Hello, here is the festival diary that I wrote for Clash, in full rather than in installments. Just so you know, sometimes the girl in the picture is Jenny, not me.
BIRMINGHAM Pritchattsbury festival This is the first festival of the season, and we’re all a bit shaky. Fortunately it’s a very small event, on the grounds of a student union, and, being outdoors on a rainy day, ends up being not hugely attended. This is good for us, as we don’t like to rehearse much, and an unattended show before all the big festivals is useful.
Our dressing room turns out being a room in the halls of residence, in a shared dorm complex with the Rumble Strips. As we arrive they are sat around a single bed, pouring out measures of spirits. It really does feel like University. In our room, the student living there has left us his entire personality in a series of objects. There are posters of 2-pac and Biggie on the walls, alongside those for kung-fu movies. All his DVD’s are mafia based, and there is a carton of body-building protein on the shelves, and two gold medallions hung up by the window. Across from his bed is the official 2009 Girls Aloud poster. I explain to the others that, in the Viz Profanisaurus, a single bed is called a wanking chariot.
The gig, to twenty people, goes well, and we head back to the dorm room for baked potato and pizza. the organisers are sat around the student kitchen, eating toast, surrounded in a mess of tins and beer cans. We leave as Lethal Bizzle arrives in his borrowed dorm, and wonder what this would have meant to us when we were students.
GlastonburyThursday I drive to Waterloo to pick up my brother. He’s like our roadie but he rarely carries anything. His jobs range from providing a helpful party atmosphere by milling about with a drink in his hand, showing up for five seconds in videos, and giving people high fives. This weekend he will be official cameraman for the next video, by which I mean he will be filming one of our shows onto his mobile phone. It’s not a big role, but it’s important that he comes. Glastonbury was the first thing that informed my life outside of school, and now that he’s finished his A-levels I want him to have the same experience. Of course he’s a lot more urbane and adult than I was, and he’s already been last year, but still, for my own personal enjoyment, I imagine I’m passing on some kind of secret baton. My first Glastonbury happened as an accident, and the people who brought me and showed me the ropes were people who had been going so long they were now a fixture of the festival. I see them every year, and it feels like family. I want my brother to see this. My brother would very much like to meet hot girls and get drunk for four days.
On the way home, I try to get 6music on my car radio, to listen to the festival coverage. My brother explains the concept of digital radio, but I tell him my radio is only 15 years old, and it always plays Radio 4 perfectly fine, so maybe it is he who is wrong. This war with technology is significant, because I am supposed to be helping start a Twitter campaign for Wateraid this weekend, and I cannot muster the will to figure out what Twitter does, or how it’s used. Radio, though, I thought I knew. “What about this button?” I ask, pressing something and discovering an exciting new channel called Capital, which is not even from the BBC.
The news comes on my new channel that Michael Jackson has been rushed to hospital in LA. Within minutes, my phone rings. It is our best friend Dan, calling to say that Michael Jackson has died.
“How can you possibly know before the radio does?” I ask him.
“It was on Twitter,” he says.
Great, I think, Even Michael Jackson is on Twitter, and he’s dead.
FridayWe have no shows till tomorrow, so meet at a leisurely pace in a bus park in king' Cross. This is our first time on a Nightliner, and our manager has celebrated by accidentally booking a Nightliner from 1978. It smells like school trips and puberty, and I imagine the sexual confusion of many a boy scout. People keep laughing and pointing as they walk past, not least since the company logo, emblazoned on every surface of the bus, is ‘Y-Not’. To me, it might as well say 'Y'.
We have three new members starting today, two of which are girls, which makes me even happier than I thought it would. We separate the bus into boys and girls, but the boys accidentally claim the section with the bunting in it, while we have control of the fridge full of beer. Not wanting to seem old-fashioned, we stick with our areas. The conversation drifts, inevitably to Michael Jackson, and whether or not we should honour the occasion with a cover. Earth Song would obviously be the most fun, but someone else is more than likely going to do it better than us, and also we’re loathe to practice. My suggestion is to just sing his contributions to We are the World, with all the gaps in between where other people might take up the verse. It would sound something like this:
…….
‘the woooooorllldlddd”
……
“yeah we areeeeeeeee…”
We stop at Westfield to get the best of, which is, back in June 2009, still a novelty. On the way out we see Lily Allen.
"Is that your tourbus out there that says 'Y-Not'?" she giggles as she passes.
Later we discover that Lily Allen took a helicopter to Glastonbury.
Many hours later, we arrive, and disperse, with the agreement that we will all make it to all our shows tomorrow, whether or not there is a clash with a band we wanted to see. I drift in the direction of Dead Weather, listen to an exuberant Jamie T from a distance, and end the night at the Strummerville campfire, missing Neil Young for Q-tip in a sudden urge to go against type. He does not play Earth Song, and I discover that I cannot rap, not even along with someone else.
