Three things I’ve learned from my 11 years at Glastonburypublished at 11:48 British Summer Time 27 June
Mark Savage
Music correspondent, reporting from Glastonbury
The first time I went to Glastonbury, it was 2003, and I lost my fiancée in the crowd watching Radiohead’s headline set. That night, someone relieved themselves on our tent as we slept. It wasn’t an auspicious introduction.
But there’s something about it that keeps me coming back. Everywhere you turn, someone’s having the best night of their year. They might be falling in love, they might be witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime performance (Dolly Parton for me), or they might be relieving themselves on a stranger’s tent.
However you get your kicks, I guess.
This year will be my 11th Glastonbury as a journalist, and I’ve learned a few essential secrets.
Firstly, the festival runs on Haribo. Seriously, there are bags everywhere. When it gets hot, they melt into one giant mecha-Haribo.
Secondly, bands are way more relaxed doing interviews backstage than in their record company office or a TV studio. Liam Gallagher, a notoriously spiky conversationalist, once told me he liked my t-shirt on live television. Beat that, Graham Norton.
Thirdly, there is no festival like it. I know, I know. You hear that so much it become meaningless. But honestly, there’s a sense of humanity and kinship that sets it apart from the corporate blandness of the rest of the festival scene.
I think it’s because the whole event is a family affair. So many of the stages are run by generations of the same family that there’s an intimacy and sense of humour that would be impossible to manufacture.
Case in point: When Hurts played the John Peel Tent in 2011, they asked for “two dozen pictures of models” on their dressing room wall. The team dutifully got the stage crew – all hairy men of a certain age – to strip off their t-shirts and pose for a series of black and white photos. The band’s reaction is sadly unrecorded.
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