Biggles - review by : Edward Feil

Glastonbury Festival 1999

Friday 25th to Sunday 27th June 1999
Worthy Farm, Pilton, nr Glastonbury, Somerset, England
£83

Croissant-Neuf Stage, Sunday 27th June

Away from the hustle and bustle of the main drag, Sunday afternoon saw us suitably chilled up the Green Fields. But Glastonbury, with its wonderful knack of never letting you forget where you are (but never quite letting you know either), inevitably sprung an insane surprise in the shape of Biggles. Through the mellowness there came a call to madness, in the shape of an enormously rotund figure dressed in a kilt and "Dr Livingstone" style helmet, parping through a rubber tube and plastic funnel. Biggles. Game on.

"Could everybody please take 5 steps forward? People are getting crushed at the back" suggested the manically cheerful lead singer (more manic than any Street Preacher, anyhow). He clearly took enormous delight from the slick crapness of their act; a six piece band, including a vicar on percussion (Father Green, or Pere Vert in French), a fellow dressed in lederhosen on one of those big oompah poompah horns, himself dressed in Country and Western atire and the aforementioned man-mountain on banjo. Poor chap. Apparently he suffered from Bulemia Amnesia, eating loads and then forgetting to throw up.

Phew, what a set! They skipped through musical idioms like a Viking on acid skips through a girl school, from a lyrical and moving rendition of "Gordon is a moron" (complete with tearful reference to life as a North Atlantic Whaler), through Elvis and the Jungle Book, to name but a few highlights. "We are the Shake 'n' Vac on the shag pile of life!" came the reassuring explanation.

I did actually manage to catch quite a few acts this year, but when I was asked at work this morning who I saw my mind went blank for a few seconds, I smiled and replied rhetorically "Don't 'spose you've heard of Biggles have you?".