The fun of Glastonbury started early on Thursday, with the long trek from North London to Somerset. It actually all worked out pretty well, given the number of people wanting to all move in the same direction at the same time. We arrived at the station just after 10am, and were sat down on a moving train just after 11am. The train trundled through the countryside, and along more single-line track than I thought still existed in the UK. Eventually, we arrived at Castle Cary station, got on a bus, drove for a bit, then walked for a bit until we found base camp at around 2:30pm – which was close to the Pyramid Stage.
With rain (and therefore lots of mud) forecast for the weekend, everybody had a pair of (invariably green) wellies in preparation. But, the weather for the past few days had been dry, which meant green fields, lots of grass, and no mud – initially at least. We set off to explore the site, and immediately noticed how busy it was at such an early stage – on previous visits here, people tended to arrive late on Thursday, or even later than that. This time, the site was pretty full by the middle of Thursday afternoon, with lots of people wandering around.
First up was a quick visit to the Queens Head pub (which is of course not a real pub, but a big tent). They were advertising bands throughout the afternoon and evening (and some pretty big name bands through the rest of the festival, too). However, when we got there, they were suffering from a power cut. That meant no beer, and no bands either, so we made a quick exit elsewhere, in search of a bar which could actually serve some drinks.
We quickly found it in the Leftfield area, where there was a lovely big bar, with electricity available to help pour alcohol. There were also two stages on which bands were playing – an excellent arrangement, because it meant that there was a band on pretty much all the time. Whilst one stage had a band on, the other was being set up, so the changeover was almost immediate.
So, the first band I saw during the festival was Ox Eagle Lion Man, who I had seen a couple of months ago at the Camden Crawl. I had thought they were OK then, but that was only in a very small bar in the early evening. This time I was not as impressed – the singer seemed to specialise in being very out of tune (I thought it must have been deliberate, it is difficult to sing that badly without trying especially to do it), and also in making pathetic jokes in between songs, that even schoolkids would be ashamed to have made. They only played for 25 minutes or so, but even at the end of such a short set, it was getting pretty tedious.
Luckily the next band, The Blood Arm, were much, much better. They seemed really excited to be playing at the festival, and their set was generally excellent. They had a great mix of loud, grinding guitars, playing catchy tunes, and topped off by some very good lyrics and vocals. I recognised a couple of their songs, and by contrast with the previous band, their 40-minute set was far too short – in fact, lots of people were not happy when it ended.
Finally for this warm-up day, Fortune Drive played a brief set. I had seen them supporting Little Man Tate about a year ago, and been fairly impressed then. This time, they were even better than I remembered them – some excellent songs, played with real energy and enthusiasm, and a brilliant frontman to hold it all together. I remembered their single, catchily called My Girlfriend Is An Arsonist, and as a local Bristol band, they had a good crowd at the front of the stage, supporting them. A very impressive set, and a few of my friends were also sold on them for the first time.
That was all for my band watching on this pre-festival day. The bands carried on in the Leftfield (and probably re-started in the Queens Head, when they got the electricity back). We continued our wander around the festival site, and shortly afterwards, we ran into the pear cider stall. The day then all went downhill fairly rapidly from there!!
No comments:
Post a Comment