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Is this the weakest line up ever for Glastonbury?


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40 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I DO remember Reading '83 though, because I taped SRV when they played his set again on Radio 1.

 

Strange, I was at reading in 83 and I don't remember seeing you there :) Mind you, if you ended up in thames valley police station afterwards trying to identify all the stuff that was nicked, then maybe I did! 

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14 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Strange, I was at reading in 83 and I don't remember seeing you there :) Mind you, if you ended up in thames valley police station afterwards trying to identify all the stuff that was nicked, then maybe I did! 

There was probably a curtain of p***-filled plastic bottles between us....

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Glastonbury's never appealed to me, but I love a festival.  Ideally one with hotel rooms nearby (and having to camp at Glasto is one of my key reasons for not being interested). 

It slightly saddens me (in a fairly disinterested way - I've never been) that it's gone from being a few fields full of music loving hippies who were there to see some bands to being an "experience" available only to those with high limits on their credit cards who lurk on the website ready to snap up their tickets as soon as they go on sale, and who are there to show off that they're going rather than actually being music fans.  the BBC's annual "you poor viewers at home aren't as cool as everybody here, we're brilliant" coverage doesn't help.  Most of the music isn't really my thing, but that's no reason to hate the line up, I'm sure some people will like it.  Just as I'm sure that nobody with a ticket cares in the slightest who is playing, as long as they can bore everybody about how amazing it is to be there.  And (to steal a line from a drummer mate of mine who got sick of overhearing it in his local every year after festival season and would tell them all what he thought of their showing off) their claims to being music fans would be taken a lot more seriously if they actually spend a fiver and went to see new bands at the Dog & Duck rather than dropping several hundred quid for one annual event and then doing nothing to support live music the rest of the year.

I'm sure there are plenty of actual music fans there...but the coverage and interviews with the crowd always seems to be about showing off that they are there

I dunno, maybe it's ageing, and hating the pesky kids who ruin it for everybody else.  I used to go to the Reading festival most years for about a decade after the millennium, and saw the transition from it being a rock festival compared to Glastonbury, with Metal Sunday and the punk tent every year, to a run of the mill pop festival that is full of kids running around with little interest in the music, excited to be at their first festival without the parents (and in fact a mate of mine's 17 year old went last year for exactly that right-of-passage reason).

I tend to pick festivals that I know will be fun regardless of who's playing, albeit ones where whoever is playing will be within the venn diagram of what I like.  I remember going to Download two years ago and being somewhat underwhelmed by the headliners and bands at the top of the bill, and because of that seeing loads of brilliant bands that would have escaped my attention if I'd been glued to the main stage all weekend.

So either go or don't go, don't complain about the line up.  Nothing worse than being with a mate who keeps droning on about how poor the line up is this year...I speak from experience... 

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9 minutes ago, Monkey Steve said:

So either go or don't go, don't complain about the line up.  Nothing worse than being with a mate who keeps droning on about how poor the line up is this year...I speak from experience...

Bring back proper festival toilets, then no-one complains about the music.

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2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

There was probably a curtain of p***-filled plastic bottles between us....

True. It was an odd event. And so hot that year too, but to be fair, I didn't remember much of the music as I had gone with a girl who was not yet my girlfriend but would be by the time we got back.

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2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Bring back proper festival toilets, then no-one complains about the music.

part of my hating of camping at festivals was Day 3 of Reading, where you had to walk through the campsite to get to the main entrance, and it just smelled like an open sewer.  As did half the campers...

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2 hours ago, Monkey Steve said:

Glastonbury's never appealed to me, but I love a festival.  Ideally one with hotel rooms nearby (and having to camp at Glasto is one of my key reasons for not being interested). 

I must admit that is the reason I wouldn't go now. It is great to go to a festival and camp somewhere when you are a teenager and live at home, it just sucks when you have to worry about whether your back is going to hurt the next day!

 

2 hours ago, Monkey Steve said:

  Just as I'm sure that nobody with a ticket cares in the slightest who is playing, as long as they can bore everybody about how amazing it is to be there.

Sounds a bit like reverse elitism though. I went 3 years and didn't care in the slightest who was playing. Why should it be different now. Ok, it was a lot cheaper then.

 

2 hours ago, Monkey Steve said:

I dunno, maybe it's ageing, and hating the pesky kids who ruin it for everybody else.  I used to go to the Reading festival most years for about a decade after the millennium, and saw the transition from it being a rock festival compared to Glastonbury, with Metal Sunday and the punk tent every year, to a run of the mill pop festival that is full of kids running around with little interest in the music, excited to be at their first festival without the parents (and in fact a mate of mine's 17 year old went last year for exactly that right-of-passage reason).

So you saw the transition of being a kid running round being excited to be at a festival without your parents to someone older who could look down on them? :D

I can't complain about that. I went to reading at 18, it was great, I was excited to be at a festival without my parents getting off with some girl. If that is what they are doing now, it seems like a good use of their time.

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13 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I went to reading at 18, it was great, I was excited to be at a festival without my parents getting off with some girl. If that is what they are doing now, it seems like a good use of their time.

