The Almighty Glastonbury Festival

Another Glastonbury down, and another head full of mixed feelings. Inside me there is a massive blog post, and I'm going to try to get it out here. I can't promise it won't be rambling.

The famous flags.

As some of you may know, 2010 was my first Glastonbury. It was a scorcher. 33 degress (hotter than Rio, we were told. Constantly). I left browned, dusted, and dazed, with a desperate need of a bed, shower, and silence. To be honest, when I left, I was glad. I needed to get away. I had arrived on the Friday and was quite literally thrown into this heaving mass of 177,000 people - it was madness. I had totally underestimated the size of the festival and what it actually was.

Glastonbury is not a music festival. It is, as it says, a festival of contemporary performing arts, which means that while there is an awful lot of music, there are also a thousand and one other things to see and do, from sculptures to yoga, to workshops to circus tents. There's no way on earth you can do this all in a weekend, and hardly any chance you can do it all from Wednesday morning to Monday morning. Certainly not if it takes you 5 hours to get through the gate.

Yes, while my first Glastonbury was last year, this year was my first Glastonbury. Oh, the mud. The mud, the mud, the mud.

One of the many rivers of mud.

After queuing in the car for coming on 2 hours (not bad!), I parked the car and dutifully joined the queue, which was already a good 90 metres long. It had rained heavily that morning (not to mention the previous days) so the ground was already good and wet, and when it started to rain again, I realised that I had managed to pack my sleeping bag on the outside of my rucksack. I don't know why. I scrambled for my anorak, wrapped it around it, and then managed to find my other rain poncho thing, throwing it over both me and my rucksack. It didn't stop raining, and we didn't move.

For 3 hours.

Over this 3 hours, my energy levels just dropped completely. Sinking slowly into mud, with the rain beginning to trickle down my neck, I was just starting to wonder if it was all really worth it when we began to stumble forward. Over the next hour, we covered the 90 metres. By midday, the couple behind me began to discuss what was going on.

Last year, said hubby, they had left home at the same time, yet by noon they were pitched, unpacked, had had a picnic, and were watching the England game (World Cup - what a joke) that started at 12. What on earth was going on this year? As we found out the next day, 110,000 people had decided to, ahem, 'skip the queue' and arrive early. Speaking to someone else on the Sunday, I found out he had arrived at 6pm on Wednesday, driven straight in, and not had a soul to queue behind for the gates. Dammit. Damn him.

So, 4 hours later, still standing in foot-deep mud, we finally got to the gate only to find another 15 minute walk, this time up a hill, in mud getting ever slushier and ever deeper. People who had brought wheelbarrows or trolleys were screwed. I had my big rucksack, a small rucksack, and a plastic bag with 16 cans of John Smiths in it. That's quite a weight, let me tell you, especially when you can put anything down because you managed to pack your sleeping bag on the outside. As I awkwardly swapped my bags front to back and side to side as my back muscles began to cave, and the plastic bag cut into my fingers, I looked around at my fellow fesitval goers, and their sorry faces. It was like something out of World at War. A sorry bunch, with ponchos over bags giving us abnormal humpbacks, steady streams of rain running off noses, mud up to our knees, cigarettes hanging out of mouths and overall enthusiasm dying rapidly. Some people were knocking back the booze - in hindsight, I probably should have done the same and lightened my load, not to mention my mind.

There we stood for another 45 minutes before finally being let in to the turnstyles. Once through, the race was on to find a decent spot. Of course, most of the good places had been taken (a huge number of people had slept in their cars on the Tuesday night), so after a good mile long walk, I found a field virtually empty, and threw down my bags. It had, thankfully, stopped raining, and there was actual grass in this field - for now. I had only eaten a sausage roll since 5.50am, and in a fit of desperation, I opened a beer. It was good.

I was in. 

View from my tent on Thursday morning. Rain and grass. One of these was to stay.

The odd thing about Glastonbury is that I seem to always leave with a sense of relief, only for the nostalgia to hit me just an hour or so later. It has to be experienced to be understood - there's no way any amout of writing can ever do it justice. It's just so massive, and I don't just mean in size. The impact, the emotions, the people - everything.

A wedding.

It's a place, as my brother so rightly put it, that can make you realise that it's not you who's got things wrong, it's the world. It's a pop-up city of 177,000 people, filled with alcohol, and yes, drugs, but where there is no violence. No fights. People live and let live. You have to leave your outside self at the gate (if you ever get there) and enter with absolutely no judgement, no preconceptions and no ideals. My greatest piece of advice would be to give up on contorl - let it control you. You have no idea where you'll be come 2am. 

