ANDY WEBB - GLASTONBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2002
Overview
Essentials
Not to be missed
This was my third journey to the sacred land, my first being back in 1999 and the last in 2000 where I admit to being one of the 50,000 or so fence jumpers. This year, however, amid fears that this would be the last Glastonbury if there was a repeat performance of the gatecrashing two years ago, the festival decided to fight back. Larger and sharper fences patrolled by frequent security patrols coupled with a complicated pass out system made the chances of getting in without a ticket as likely as Elvis Presley headlining the main stage.
For this year we decided to go in a van rather than tent it, so with a couple of crates of Stella, a large assortment of Heinz Beans Varieties and two digderidoos we set off...
We arrived at Glastonbury some time just after Thursday lunchtime, after being directed to the wrong place we were eventually directed to the family camper van fields (not our first choice but everyone else had appeared to arrived on Wednesday!). We had a 10 minute walk to the main Pedestrian Gate where our tickets were checked thoroughly and a colourful wrist band was rivetted to our wrists, supposedly if you lost your wrist band you would be evicted.
For those new to the Glastonbury experience, in a nutshell, it is a music and performing arts festival with music running from Friday through to Sunday evening. Most people camp inside the fences in tents or other similar structures, although there are other options: the campervan/transit, the tipi or take enough drugs to stay up for four days. There are a large variety of food stalls selling cuisine from every corner of the globe suitable for every type of dietary requirement. If you're heavily into shopping there are many clothing stalls, as well as stalls selling art, lanterns, musical instruments, plants, the lists goes one and on..
I'm not going to rant on about what we did everyday, except to say that the musical highlights were Ozric Tentacles, Eatstatic, Rolf Harris and Roger Waters on Sunday night who was simply exceptional, with surround sound speakers presenting us with helicopters passing overhead, an eerie inclusion to the sonic experience.
Essentials
If your coming to Glastonbury you'll need:
- A ticket (in days gone by a grapling hook and some rope would have sufficed but now pay your £100 its worth it)
- A tent (or campervan/transit with a campervan pass which costs £30)
- Sleeping Bag
- Lots of warm clothes (no matter how hot it gets at day it can drop to zero at night)
- Sturdy walking boots (you'll do a lot of walking)
- Money (if you're going to eat and drink)
- Torch (one that goes on your head is useful for negotiating the portaloos at night)
- Toilet Rolls
- Face/Hand wipes
- Alcohol (don't bring glass bottles, you can take in a reasonable amount as long as it looks like you're not selling
- Cigarettes (probably cheaper than inside)
- Bin Liners (useful to keep your rubbish in one place, and as mats in the nighttime
- Waterproofs (in the unlikely event that it rains)
- Flagpole and banner (useful to find your tent or people in a crowd)
- Weed and other goodies (you can probably buy inside but it'd be cheaper to invest before you go)
- Mobile (Orange have a mast and recharging stations, other networks are soon catching on)
- Spare mobile battery or phone (avoid the queues)
Not to be missed
- The dancing puppet stall (near the Jazz field)
- The Stone Circle for sunrise
- The Common Ground Cafe (cheap tasty food in a wooden built house in the Acoustic Field)
- Tequila Tent (just up from the Jazz field - just what you need to warm you up on a cold night)
- Hot mulled wine (does the same job pretty much)
- Lost Vagueness
- Brothers Pear Cider (mmmm!)
