Festival review by : Millennian Maggs

Glastonbury Festival 1999

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

There's been a festival at Glastonbury since 500BC, according to Michael Eavis, so some compulsive regulars are getting pretty decrepit by now. I almost mistook Billy Bragg for Max Bygraves at first befuddled glance at the big screen by Glastonbury's main stage. I wondered for a spliff second if I'd been somehow transported back to my granny's living room about ten years ago. Billy is turning into Max as he ages - just like the bloke in the Beautiful South is turning into Brookside's Ron Dixon... But I digress.

Fortunately, however, Billy's music is not evolving into Granny's favourites. As my senses concentrated, I realised Bragg's metamorphosis of maturity has been from incisive populist folkie to would-be rocker, with the addition of a four-piece backing band, featuring an ex-Small Faces Guitarist whose name escapes me. Billy, you still do it for me.

In contrast that other old folkie, Roy Harper, spoken of with misty-eyed reverence by countless fat hippies around the beer tents, packed out the Accoustic stage later the same evening. His performance bored me rigid. Harper's heart's in the right place, he supports right-on causes and he showed at some points that he's no mean guitarist. So why does he persist in this 60's protest singer folkie style?. Is it some drawn-out continuation of the pathetic ancient resistance to the electronic backing on Dylan's 1966 UK tour. Please! This is 1999, Roy, wake up and smell the technology.

I don't know if here was a lot of nicking from tents in 500BC, but this year one poor Harper fan camped near us returned from the performance to find that his tent itself had been nicked. Quel chagrin! Not only do you lose your tent, but you suffer the utter humiliation of knowing the sad collection of tat that is your stuff is worth nothing, even to a campsite scavenger. I did sympathise, even offered him shelter in my tent,, but I then had to escape to the dance tent to de-Harperise my brain and to escape this fan's droning on about how it would never have happened in the good old days when it was all peace and love.like Vietnam and the Cold War? Until the revolution, the world will always be shit and there will always be things that keep you sane but get you hassled - like drugs, street parties, critical mass and Glastonbury.

Love