Glastonbury Fayre
It goes without saying that I was pretty chuffed to get a call back in April 2024 from Glastonbury Festival offering me a slot.
After all, the last time I was booked to play on the Glade Stage was in 2004, so I suppose it says something about your longevity when you’re asked all these years later to perform again. The offer included an entrance ticket, meals and a plus one, which I had no hesitation in offering up to my old mate Tony, which seemed fitting, as we first met at the 1995 Glastonbury festival… and have been firm friends ever since.
Alas, the gig wasn’t a slot on the fabled Legends Stage, but a comparatively low-key slot – I’d be kicking off proceedings on the Friday afternoon on the Glade Dome. The last time I was booked to play in 2004, I’d quite innocently assumed that The Glade was a small, bespoke affair. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now… in fact, it’s one of the larger areas at the festival these days, attracting, shall we say, a hedonistic audience… and that’s putting it mildly.
I picked Tony up from his house in my trusty VW campervan on the Wednesday and we enjoyed a pleasant journey down to the West Country. On the run-up to the festival, I’d been in touch with the farmer who owns a farm adjacent to Worthy Farm, with a view to camping on his land, therefore enjoying some peace and quiet away from the madness of the main artists area, where I had been offered the option to camp.
When you’re a guy in your mid-fifties, you’re kind of done with 24 hour partying, preferring instead a good, tranquil night’s sleep. Staying away from the action was always going to be the better bet and the decision was a sound one. Nice neighbours, plenty of space; we were greeted on site by the farmer, offering us some immediate refreshment in the shape of some local cider, which slipped down a treat. We pitched up and chilled for an hour or so, before venturing onto site for a reccie.
I suppose the essence of a great festival experience is always going to be down to the weather, and as everyone knows, it tends to be either baking hot or pissing it down on the solstice weekend. This time around, the weather behaved perfectly. It couldn’t have been better, really. The only vague issue was dust! Tony and I spent the Thursday meandering around the huge site, relatively free from the crowds that traditionally descend on the Friday. It was a totally different experience to 20 years ago, when I was last on site. The quality of the food on offer, the sound quality and the average age of the punters – whilst it’s quite an inclusive affair age-wise, it’s overridingly a younger crowd.
Tony and I were clocking up some serious mileage on foot; I guess the only downside to where we were based was the distance to and from site. There was even transport laid on; a local minibus firm were running a regular service, but you had to have your shit together to make it, and most of the time, we were a bit lunched out. However, this service finished mid-afternoon, so we ended up walking everywhere. I reckon on the Friday [when we walked to and from site twice] we must’ve walked a good 10 miles. The site itself is around 3 miles wide, point to point.
Friday was the day of my gig. I’d prepared pretty well, planning to do my usual and spin some studio pre-recordings from transcribed CDs. It just takes the hassle and stress out of any performance. However, it was only whilst we were walking towards the site that we realised we were running late, so we starting attempting to thumb a lift! Fortunately, a friendly chap in a private cab who’d driven up from Bristol stopped and gave us a lift to the gate, then wouldn’t accept any payment. It’s people like this that re-enforce your faith in human nature! We literally jogged from the gate up towards the Glade area and arrived just in time. The staff were absolutely bang on, offering up drinks and whatever else we wanted. Lovely folks. My gig went well, I started playing to around 10 people [!!] but as time went on, the crowd swelled and everyone that stopped, stayed. There were people there who’d just discovered my music, others who’d been listening for quite some time, and one guy in particular, who told me that ‘I’m Not Bad’ was his absolute favourite track. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I can’t really listen to it any more…
After the gig, we hung out back stage and chatted with Don Letts, who I’d been warming up for, really. A smashing guy, very knowledgeable; Tony took a few pics of the main man, and then we sloped off with the intention of getting back to base to offload my gear and get ready for the rest of the afternoon and evening shenanigans. We were walking past West Holts and Confidence Man, a band I’d been playing on my radio show, started their set. It was sufficiently good that we stayed for the whole set; Tony is now a confirmed fan.
To be honest, the rest of our time at Glastonbury is a bit of a blur, which I blame on the Burrow Hill cider bus, our destination of choice for most of the weekend. We got to see a plethora of really good music, including Michael Kiwanuka, Keane, Dua Lipa* and Coldplay. Because I had a gig at The Square and Compass [see below] on the Sunday, I’d said to Tony that in an ideal world I would like to leave Glastonbury on the Saturday lunchtime to get down to Dorset on the Saturday evening, but Tony’s never witnessed a live Coldplay performance before, so we decided to stick around to catch their set on the Saturday night. And I’m glad we did – I’ve seen them live a good few times now, but this performance was pretty off the scale. They’re very comfortable in front of a capacity Glastonbury audience, and I’ve not witnessed a crowd quite that large, ever.
A beautiful experience.
Thanks to Tony Fisher for the stage portraiture.
*She was patchy to say the least, and we were pretty out of it.
Chilled Cider
So, after the comparative mayhem of Glastonbury 2024, any concerns we had about hitting lengthy traffic queues as we drove offsite on the Sunday morning proved to be unfounded as we drove away from Pilton Farm and commenced our journey towards deepest Dorset.
The weather was still totally amazing and not only did we not hit any traffic whatsoever, the 80 mile journey to Worth Matravers proved super-mellow and we arrived at Woodyhyde campsite around 1pm. We found a nice spot in a quiet part of the huge field and then ordered a cab to pick us up so I could play my set at The Square and Compass.
These days, the annual Chilled Cider festival is organised by good friend and all-round solid bloke Dave Goddard. I’d been in touch with him earlier in the day to see if he could push my slot back an hour or so to allow for my late arrival. He’d been cool with this, and I ended up playing the last set of the day to a receptive, full crowd.
In some respects, the gig there was preferable to the Glastonbury gig – by this point, I was totally relaxed, and played a very mellow selection of tracks, including a couple of my own compositions. The audience seemed to revel in my selections and I came away from the decks to Dave and a few others who proclaimed it to be ‘the set of the weekend’. In fact, I was chatting with a work colleague and he mentioned that he’d read a review of Chilled Cider in The Times where they’d proclaimed it to be ‘an undiscovered gem of a festival’.
Post DJ set, it was simply a case of enjoying a few drinks and the gorgeous weather, catching up with some old faces and hanging out with Pete Lawrence and Chris Bagust, who’d turned up for moral support.
A very special few days, and I hope to repeat it all in 2025.
