Glastonbury

Cider , Sun , Friends , Fun , Music , Dancing , 5 days of utter escapism

BLISS

Glastonbury was a great year with a huge variety of acts. The toilets by us (just up from kids field) were cleaned 5 times a day and were excellent. Water was a reasonable £1- £2. Massive Attack played loads of new awesome songs. The new Trash City field was a great place to dance 'til the wee small hours. Paying £10 for a half hour massage in the Healing Field topped it for me. Amy Winehouse sounded like she was singing from a song sheet. Mind you, she did pack a punch!! Surprised i can remember this much and looking forward to seeing you all next year!

As a general review of Glasto 2008, it just seemed to have been run better, offering more and more, at every nook and cranny you ventured to. Maybe this was because the weather was better and it was easier to get around, maybe I was just in a different frame of mind than previous years and searched for something more. I thought Kings of Leon put on a fantastic gig which really settled me into the whole thing, and waking up in time to wonder down to the pyrimad stage to see Crowded House play there anthems to a pack crowd, willing the security guards to get involved, before orchestrating a Mexican wave from the back of the crowd to the front. This was a gig with the sun breaking out that set me off for a day of pure chilled out bliss. Wandering around and finding unknown bands like Flipron pumping out there comical, and brilliant tunes... "We've been lusting here for days.. In this funky pungent haize" is a line that will stay with me for quite some time.. Especially if I find myself lusting away for days!

Then random sights like a mechanical drummer, or a spaced out revealer up to god only knows what, or relaxing at stone circle watching the sun go down on another day, knowing that this is the cue for further madness. What kind of madness, we'll that depends on what your looking for.. .but I for one found what I wanted.

Good stuff Glasto... WE LOVE YOU!!!

Glastonbury has a great atmosphere, loads of things to do all day and all night.

No separate arena area. Geographically, it's a varied area and can be tiring getting from one place to another. Recommended for anyone of any age.

Just the best festival around! So organised... sunshine.... the most amazing music... my favourites were: Jay-Z, Hilltop Hoods, Crowded house, Sam Sparro, Mark Ronson, Amy WInehouse, Fun loving criminals, Pete Doherty, Duffy, Neil Diamond, Estelle, The Verve.... many more... I could go on! Really, I could! Oh do not forget that this year we had showers.... What a difference a clean me can do for my spirit! Great atmosphere... Just a whole heap of music loving, fun loving & spontaneous people! Wish it wasn't over! Next year... every year to come!

My legs & thighs got a mega work out... ridiculous dancing in wellies but really worth it! Was a bit difficult deciding who to go see as there were a few on at the same time!

Worth every penny I spent there! Awesome with a capital O!

2005 was my first Glastonbury and was absolutely quality. The rain and the mud certainly did not spoil the vibe, Kasabian and Coldplay were brilliant but the highlights for me had to be Bassment Jaxx causing havoc on the Pyramid Stage and an outstanding performance from The White Stripes. Absolutely gutted I'm not going this year but I'll certainly be tuning in to watch it on the telly as there's so many amazing bands on!!

Glastonbury 2005 was my first Glasto, and I thought it was amazing. Despite the biblical style flood and subsequent mud from the Friday, I still had an excellent time, and will try to go every year for the foreseeable future.

Although I can't compare it to previous years, the new dance village was great, with different stages to cater for different types of dance music, and many chill out areas with funky lighting etc. The glade was also good to go to after hours, for it's chilled out atmosphere and underground music.

I would recommend Glastonbury to everyone, but if you'd really hate getting dirty for a whole weekend don't bother. Having said that I thought I'd have a crisis without my hair straighteners for 5 days, but once I got there I couldn't care less!

This year was my second to Glastonbury and I am now hooked and will be coming back (yes from NZ) to go to as many as I can. Yes we had to walk with our gear to our campsite, but with 130,000 people you can't expect to just drive into the gates and pitch your tent!! The attitude of nearly all people was amazing (apart from people who go there to whinge). I can't get over the amount of times we heard people ringing others to tell them that they had found their phone and where could they meet up to let them have it back!! Fantastic! The she-pees were a great addition to this year making it even easier for women to get to a toilet when needed!! The bands were all fabulous that I saw; even after treking thru mud to get to them! The sunrise on the friday morning at the stone circle had us all hoping for a great day but it didn't last long and we were running for cover and hot drinks! This year I took a friend who absolutely hates music festivals and thought there would be 'nothing there for her', well I am proud to say she loved it and was amazed at how there is something for eveybody, young and old alike, even families. All you need is a good attitude and you couldn't have anything other than a good time!!

Glastonbury is very good, all around action even though I passed out on Wednesday night. LOL, it's fun. I think everyone should go, I recommend it

I have been to Glastonbury once and once was more than enough! I'm a festival veteran, have been to many of them both in the UK and the US and despite it's reputation, I found Glastonbury to be the worst experience of the lot.

For starters, the parking facilities on the site are MILES, and I do mean MILES from the camping, so you have to load everything on your back and then wander around a massive space trying to find enough room in the overcrowded camp grounds to put up your tent and god help you if the only spots you can find are near the toilets....If you actually bring any food or drink with you, it's likely you'll have to make more than one trip to your car which can take a couple of hours all told.

Next, the campsites, so crowded that it's incredibly easy to lose your tent in the masses of people. Or simply to have your tent and all its contents stolen (TIP: Don't take ANYTHING you don't feel comfortable leaving in a large field unsupervised and do try to pitch your tent near a tree, or other defining landmark otherwise it'll all be over in the dark). It's all very poorly lit so that at the end of the night you find yourself tripping over and knocking down other people's shelters in order to get back to your own. Because everyone is so crammed in, we had a very hard time getting any sleep whatsoever as we managed to get ourselves next to a LOUD group of speedfreaks who decided on the first day that they would take enough drugs to keep them awake for the duration of the festival and that if they weren't going to sleep then nobody else should either. This lasted 2 nights until somebody a good 1/4 mile away started threatening them with bodily harm if they didn't take their noise elsewhere.

And that brings us to the atmosphere. Now Glastonbury may have been friendly in the '60s and '70s but we simply found that most people were drunk or high and generally had come there to behave in ways which would not be considered acceptable or appropriate at any other time or in any other place. Furthermore, most people seemed to be there mainly for the chemical indulgence rather than for the bands which meant that even when we braved going near the front we were subjected to lots of talking through sets. That said, in the Green Fields and near the Stone Circle where the travellers and hippies congregated, things were much more pleasant and people were lovely.

On to the bands, etc. - Can't fault a thing here. We saw some amazing sets including REM, Manic Street Preachers, Mogwai, Pavement, Tindersticks, Travis, Ooberman, Mercury Rev, Doves, Blondie. We missed as many acts that we wanted to see as we actually saw because of scheduling and the distance between stages. The other entertainment including acrobatics and dance was also equally entertaining and a really good distraction.

The facilities have gotten a lot of flak, and to be fair, the toilets were repulsive and could have been cleaned more often, but there were plenty of places to fill water bottles, queues weren't awful and there was lots of choice in terms of food, and it wasn't as expensive as I expected. Beer was a terrible rip-off however. The main problem we experienced was that by Saturday the place was a rubbish tip, made worse by the people who had snuck in glass bottles, dropped them on the ground where they broke and the glass was all over the fields. There were no bins, so everything just got dropped where people stood. Nasty.

On the whole, if you're going to drink heavily and take drugs with your friends, stay up all night raving and generally misbehave then you'll probably have a great time, but if you want a MUSIC festival with a great atmosphere then save your cash and go to Reading/Leeds instead!