As summer prepares to do its disappearing act for another year, it’s time to take stock and recall your fondest memories of the season. Decry and protest what I’m about to say all you want, but I’m willing to bet that, for any honest person over the age of around 30, it wasn’t camping at Glastonbury.
There comes a time in every man and woman’s life when flat sandals and/or wellington boots play havoc with your fallen arches, decent bathroom facilities are a right, not an option and the constant rumble of Bolivian drummers is anathema to those who crave a good night’s sleep. So why do so many people who really should know better still insist, year after year, on grimly undertaking to endure the whole festival debacle, including running away from home to be there?
“But it’s a wonderful experience for the kids!”, they cry, as they punch the Charlton Park postcode into the Skoda Roomster’s TomTom. But come 17, those kids will (we hope) be going it alone and creating their own festival memories anyway, just as their parents once did (or maybe didn’t, hence the desperation to recapture their youth today). And unless those parents are happy about setting their kids up for years of therapy, their memories are unlikely to involve mum’s ‘Lady J’ (if you don’t know but really want to, Google it) or dad’s inability to erect his double-skin Outdoor Revolution. “But a day ticket is a cop-out!”, the Skoda family wail. Yeah, right; if you’re not feasting on an e-coli bap and wondering where the handy wipes went seven hours before the first decent band appears on stage, you’re merely a festival tourist. It seems that those old enough to remember the Beastie Boys in their earliest incarnation still believe that unless you fight for the right to party, you’ve no right to be on site. Oh, they have no idea what they’re missing...
When Jarvis Cocker took to the Glastonbury stage in 1995 and sang the opening line to ‘Sorted for E’s and Whiz’ (“is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel?”), the crowd went wild - so wild that they missed the punchline. Much later on, I got in the car and drove home - yes, home: where the heart, the bathroom and the bed is - to have a long soak, a dreamy sleep and plan for tomorrow’s posh picnic. The next day I returned to the site refreshed, revitalised and all ready to pick my way over the casualties - some of whom with confused, miserable small children in tow - who seemed to have left an important part of their brain somewhere in a field in Pilton. Oh, how I pitied the poor fools!
Since my initial (dreadful!) Glastonbury Festival camping experience decades before, I’d vowed never to do it again. Decades on, and I refuse to go back on my word. Glasto, V and Download; WOMAD, Roskilde, Les Eurockennes - my fond recollections of the music, the atmosphere and the zeitgeist of the day are punctuated with memories of hotels ranging from the East Midlands Travelodge to the Hotel Ambassadeur in Belfort. Are my experiences any less authentic than those who gambled with trench foot, ‘holiday’ tummy or donating their entire temporary abode to ruthless thieves? Is a nightcap enjoyed at a warm, snug bar more or less of a ‘festival high’ than a dodgy tab pushed at me by some mashed up bloke from Camden Town? And psst: wouldn’t you really much rather have watched Blur from the comfort of your own sofa?
Come on, admit it: you had your fill of E’s and whiz twenty years ago; these days, a cup of tea, a hot bath and a nice clean duvet is what really gets you through the night. And kids, pay heed: this is indeed the way the future’s meant to feel.
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