review by: Richard

Glastonbury Festival 1998

Friday 26th to Sunday 28th June 1998
Worthy Farm, Pilton, nr Glastonbury, Somerset, England
£80

Daily capacity: 80,000

Moan moan moan moan, that's all these bloody hippies ever do. A couple of inches of rain and everyone got a right gob on. Well actually not, it never ceases to amaze me that 100,000+ people can still manage to enjoy themselves in the middle of the biggest puddle in Europe. After attending every year since 1842 (honest) its was our second visit with kids in tow, luckily we managed to blag a place in the Kidz (ahem) Crew (shouldn't that be CRÜE?) in a camper van, so worries of the little darlings getting foot rot were minimised, well that's only pneumonia and e-coli to worry about then.

I have to be honest that I prefer the good old days when I would spend the totality of festie under the influence of some narcotic or other; at least I think I do because obviously I can't remember a bloody thing.. (except that that Charlie Chuck bloke is always on in the theatre tent and isn't funny). Its also the first time I've been in the same place on site for 2 consecutive years, this means that I have actually begun to remember where everything is, each previous time I had to learn the whole setup afresh each time, which I almost managed to do by the time we left.

The festie is certainly more civilised now because you can get money from a cash machine, send a fax and receive your bloody e-mail 24 hours a day, while sipping a banana daiquiri in an Indonesian fish restaurant. There is of course the Tippi and Green fields where a more basic version of festival life is available (note: mustn't mention my mate in the Green Futures field who brought his playstation, justified by the fact it was powered off their windmill).

When we weren't complaining about the weather, the main whinges that I heard were;

Atmosphere not as good as 19nn
Too many beer monsters
Crapexpensive drugs
Cash Machine ran out of money

Well with the exception of the last item (and they can just piss off) there are the same complaints as every year and we still come back for more.

As far as reviewing the festival; Saw A LOT of the Kidz field and therein my Kids, but I got to see Underworld and Bentley Rhythm Ace, which was nice, and spent Saturday nite wobbling across the site between DJ CD Tim in the Other Field and Spacehopper in the Green field, leading me to sleep through the near heatwave conditions of Sunday Morning. Sunday night we went to the big top and saw the Theatre of Death or something which was alright, but a bit like watching a Heavy Metal Album.

Made a big mistake of taking my Bike into the field on Wednesday, meaning a not particularly enjoyable slog out on Monday. The looooong wait to exit was made worse by the appearance of a queue con merchant. Allegedly the hold up was 'cos 3 people had been shot on Sunday night, 2 people fatally. This meant that the police were searching everyone who was leaving (oh yeah) so we'd better get rid of all illegal materials (that must mean my hemp tee-shirt), which he of course would be happy to take off our hands.

Anyway should Eavis PLC decide to do the whole shameful narcissistic thing next year I'll be first up with me cheque book.....