That's one thing I realised after last year. I had far too many bands I wanted to see, and saw it purely as a music event.

How wrong I was. I have had to, and will still have to, learn what I want from the festival. This year, I chose a select few bands (ultimately, a very wise decision given that the mud mad it impossible to get anywhere quickly), and then promised myself I would just wander, and get lost. Those bands I saw were (in no particular order);

• Kitty, Daisy & Lewis (one of my highlights)
• Anna Calvi (another highlight)
• U2 (great to hear the hits, but somehow not amazing)
• Warpaint
• Fleet Foxes (beautiful)
• Mumford & Sons (better suited to smaller venues but made me cry. Again)
• Beardyman (genius)
• Janelle Monae
• Pulp 
• Aloe Blacc
• Chemical Brothers (a trip)
• Laura Marling (beautiful)
• Paul Simon
• Robyn

U2 in the rain.

Not that many, but more than enough. I was sad to have missed The Secret Sisters, and also missed a surprise appearance from Radiohead (although 60,000 others didn't), but other than that - I was happy.

It was, as might be clear by now, the mud that really left an indelible mark on my trip. The trip from the tent wasn't so bad - all downhill. The way back, on the other hand, now that was something else. The length of the surrounding fence is 8 miles (almost 13 km), so you can imagine the kind of trips you have to make. Even just for a bacon butty. Each step pushes more mud up your boots, which then in turns sticks more mud to it, pushing it further up, and so on, and on. I wish I had a way of weighing my boots just to see how much I was lifting with each step. On the plus side, any guilt about eating festival food (my low point was Wotsits for breakfast) vanished. I think I lost weight.

As so many have said, this is what festivals are like. I got lucky last year, and experienced the other end of the spectrum this year. I'm glad I did - honestly I am. After all, while the mud might be depressingly thick and oppressive, rain is only rain, and after 10 hours of it on Friday night, even though the rain had soaked through my anorak, my army surplus jumper, two t-shirts, a vest and my bra -  I couldn't care less. Dancing to Dizzee Rascal with a pint of lemon cider in a churned up field was probably a flashing highlight - looking up to see that no one cares. We're having fun; let it bloody rain.

Queuing for toilets in the rain.

Of course the sun did come out - twice, in fact. Once on Thursday afternoon, which lasted until Friday noon-ish, and then again Saturday afternoon, lasting until the end of the festival. It got hot, which was nice, and dried up the mud, which was a blessing.

Looking out over the site.

Polished paths cut through the drying mud on Saturday.

Once again, despite all the mud, I was struck by the differences between Glastonbury and my other festival experience, Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Granted, they're hugely different in terms of size, which of course leads to a number of immediate differences. There are two things though which I thought I'd mention. 

Roskilde's camping system is cool. It's one hell of a lot easier to navigate. See photos below.

Compared to

I know that size is an issue, but having the area block style á la Roskilde keeps things simple, and safe. 

The other thing is something I think Roskilde should learn from Glastonbury. The peeing. At Roskilde, you can be sure to see at least....20 different willies. Probably more. You'll also see a lot of girls randomly squatting for a quick wee. The place stinks of piss. Reeks. It's absolutely disgusing. Whatever you do, do not sit against a tree at Roskilde. Glastonbury has a strict no-peeing policy. There are signs all over the place, and people will give you grief if you try to pee in a hedge. Not only that, but they also have their own Green Police. The Green Police are there to make sure people treat the grounds with respect. Peeing polutes, it's as simple as that. I wish I had actual footage of someone people caught (we saw someone this year - it was brilliant), but this is what I could find on YouTube.

The idea is (as it stated in the Glastonbury guide) to humiliate you into not doing it again. It's brilliant. Roskilde - learn!

But enough comparing. As I've stated before; it's impossible.

Glastonbury left me exhausted, both physically and mentally. My muscles ache, my head is full, I have a cold, it cost a lot of money, I had to queue for absolutely everything, I sat in multiple people's pee and probably a bit of poo too, and I stood for almost 60 hours over 5 days. It's a monumental effort.

Will I be back? You bet your arse I will. Wife in tow.

See you in 2013.

John Smiths, crisps and wellies.

• Glastonbury campsite photo taken from photoblog.
• Roskilde campsite photo taken from x.dk.
• River of mud photo is taken from Glastonbury's site.