The potential for errors in parsing that sentence is not negligible. Possibly add a comma after 'parents'?

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On 10/05/2019 at 17:36, YouMa said:

You can create your own Glastonbury festival at home. Pitch a tent in your garden,put on radio 6 Then get whizzed and stoned out of your mind. Don't forget to steal your own shoes and urinate  up the side of your tent.

Don't forget to give your lawn a damned good soaking with a hose for 24 hours before hand.

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  • 1 month later...

I guess the booking can be a real challenge, maybe the bands they wanted were unavailable

We host Summerfest here in Milwaukee, an 11 day event with 12 headliner main stages including The American Family Amphitheatre. There's so many bands you'd be hard pressed not to find a couple you like. 

 

$17.00 per day and $7.00 a day for Seniors like me. If you want to avoid the traffic and parking there are shuttles to the grounds in all surrounding counties. $3.00 round trip for Seniors. It might actually be free for us.

We're on the stage with Lover Boy on 7/3.

Why is Glastonbury so expensive?

Blue

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32 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Why is Glastonbury so expensive?

It's all about capturing the true spirit of the 60s free festivals.

I expect diehards can choose between watching the Woodstock movie in an air-conditioned iMax cinema or on a widescreen TV with minibar in their five-star tent.

There are probably entrepreneurs who will carefully spatter your clothing with discrete traces of designer mud to prove you had an authentic experience.

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On 13/05/2019 at 18:11, fleabag said:

I only went to Glasto once.  It was a free festival back then. Unbelievably laid back. You could amble without trauma upto the main stage ( there was only one ) watch an unknown band widdle away , wander off to one of the suspect choc cookie sellers, wander off to the beer seller,  flop down on the grass, and generally float.  Happy days.

Once it became a paid festy, i stopped going.  I also went to a couple of other free festies, one being Watchfield and the other was Windsor.  Windsor was a tad more manic then Glasto, as it was a much bigger festy,  but nothing like the asbo filled horror of paid festivals these days.

I cant remember if Knebworth was a pay festival ... anyone ?  I was at the Floyd one

Same here, used to go to Glasto (and Stonehenge the week before) when they were free festivals. Saw lots of bands, only ones I can remember (for various reasons) are Here & Now, also Steve Hillage and Nik Turner's Sphynx at Deeply Vale.

The list of 'who's on at Glastonbury' is lost on me, the only one I've heard of is Kylie, and that's only because she was on a TV show I worked on 30 years ago!

There is a festival that has the atmosphere of the free festivals in Kent (Summer of Love party, known as SoL) at the beginning of August (though you have to pay, so not really free - but the money pays for the bands, sound crew, etc) and they have good bands, including Edgar Broughton this year (as mentioned a couple of pages ago), as well as Here & Now and one or two West Coast legends. Modesty forbids me to reveal who is headlining for the second year running, though ;) 

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1 hour ago, taunton-hobbit said:

The history of the business side of Glastonbury makes interesting reading

- I spent a couple of days reading up on ME & his business learning curve.......

I'll leave this one here - read & learn, read & learn..........

😎

Actually that does sound interesting - links to reference material please 🙂

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3 hours ago, FinnDave said:

Same here, used to go to Glasto (and Stonehenge the week before) when they were free festivals. Saw lots of bands, only ones I can remember (for various reasons) are Here & Now, also Steve Hillage and Nik Turner's Sphynx at Deeply Vale.

The list of 'who's on at Glastonbury' is lost on me, the only one I've heard of is Kylie, and that's only because she was on a TV show I worked on 30 years ago!

There is a festival that has the atmosphere of the free festivals in Kent (Summer of Love party, known as SoL) at the beginning of August (though you have to pay, so not really free - but the money pays for the bands, sound crew, etc) and they have good bands, including Edgar Broughton this year (as mentioned a couple of pages ago), as well as Here & Now and one or two West Coast legends. Modesty forbids me to reveal who is headlining for the second year running, though ;) 

Definately remember Here & Now. They were a popular crew,  also Hawkwind seemed to be at every festival back then. Also managed to get to Stonehenge , which i forgot about -

i wonder why ?

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1 minute ago, fleabag said:

Definately remember Here & Now. They were a popular crew,  also Hawkwind seemed to be at every festival back then. Also managed to get to Stonehenge , which i forgot about -

i wonder why ?

Can't begin to imagine what might have caused that lapse in your memory. I'm sure I don't have any - I'd remember them if I did!

Here & Now were great - an still going! I've not seen them for about 40 years, but we're on the same stage as them in Kent - that's going to be an interesting experience!

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5 hours ago, Richard R said:

Actually that does sound interesting - links to reference material please 🙂

I started with something like 'Glastonbury, business model' and went from there --a side issue relating to Mean Fiddler is well worth the time - given patience one can follow the thing from the 'hippie dream'and the creation of what we see today - be warned, it's a long read..........

😎

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You have to be really organised to get a Glastonbury ticket now - who wants to go to a festival full of really organised people? 

Keen to avoid 'better in my day' - but never remember anyone giving a sh*t about the line up. Everyone was generally only bothered about the weather, and drugs.

Edited by Drax
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