally - I tried to go Saturday morning but we were deterred by the huge line - it only holds about 30 people.  Also new this year, a couple had set up two tubs nearby  - one "indoor" in a tent and one outdoor with a view - offering hot seaweed baths heated by a woodfired stove. It looked interesting, but I don't know if they had very many takers.
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We closed out the weekend with the Chemical Brothers at the Other Stage on Sunday night (before going on to Arcadia, Bimble Inn and the Rabbit Hole...again...)  Though I probably missed more of the music than I should have one great thing about Glastonbury is most of the lineup is televised on the BBC - the whole thing is on TV in England and a lot of it was also uploaded to YouTube.  Since you can only be in one place at one time and you have to sleep at some point, the televised coverage is fantastic for seeing what you missed.  Of course it's not the same as being there, but in some ways it's actually better.  You can  actually see the performance and you're not standing in the rain/being trampled by the crowd/broiling in the sun, etc.  It's helped me discover a lot of bands that I might never have found otherwise like Years and Years, Future Islands, Jamie T, Jamie XX, etc. Unfortunately the BBC has marked all of their You Tube videos private now (I think they only share them for thirty days.) but many of them have been uploaded by other viewers - poke around here if you want to have a look.
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All in all, it was another amazing, exhausting, overwhelming, fantastic year.  I met some fun people (one of whom has actually turned into a real life friend - hi Helen!)  hung out with some friends from last year, and made other "friends" I'll probably never see again, but that's how the Glastonbury spirit works.  Every time you go, you have a little more experience to go on, some new areas to see, a list of bands you will probably never make it to, and (hopefully) you let yourself get carried off to something new and unexpected.  I also discovered the joys of showing the festival to people experiencing it for the first time, which might be the most fun of all.

(If you're interested, I also wrote about 2014 here, here and here.)