Glastonbury 2011: The Review

Glastonbury 2011: The Review

29 June, 2011
by: Lowri

The doors of perception are open for business...

Gulls circle the great British landmark that is Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage as the sun rises on Friday morning. It's all still to come. You can feel the tingles of over-excitement as Thursday too quickly turns into Friday. Some of the freshest music of today will be played in these fields; music old and new, legends will play their hits, new kids will fight for their place in the annals of music history. Festival anthems will be born and carried on the breeze as the crowds learn the words that very moment. Limbs will be wildly wielded, glitter covered and bedecked in the finest of finery – even if it rains.

Glastonbury. It's undeniably one of the greatest festivals in the world. A huge temporary city with streets that are rebuilt in identical fashion year on year, the memories of millions intact and threaded through the site, mingled and faded, but pulsing. Standing still as the crowds stream past your amazed eyes: there is no other place - or feeling - like it. It's dazzling, overwhelming, exciting. This festival offers a different experience for every single one of the 175,000 whose footfall churn up her pastures every year. No one has the same four days – indeed every hour that elapses marks the passing of hundreds of unrepeatable musical experiences you have missed. Go with the flow, it matters not.

There are many ways to do Glastonbury. People come with kids, with their mates, alone, with nothing, with everything and the kitchen sink. Running from one timetabled gig to another, missing the magic as you run past with your head down, is not the way I find it possible to roll in this chaos. The perimeter fence is 8 miles long. It contains (virtually) every genre known to man, an array of foodstuffs, an expression of pretty much every scene. It inspires a galaxy of emotions over it's five day duration. Elation, despair, euphoria, satisfaction. This living, breathing temporary community contains boroughs you'll never visit, has its own tides, its own rush hour. It has nightclubs, hotels, circuses, an unfair ground, a once-sacred stone circle. There are pastures and urban sprawls. There's the hellish downtown area which turns into a gridlock frequently and features the boisturous barging of a few demographics I will not name and shame here ('lads on tour'). There are the hippies, the freaks, the ravers, the glamour-pusses, the celebs, the chavs, the kids, the crusties, the old festival veterans. Everyone is dressed – so much effort – even in the mud. Even when temperatures exceed 30 on Sunday - leading me to cringe in the shade of a rubbish bin amongst the discarded plates – still the glitterati strut, seemingly immune to heat-stroke; rocking lycra catsuits, corsets, sequin bodices.

And then there's the perfect randomness. Who knew that Friday would find us dancing in the rain to glitch hop at the centre of an open air bullring? Or that we'd commandeer a bus carriage and have a back-to-back nonsense session armed with nothing but a mega-phone and a DIY samba beat? Or that we'd stumble across N-Type Djing in a perfect replica of a London nightclub or that the whole of the True Tiger crew would rock a tiny silver dome in the sunshine. Open your ears, wander widely, sidle up to what sounds good.

The fact that Glasto is now headlined by pop stars is a bone of contention for the hardcore. It irks some people, but like it or not, the festival has been cleaved and the gap between the alternative and the swarming mainstream grows ever wider. The fact that the Radiohead 'secret gig' is attended by so many that those towards the back strain to hear the tinny sounds coming from the stage is perhaps a hint that this 'secret gig' business has gone a bit far.

Wu Tang bash out their ostentatious hip hop, with Method Man performing in his complimentary back-stage bath-robe and Rza in the coolest sunglasses ever. The audience don't quite connect; holding up their lack-lustre 'W' signs as the rappers on stage whinge about Heathrow immigration. Snoop proved last year that big hip hop can very easily not work on the Pyramid stage, especially in a rainy afternoon slot. It's good to see some gangsters fronting on a Friday afternoon but it's not a performance that stays with you. They finish with 'Gravelpit' – the only tune the audience sing along to.  

There is the unmistakable stench of distaste this year. You hear a lot of whinging as people are herded like cattle, as entrances are blocked, punters denied access to shortcuts. Partly the stinking Friday weather, partly the pop-heavy line-up and dull headliners (Coldplay – again?): people are a bit miffed. Crossing the site at 2am – rush hour – and you're greeted by the newly imposed 'one-way' system, making access to Shangri La impossible.

Arcadia's Saturday night show is definitely a mega highlight - the inspiration lifted directly from Burning Man. You can almost hear the Californication as the enormous cannons fire and the robots move their sinister hands through the sky. The UK's feather and leather crew wind and grind. Orbital play an absolute belter of DJ set, surprising everyone by going seriously hard and heavy, and finishing with Dr Who. A massive outdoor rave with a flaming stage, thousands of delighted dancers, air so warm coats are defunct, mud dried to a sticky clay: this is more like it.

Sunday is sunshine central. And Dan Mangan begins the day at The Other Stage by getting the crowd to sing 'Robots' for him – a party piece he has come to repeat which always goes down well, uniting everyone here and bringing him right to us on the barriers. His rockier, electric sound is a good move and his new material excellent ('Post-War Blues' anyone?). Sea of Bees treat The Park to a wonderful set, breaking my heart with 'The Woods'. Julie Baenziger has such a sweet, innocent, piercing voice, full of rocking, restrained emotion. Laura Marling is outstanding before Paul Simon fills the old-timer Sunday afternoon slot with a mellow set. Obviously the hits are amazing but it is a slightly underwhelming performance. And then: the contentious highlight of my weekend.

The feeling I get from seeing star as bright as Beyoncé busting on the Pyramid stage is incomparable. No matter what you think of this pop star, this is a momentous musical event. It's the excitement of being 16 again and at the gig of a mega-star, a heroine. People are screaming, crying, singing every word, trying desperately to get a glimpse of that face, that smile. And the goddess on stage is genuinely humble, genuinely awestruck by the crowd she faces. The first female to headline Glastonbury in 20 years, it is fitting that it is Beyoncé - champion of sexy independent women everywhere, the pop idol of our times - who is closing Glastonbury festival before its 2 year break.

A symbol of opulence, female success, riches, idealism, dreams coming true; no matter what you think of her and her brand of financially focussed 'feminism', the glaring evidence of her brilliance is undeniable and being waved in your face covered in gold sequins (albeit via a big screen). She glows. She bangs. She totally rocks. She's a bit like a young Tina Turner. She makes the women in the audience into girls again. She makes the girls into women. We are all under her spell, every last one of us. Shaking our muddy behinds, singing our throats hoarse, overworked Sunday legs forgotten. She makes us feel amazing. Watching her watch the crowd sing her song back to her, hundreds of thousands of us singing 'To the left, to the left; everything you own in a box to the left', and shaking our fingers, emulating that Beyoncé-branded butt-shaking sassiness without a hint of irony – the rude-girl Americanisms we mock here in the UK - is a beautiful thing. She is totally overwhelmed. “I see you ladies!” It reduces this Goddess to the ranks of normality, just for a moment.

Bask in it ladies, this feeling, it may not last. Who runs the world? Girls you say? Of course it's not true, but tonight it feels like it could be: as the girls out-sing the fellas and their champion glitters on the biggest stage at the biggest festival. Maybe, just maybe, we are getting there... As we watch a pop star absolutely at the top of her game, an incredible performer fulfilling her dream and basking in the glory of her own making, stealing our hearts, stealing the show, ripping the carpet from under Coldplay and U2's complacent feet, it's a glorious celebration of female power. Pray it won't fade away.

Lowri Clarke

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Lowri