Friday at Glasto 2017 !

 

I woke up full of excitement on the Friday, the first full day proper at any festival is always exciting, but the fact that our day was to start at 10:45am at the Pyramid Stage with Hacienda Classical had me up like a kid on Christmas morning. We had what would become our routine fry up in a café not 2 minutes walk from our tent, got our bags packed with a few ciders and our lovely gin,  and rum amaretto concoction and off we went with the sun already beating down on us, it already had the makings of an amazing day, I could just feel it.

Hacienda Classical was an unbelievable way to kick off proceedings. A well respected minutes silence was observed, conducted by Peter Hook and Rowetta. I have to say as much of a poor image that Hooky can portray or can seem to have he was nothing but pure class not only during the minutes silence but also when it was his turn to take the stage, he even replied and liked a couple of my tweets that morning. Graeme Park, Hooky and Mike Pickering need to take a bow for bringing such an amazing idea as Hacienda Classical to fruition, the music just lends itself to be played by an orchestra and before we knew it the field was bouncing. The legendary Bez made an appearance, that man has led some life dancing to the beat of his own drum, and Rowetta’s vocals on the set closer of “You Got The Love” was a fitting end to an amazing start to the day.

Next we nipped over to West Holts for a pint of Brothers and watched a bit of the Hot 8 Brass Band, who were excellent and met a lovely couple who were at their first ever Glastonbury with a 12 day old baby. They had managed to get tickets after 4 years of trying but found out they were pregnant 2 days after ticket day. They said they just played things out leading up to the birth of their beautiful baby boy and after he had made his way into the world it was the wife’s insistence that they should still do Glastonbury, as her husband said she was a trooper and I hope they had a fantastic weekend.

Next up was our first big decision of the day, go see Hobo Jones in the Avalon tent, which would have put us in proximity to go see Craig Charles Soul and Funk special in Shangri-La, or go see Dua Lipa in John Peel, pretty much the opposite corner of the festival to Shangri-La. Our heart ruled over our head and off we went to Dua Lipa. While she was undoubtedly brilliant, and will definitely grace some of the bigger stages at festivals in years to come, by the time we made it to Shangri-La after her we were ruing our decision to see her, that walk nearly broke us ! All was well though as soon as we found my brother and our friends at the Truth Stage as Craig Charles and the atmosphere was absolutely bouncing, it was amazing. My brother had certainly made the effort that day by stopping off at the face painting stall in West Holts on route to see Craig Charles, an effort that even got a photo of himself published in Glasto Feed !

It was my first experience of Craig Charles and he blew me away, some of the remixes were absolutely stunning. After watching for a bit I grabbed a gin cocktail and had an explore of the weird and wonderful world of Shangri-La before heading back to the Pyramid for Royal Blood.

I don’t think we saw a bad act all day on the Friday and Royal Blood didn’t disappoint, I think the run of seeing Royal Blood, The XX and then Lorde I was watching three future Pyramid headliner as all three certainly have what it takes. It blew me away how much power Royal Blood had considering there’s only two of them, both members also oozed charisma and packed the pyramid field out, a performance that had future headliners written all over it

Up next were The XX, the band I was looking forward to the most all weekend. We cut in at the front near the corner by the Mandela Bar and next to where I stood in the crowd there was a young girl slumped forward, unconscious. Her friend was knelt next to her screaming at her to get up, The XX were about to start and the crowd was about to swarm in. Talking to the girls friend it was clear they were very young, and that drink and drugs were not involved, my wife checked the unconscious girls arm and it was limp and cold, we decided to go get a steward. A couple of guys came over to check her as we were leaving so we told them we were off to get help. In hindsight I wish Id have just helped her out the crowd with the guys as by the time we got back with a steward we couldn’t find her, the crowds had swarmed as The XX kicked off their set with Intro. I was upset and shaken, it took my until near the end of The XX’s set to calm down worrying whether she’d made it out ok. I was also very, very angry, angry at the amount of people who had walked past her and sniggered, or pointed and laughed, even the people stood in front of us while we were assessing the situation were turning round and laughing. So please if you ever see someone in a bad situation, don’t just assume they are wasted or out of it, check to see if they need help, it might be the best thing you do all weekend. It took me until Fiction for me to pull myself together and the end run of The XX was superb, Loud Places with being out of this world.

Then it was off to the Other Stage to see Lorde and she didn’t disappoint, she was definitely the best act I saw all day. Amazing staging, voice, dance moves, charisma and likeability, she had it all. Her new album “Melodrama” is absolutely stunning and I was pleased when The Louvre and Supercut got an outing in the setlist, Supercut is an unbelievable track live, but it had nothing on set closer Green Light which had the crowd and Lorde united as one, the rush of euphoria during that song took my breath away, it was an amazing moment.

 

Then it was off to our first headliner of the weekend. Radiohead ! We had made a conscious decision to see all of Lorde and miss the start of Radiohead’s set and I’m so glad we did as we arrived 10 songs it during Let Down and up until Street Spirit I found it a very difficult set to get into. As much as I knew seeing Radiohead at Glastonbury was a moment not to be missed the main set was definitely for die hard fans only, I may have ended up leaving if Id have been there from the start, I actually know people who did.

That being said Street Spirit and then the encores were a triumph for casual fans like myself, hearing songs like No Suprises, Fake Plastic Trees and especially Creep were a joy to behold, absolutely mind blowing. I’m a fan of raw music and find the older, guitar driven Radiohead of old much more to my liking. As we walked off from the Pyramid during Karma Police I was very happy that id seen them.

We wandered over to Arcadia and made it in time for the Metamorphosis show. It was my first time seeing it in person and if you’ve never seen it I would recommend leaving a headliner early one year to go, it was a stunning spectacle in not only what that construction can do but also in performing arts. We ended the night after that with a cold cider by The Glade before the heavens opened and we decided to call it a night, ready to get up early for The Bootleg Beatles to open the Pyramid, what a day !