Saturday
Today is eventful. We have three shows, and then I play a solo one. We’re also filming interviews for Wateraid to make up for when I tell them I can’t use Twitter. The idea is to corner bands backstage and ask them to speak briefly about water issues, but we keep missing them. Our presenter, Dan, is also really, really drunk, having had time alone with our rider for two of the gigs while we played. When we corral Noah and the Whale into a dressing room, he insists on sitting on the drummer’s lap. At the end of our time with the Wombats, I try to emphasise the water issue by getting the singer Murph to drink from Dan’s water bottle. He spits it out. Turns out it’s gin. Murph is on antibiotics. Dan looks sheepish, but asks for his water back. We give up for the day.
Back at the bus, I decide to stay behind for Florence and the Machine, instead of joining the others for Bruce Springsteen. Sitting on top of the sky light, I watch as the crowds descend on the John Peel stage, first doubling the capacity, then appearing to triple it. She’s not even released the album yet, and people are singing along. It feels like a career-defining moment. Later I hear that her sister was stood at the side of the stage, crying all the way through. Even from my removed vantage point, I can see why. When she’s done, I head in to watch Jarvis from up close, knowing that to truly appreciate the scope of his dancing, you have to be able to see it. The night ends again at Strummerville, watching Billy Bragg and then playing a ropey, sleepy set of my own. The others have forgotten to join me, which means they’re having fun.
SundayWe have our John Peel set today. It’s our second time playing it, but it feels no less momentous. Everyone is slightly edgy, and I have the added concern that instead of highlighting the lack of hygiene in the third world, we’ve told up to two bands that every glass of water you drink has been pissed out by a dinosaur. Fortunately the set passes without a hitch, and instead of adrenaline causing the show to disappear without me noticing, I am calm, and essentially present for the whole thing. Life looks even further up when we discover several bands milling about the backstage area without anything to do. Within minutes we’ve doubled our interview count, and discovered that Just Jack can talk immediately and eloquently about water with only a second’s warning. Maybe because he is a rapper.
We’re now free for the rest of the festival, and I decide to take some alone time by heading down to watch M. Ward at the Park Stage. I like to think that I’m a fan, but every time he starts a song I raise my hands in recognition and then realise it’s not what I thought it was. Many of the times, I think it’s about to be Earth Song, and launch into the intro entirely on my own. I give up, and turn to the Pyramid stage for Nick cave. My plan is to find the others, but realising that I’ll never locate the flag that is next to the chair, settle for a clear view on my own. Within minutes, I am in an argument with a man who thinks Nick Cave should be playing a smaller stage.
“This is the Mercy Seat,” I hiss, “have some respect.”
Finally, the man admits that maybe he just really likes melodic music. I’m glad he’s buckled because most of the facts I used in my argument were made up, although it’s totally possible Nick Cave has won an Oscar. I leave before the end. No Michael Bolton fan, no matter how easily convinced he is, is getting in the way of my watching Blur.
I’ve come to realise that what makes Glastonbury the festival above all festivals is that it creates moments. Everyone there, from the bands to the punters to the people sucking up the shit have been gearing towards this for months. This weekend, all that preparation comes together, whether you were ready for it or not. And when you share this with as many people as are around you in a crowd, you cannot help but feel a sense of the historic. Tonight, finally meeting up with the people I care about to watch Blur, it feels like the biggest moment of all. I scream like a teenager, pausing only to yell in the ear of an acquaintance, who disappears very soon after, that Graham Coxon is literally music. Later we find out that while the screens have made it look like he played one solo on his back, he actually spent most of the show that way. I remember watching them once when I was 15, but that was nothing. It is instantly one of the best shows I've seen.
We drink on the move, and wake up at 6am in London, unsure if our wristbands will get us on the tube.
Galway Arts FestivalThis is a total headfuck. I’ve spent the last two weeks in Asia playing solo shows, and the combination of jetlag and culture shock gets to me. I spend the day wandering the streets of Galway, which is beautiful, but overwhelming with its buskers and street artists. There is a man with a juggling ball offering free physics lessons, a performer whose act seems to consist entirely of jazz hands, and then there are many, many singer-songwriters. We find out that artists and musicians don’t pay tax in Ireland, which accounts for the surfeit of entertainers, and also why Bono looks so smug. The set is a total whirl. We stay in a flat owned by the venue, and the boys are elicited by American girls pertaining to have an interest in harmoniums. Nobody is that interested in Harmoniums, I tell them. The next day we wake up to a twelve-hour van journey to Latitude, via the Snowdonia mountains. It’s breathtaking, but I am exhausted and desperate for something familiar. In the end, they let me off in Birmingham and I take the train back to London, reasoning that waking up in my own city will be worth the extra journey tomorrow.
LatitudeWe have a show in London tomorrow, so Latitude is supposed to be in and out. however, because it’s one of our favourites, we negotiate a bit of time before and after the gig. I spend the time before in the catering tent, filling myself with food that is neither from a motorway service station or Marks and Spencers, and telling anyone who will listen that I saw Vivienne Westwood on the train, in the standard carriage, with all the normal people. No one is that impressed by my story, which I find uncivilised.
After feeding, we wait in the dressing room area. Mika is performing a one-off acoustic set before us and there is entourage everywhere, making special Mika hats and filling things with confetti. I have a suspicion that we will be late on stage. Also that some of the audience will be distracted. Thankfully, I’m only a bit right. we are ten minutes late and have to cut some songs from the set, but the crowd is here for us, and most of the leftover Mika fans are in grouped in a corner, waiting for him to sign things. When our set is done I climb down into the arena to find my friends, and someone comes up to me with pen and paper.
