review by: Tom

This festival was also different for me personally. In the past, I had got hold of a programme right at the start, decided which acts I had wanted to see and fanatically gone off to see them, whatever else was going on at the time, and filled in the time between. The only times I just let Glastonbury 'happen' to me were at night, when the stages were closed.
This year there were very few acts I actually went to see specifically - most of the time I was just wandering around with friends or watching something happen that we had come across. I've come to the conclusion that when one is a bit of a music fan, as I'd consider myself, Glastonbury's a bit of a mare, as there will always be many acts that one wants to see, but I certainly think the way I did it this year is the more enjoyable way.

We got there late on Thursday. We popped up to the Stone Circle, where the ground was still dry (seems strange to think of it, now). Met up with some friends and went and pitched our tent with them. I got very drunk and mashed and soon fell asleep with the rain bucketing down. The next morning we awoke to discover our campsite had turned into a marsh. Mud had come through the holes in the groundsheet of our tent, rivers were running through others' and our site seemed to have suffered particularly badly compared to other people's. Eventually I managed to drag a couple of people off to Taj Mahal, who I think was opening the proceedings on the pyramid stage. Taj Mahal is a blues-meister of the Old Skool, chucking out the old man flavours without difficulty, getting everyone's feet tapping and with the smoothest backing band you're likely to hear. It turned out to be the highlight of Friday. Afterwards we went to get some food. Still buoyed up with that early Glastonbury optimism, we went from stall to stall, believing that we'd find that special place that serves good food at low prices. Of course, we eventually gave up and bought some disgusting falafels, whose only redeeming feature was that I think they enabled me to get through Glastonbury for the first time without doing a turd.

Thence to Finley Quaye for a few minutes before I had to go off to (ostensibly) meet DM and Anna by the meeting point for 5pm. They didn't show and I ended up talking to a depressed chap who had had one too many the night before. Then to the stone circle to meet other people, of whom only one (a friend from uni) turned up. Finally back to meet up with friends for the football. By 8pm it was starting to rain quite hard and the temperature was dropping rapidly. We started off watching the match in with the crowd, but we couldn't see the screen and it was too damn cold and wet. Feeling wholly grim, I retreated to a cafe where the only possible standing points were in front of people with tendencies to get angry if their view was blocked. We had to watch the rest of the game outside, but despite our top performance my spirits weren't lifted as I felt from half-time onwards on the verge of pneumonia. The cheer at the full-time whistle was decidedly muted from a weary crowd. I had been pissed-off that the match clashed with Glastonbury. I couldn't miss it but Glasto really isn't the sort of place to watch TV.

Back to the tent where friends were hiding in vague defiance of the weather. It wasn't really feasible to enter any of their tents (it had already reached the stage where removing boots took over an hour). I went back to my tent, intending to do something later on, but the weather got worse and worse, my mood got gloomier and gloomier and eventually I just went to bed, freezing cold.

Things looked up on Saturday morning. The sun was undeniably visible, although clouds still dominated the sky. Showers soon started, though, and this set the scene for the rest of the day - an hour of sunshine followed by heavy showers, followed by grimness, followed by more sunshine etc. Met some more friends up by the stone circle. Some other friends decided they'd had enough and headed home. Eventually we met the friends we'd been trying to meet up with for ages, and whose non-appearance led one of my friends to spend an hour up by the stone circle in the rain the night before. The rest of the day consisted of an orgy of raving, trudging and complaining. I can't remember the order of events, but it involved drinking some vodka, dancing to the Roots (fucking A) and some jungle jazz combo, seeing Adam F in the afternoon and thinking he was shite, going to see Plastikman in the dance tent in the evening and starting off by going for it but eventually totally mellowing out and dancing like a teddy bear, finding a friend's little sister who had been abandoned by her friends and looking after her all night, running out of money, *not* falling over once, having a damn good time but realising that I would be having the time of my life if the weather had been good, wearing a sombrero and having the most uncomfortable night's sleep I can remember.

The next day was quite chilled. The mud restricted activities to a minimum. We sat around for ages on a very comfortable mattress we had found and packed up our stuff. I went to see Tortoise, one of the few acts I *really* wanted to see, and the bastards didn't turn up. So to the main stage for Bob Dylan. By this time, my feet were quite literally on the verge of falling off, so I had to take a seat for two hours. Then back to the stage to see Bob whose time had been changed. Found it pretty dull (apart from Cocaine) so back to the tent for a final spliff before we drove home. For some reason, we didn't leave the car park until 11pm. At the first petrol station I had the turd of my life, lasting perhaps nigh-on half an hour. The drive was slow and uncomfortable. I got home at 3am on Monday morning and have just (Tuesday late afternoon) finished de-crustifying.

The only good times I really had this time round were when I was stoned, and that's a bit shit when all's said and done. I brushed my teeth twice, changed my boxer shorts once but my socks many times, lost a tape and a knife, ate very little, spent very much, saw about a quarter of the bands I had seen before, and resolved that in the future if the weather forecast for Glasto was good it would take a death in the family to keep me away, but if it was bad I wouldn't even consider it.