Blog ≫ 2025 ≫ Glastonbury day -1
Day minus one of Glastonbury then 1.
I was kept awake in the night, not really by the music but by loud talking of people in nearby tents. Then awoken again about 5am by the noise of rain. So then I properly got up quite early, not 5am, and it is no longer raining. Found there was a composting toilet block just round the corner from my tent in the next field, and with a big row of hand sanitiser dispensers. These were all over the site, which is great! There was quite a lot of water too, so many taps had been plumbed in all over the site. Also, on the corner of my field and at other welfaire type points there were banks of sun cream dispensers too. I could stay hydrated and topped up with sun screen at no extra cost.
I went back to Woodsies, to go to the Blue Moon cafe there for some sort of breakfast, though I wasn't hungry. This was a nice cafe tent, with rugs and cushions. It was quiet at this point, I enjoyed my coffee and had a flapjack. I said I would come back again for a coconut chai (spoiler: I did not) and a sleepy tea like we have at home (spoiler: I did).
I had not prepared fully for the day yet, was only on a breakfast mission, so headed back to the tent, just as it started to rain. Was getting quite heavy again by time I got back up the hill, so I sat in the tent preparing for the day. I would take out my bum bag with the essentials. I might have listed these before but I had my cup, my waterproof, sun cream, hand sanitiser, hay fever tablets, torch, and lots of tissues. The rain got heavier before it stopped, I thought this was not boding well, but this was about the last of anything approaching bad weather. I packed my big bag with the things that I wouldn't need that day and took it to one of the free lockups, back to the woods area. The lockups are all manned by volunteers, each one by a different group raising funds. This one was for Birmingham CND I think.
Another wander round the site, trying to figure out where the stages were and how it all fitted together. Very oddly bumped into a friend Steve who lives really nearby. Neither of us knew the other was going. He was working, on his first eight hour shift marshalling, and had to do two more over the weekend. We arranged to meet again later and I headed off to try and find my first scheduled activity... how many had I missed already from my plans? How much more can I write about Glastonbury weekend before I even get to seeing a band..?
First thing was not a band, it was PE with Joe. A Joe Wicks workout like we used to do in the lockdown, but actually in purpose. Joe was on a stage, and his brother was providing the music and it was GREAT! I struggled to find the stage, so got there about half way through but immediately joined in. The weather great again by this point, pretty hot. After the workout there was a chance to meet with Joe, I couldn't miss this, so got a picture with him. Yeah it wasn't Dave Grohl after all, just my little joke.
My next pictures after this are still not of a band, well it is only Thursday still. I headed to Carhenge and the Terminal 1 installation there. This is a fake airport thing, a commentary on migration and refugees and borders. Some people are saying it's a Banksy, but I think it's just meant to look like a Banksy so people get overexcited and pay £20 for a souvenir print (don't call it a poster) in the hope that it will be worth a lot of money. Some people anyway... The queue to go through the actual experience was just too long. I had a look but people had been there for an hour already. I think the unpleasant experience in the queue was probably all part of the experience. Bumped into some people I used to work with, they said it wasn't a Banksy.
More wandering, and some actual food, an actual main. I got the ultimate sandwich from Plantuguese. It was basically just a sandwich though, three kinds of fake meat in a toasted sandwich and then covered with a fake cheese sauce. Fifteen quid I won't see again.
I did get some free merch for buying their top meal though. It looked like it was going to be some cool socks, but it was a Moving Mountains tote bag.
Next to Robin Ince in conversation with John Higgs, who has written a book about Doctor Who. Yes, talks, and culture and stuff. Not just dancing.
But next, dancing. I saw a great band called Try Me, in Toad Hall cafe, right opposite the tent where I'd seen Robin Ince. They were good, if a bit odd, I don't remember them having guitars, but I think I got a picture so I could check that. They were two people and then a massive papier mache baby DJ, called "Big Baby" I think.
My second band of the day would be Native James.
This was someone I'd discovered in an article on "the actual alternative acts playing Glastonbury" I'd read on the coach on the way here. He'd played the BBC Introducing tent earlier and I'd missed it so this was my next change. Grime metal they call it, and it was great. It's rap and metal, like they talked about in the late '80s. This was my first experience of the new moshpit. There were surely always moshpits, and I remember a big scary circle you didn't go in to when I first started going to gigs, but it's all got formalised these days, like it is a dance at some eighteenth century ball. Gentlemen, please form a line and face your partners. On my word, form a large circle in the middle of the crowd. And one, two, three, and SMASH! Everyone into the middle smashing heads like the battle of Helms Deep. I did see someone in the middle of the moshpit with a toddler on his shoulder, not so sure that is a good idea. Anyway, I liked this gig, I liked this music, but at the end he said "make sure you're on my socials" which made it all feel a bit fake again.
Again I noticed the litter a lot at this one. Not everyone is using a reusable cup, it's paper cups getting thrown on the floor with the vapes.
Back to the tent I'd seen Robin Ince in earlier for more of him, a full long show of Nine Lessons And Carols for the Summer Solstice, including many guests. One was John Higgs who'd been talking about Doctor Who earlier, but reading from his book Watling Street which sounds good 2 and I will get. Another was Gecko who did some clever songs, and also Chris TT who was back performing live after a break. Why was MJ Hibbett not here? He'd fit right in. There were loads of acts coming and going here though, and I sat and enjoyed it all with two cans of fizzy drink and my spiced rum, mixed together in my reusable steel pint cup. Then met my work friend again at this - turns out she had also been at the Doctor Who one earlier though we had not seen each other - then to one of the bars, and then to the cinema tent for Sing-a-long-a-Grease. It was running very late so we watched the second half of Wild At Heart first, and then it was running so late I was falling asleep so left half way through Grease. Think I slept slightly better. The people who had been talking loud the night before must have been out dancing, the music coming from the relatively nearby San Remo motel stage was loud until 6am.
- I just realised by this counting system there is no day zero of Glastonbury then, I'll be going straight into Friday, day one.
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