“Do you want an autograph?” I ask.
“Yes, please,” he says, “from Mika.”
We stay for another half hour, long enough to celebrate two years as a band. Latitude 2007 was the first time Tom and Euan and I played together, with the others coming very soon after, and we count it as our first show. Tom is now writing an album with his band Three Trapped Tigers, and tomorrow will be his last. We make cocktails out of a watering can from the production office, and I give him a a gift and a long note, which doesn't say enough, but which he promises to open tomorrow.
Inditracks First gig without Tom, and while we have a replacement in my friend Glenn from University, we forgot to tell him about this gig, so we’re going to do it without keys. I drive behind the others, knowing that their plan to go straight to Secret Garden Party is not going to work with my new initiative of never camping again. Halfway up the M1, we are caught in some traffic that doesn’t seem to let up. we sit in it for twenty minutes, as a standstill, then people start getting out of their cars. I am halfway through the first chapter of my book when Euan knocks on my window.
“There are helicopters ahead of us,” he says, lighting a cigarette, “and they’ve closed the road behind us.” We must have caught the accident just as it happened, because we stay for an hour in this position, me reading at my steering wheel, the boys chasing each other around the fast lane. People are leaning against their cars, talking to each other, cancelling plans. We wonder if we’ll make the gig.
Half an hour from stage time, things start moving slowly again. Because we’re headlining our stage, it doesn’t technically matter if we’re late so it’s not a disaster, but by this time I'm annoyed because of the stopping and starting, and because i really need the toilet. Suddenly, the traffic starts flowing, as though it's reached catharsis. I look up and see the crash site, pieces of car being lifted onto a police truck. Suddenly, I'm no longer annoyed.
We arrive at the festival only forty minutes late, and go straight from car to stage. Blitz spirit prevails and it’s a good show. I omit MIA, our song about a car crash, from the set, but make a joke about death on the motorway. Someone shouts, ‘have respect for the dead.’ It’s a good heckle. Afterwards, we try and think of ways the people in the car might have survived, still making nervous jokes, then split off, sorry that we missed most of what looked like a fun festival. Euan heads to Truckfest, where his band Younghusband are playing, me for home and the others for Secret Garden Party. A late, careful drive.
SGPThe last time I went to Secret Garden Party was not for a performance. It was on a whim with two of my friends and the morning after we arrived, I woke to find one of them attached to my steering wheel by her handbag, counting little purple animals that weren’t there. Since then I’ve had an idea of this festival as one where you can leave someone for five minutes and return to find her face down on the ground with a group of half-sentient strangers. As a result, I am apprehensive about playing. I know this festival as a fun factory, a place where you can dress up and indulge your urges to act like a kid, and I wonder where watching music factors into all this.
Turns out, I needn’t have worried. The festival has grown and become more organised since I was here. it’s won an award for the best small festival, and it’s streamlined its activities to work alongside the music. People are still having a lot of fun, but it’s less chaotic. we wander around the site for an hour and find people engaged in groups. Some are making a communal fruit salad, some playing giant jenga. Some people are wheeling each other about in wheelbarrows, some are having mudfights. There is a sense of the communal and of being in a giant dress-up box. I can see why people love it here. We stop in a tea tent and catch a couple of songs from Alessi’s Ark, which is lovely. Then we play a set of our own to a crowd made almost entirely of people we’ve made things or been to school with, our new keyboard player Glenn’s first time playing with anyone but me. He is amazing. Later on that night I am sent a picture from the band, who have stayed behind. It is of Glenn, naked except for shorts and a towel and soaking wet in the middle of the night. He was supposed to be coming home straight after the set, but instead stayed behind and jumped in the lake. "I think it was my initiation," he tells me later.
(glenn at his first gig)
Kendall CallingI arrive at Kendall Calling bursting with excitement. We’re sharing a dressing room with Rumble Strips again, and I cannot wait to tell them that I heard one of their songs in the climax of 17 Again, starring Matthew Perry.
“I heard your song in the climax of 17 Again, starring Matthew Perry,” I tell Charlie, the singer, as he comes offstage.
He seems only slightly interested, preferring instead to talk about things like music, and making albums. Clearly, he cares for the teen movie body swap genre less than I do.
We don’t have a lot of time between arriving and going onstage today, and because of the distance from home, we won’t have a lot of time after. The set goes by quickly, and is uneventful. We watch some of Noah and the Whale, who seem to be getting better every festival, and share a cup of tea with a friend from Kendall. At the dressing rooms there is a rumour that Idlewild have cancelled, so I offer my services as a rapper. I’m pretty sure they would have accepted, had Idlewild not shown up after all.
Three more festivals, and then we are done
Photos from the festivals that came after:
Kyle at the Sounddesk at Big Chill
Glenn being the Danny Devito character in Twins
Baby Parton's First Shoutout, Green Man
After the last band show of the summer
Climate Camp (taken by Francesca Perry)