Glastonbury 2008: June 24-28

Lauren, David and I made the trip to Glastonbury, the Mecca of all festivals, by bus. We thought it would be a good idea to take an overnight bus on Monday so we'd be in London on Tuesday morning, with one full day to explore the city before heading for the field of Rock. The bus ride was a terrible idea, and included a 2 hour stint at the border. Still, all's well that ends well (even though this was just the beginning of the journey), and we made it to London. From there on it was smooth sailing!

Proof that we made it: Buckingham Palace

And another official building, complete with British guards and the London Eye in the background
Trafalgar Square - I've been to all these places before

Outside what appeared to be the Canadian embassy, there was a photo shoot. It was a lot of fun to watch, especially the difference in the model as she posed and how she was between takes.

Piccadilly, in search of Pizza Hut :) We made it to the Hut in the end!

While Lauren went to her hair appointment, David and I checked out the Movieum. It really sucked, except for the Darth Vader. All the cool futuristic buttons on the belt were made of garden hose.

Big Ben!

Just in case you didn't notice, you should STAND ON THE RIGHT!!!!! The constant onslaught of sights and sounds telling you what you can and can't do, what you should mind, and where you should stand drove me crazy! I can't block that shit out and it drives me insane, but it was especially difficult coming from a non-English speaking country where it's easy to block out what's going on around you (I like not speaking Dutch because I don't have to listen to people's stupid conversations). I am also excellent proof that no matter how many signs and warnings you give, people will still do something stupid! Even though they tell me which way I should look when crossing the street in London, there's at least one close call between me and a truck each time I go. The stupid warnings and the driving on the left are the main reasons I couldn't live in London.

Carnaby Street had lots of nice cafes and cute shops, so we chilled out a bit before heading out to dinner - our final decent meal for days to come!

We left for Glastonbury on Wednesday morning, and after being stuck in traffic we finally had our tent pitched in the afternoon. After that, we hit the festival grounds to explore. The bands didn't start performing until Thursday, but Glastonbury has so much going on that it was nice to walk around and check it all out before it got muddy and over-crowded with drunk people.

Frolicking.

These guys were awesome; what they're wearing is called a morph suit, and I want one.

Glastonbury is a huge festival; with 250 000 people it's like festival city, complete with all sorts of food and shopping. We saw some quality festival fashion on day one...

On the way to the festival I saw a guy with a flower hat on the bus and was jealous. I got my own at Glastonbury, and it's even better. Dress was purchased at Pinkpop.

This picture was taken from our tent. In the background you can see the Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury's famous main stage. What I liked most about Glastonbury was that the camping and festival site was one huge area - other festivals have separate camping and festival sites.

The sun is setting over the donut.

The music started on Thursday afternoon, so we had more time to explore. There's so much going on at Glastonbury that you feel like the festival is an entity of its own, and the bands just happen to be there as well. My favorite were all the random art installations and statues.


The area of Shangri-La was all about wicker stuff...

The entrance to Arcadia had big eye-ball trees...

The dragon overlooking the festival from the tranquil Stone Circle. You can see tents way at the other end of the festival site, which was huge. It could take well over an hour to walk from one end of the festival to the other, especially in all the crowds.
David bought weed from a 14 year old on this hill - odd. The kid was telling us how they got arrested, and then their parents bailed them out and brought them back to the festival.

There was a reading lounge where you could pick up a newspaper and chill, so we decided to hide here from the brief rain.



Random stages with even more random people were all over the place

This green lobster thing is a huge set of speakers on a truck playing minimal.

The same statue as before, but at night.

The first band we saw was Kap Bambino on Thursday night. They were loud and flashy and a lot of fun.

When we were walking back to the tent on Thursday night we heard a weird murmur through the crowd: "Michael Jackson's dead". It was eerie how you heard it everywhere - even though no one was saying it with certainty, I think everyone knew it was true. Australian David actually thought Jackson's father was at the festival and that people were saying "Michael Jackson's dad". The next morning we went back to the newspaper tent to pick up a copy of the paper and see if it was true; there was a massive queue for the paper so we immediately knew that it was.

It was very sad to hear of his death, and kind of ironic that it happened during Glastonbury. A lot of artists, including Spinal Tap and Lady Gaga, dedicated songs to him. "Without Michael Jackson, there wouldn't be Spinal Tap" said the singer. It was kind of beautiful how even at the opposite end of the world, in the middle of the night, 250 000 people living in tents, intentionally isolated from technology and civilization, would hear about Michael Jackson's death and talk about it within hours. It did put a downer on the festival; thank god for lobsters.

Lauren and I bought inflatable lobster chairs for Glastonbury, and we whipped them out by Friday. It was the best idea ever - with people constantly wanting to buy them from us.


Lady Gaga: best performance of the entire festival. For one song she stood on the piano bench, legs crossed and bent over, playing the piano. She was wearing massive stilettos too.

New festival fashion: Pinkpop skirt and Glasto sweatshirt

My favorite area at the festival was Trash City. We were relaxing on the grass when this guy showed up.

Metric!

Yet another random festival stage, this one with a spider disco ball.

More Trash City... The lobsters were great because they also made it really easy to find each other in a crowd. We didn't get lost once.

Acrobats


The Klaxons played a great set, dressed up as Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and the headless man. The roadies were dressed as characters from the Wizard of Oz.

Hippie corner

During Dirty Vegas some guy proposed to his girlfriend; best proposal ever.

Sunday night was the last night, and even though Blur headlined the main Pyramid Stage, we decided to stay at the Other Stage and catch the Prodigy. We saw a log of great bands, but the highlights for me were Lady Gaga, Prodigy, Metric, Klaxons, Bloc Party, White Lies and Franz Ferdinand. There were definitely more great bands playing, but with so much going on we didn't make it to all of them. Monday morning we quickly got our stuff together, jumped on the bus and headed for the airport. BEST FESTIVAL EVER!!!