Festival review by : Matt Rees-Jenkins

Glastonbury Festival 1999

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

I was not just a Glastonbury virgin but a festival virgin so I don't really have anything to compare against...all I can say is WOW! I've come back (all the way to Aberdeen) a much happier and relaxed little camper, I had no idea what to expect and I'm still in shock so forgive me if my chat is a little bit garbled!!! We got there on the Wednesday (good move), about 9PM to find two of our mates already camped up by the stone circle at a lovely spot with a big area for us to choose (ha ha ha) where to put our tent up! We got our tent up and then proceeded to drink the cider our friends had bought on the way. So with the noise of shouting, drums and techno we sat round our camp fire, drinking scrumpy till the sun came up....Thursday was a very relaxed day, again involving large quantities of cider, the day consisted mainly of drink, smoke and wandering. We saw a hell of a lot that day (most of which I cant remember) and the festival hadn't even officially started...oh well on to Friday....TA DA, I woke up to very hot and sweaty tent wondering why someone was shouting "bollocks" in my ear! I got up and all became clear when the rest of the field joined in and a tidal wave of "BOLLOCKS" rushed across from the top to the bottom....what a place! So Friday was here and It was all go...we wondered from our tent to go and get breakfast, we found a potato wedges stall so I thought I would brave a portion with chilli sauce (WARNING!!!). Take this as words from the wise:- when faced with a choice of cheese, garlic or chilli as you potato wedge toppings.... don't choose chilli, unless of course you know of a nice clean toilet that you can us at your own discretion!!! Anyway we went and had a look at some bands, Blondie was one of them, and then we got more food and found our way to the dance tent for Fat Boy Slim and the Chemical Bros. What a set they played....I had an amazing time when they were on, I was a bit pissed at missing Gomez but I definitely made the right choice in going to see the Chemicals. After that, dressed only in my shorts and T-shirt (soaked through with sweat) I made my was back to the ten only to meet another mate...cool...with two ladies in tow...cooler....so I got a change of clothes and we went to the stone circle to chill. We found a nice spot around a fire and sank in to the grass for an hour or two. We were getting a little restless after a while so we found a coffee stall and a nice warm tent. After a little chemical related madness we realised we were in a cinema tent....the Groovy Moovy tent in fact, what a find, they were playing Noggin the Nog, The Clangers, Ivor the engine, Captain Pugwash and of course Bagpus. My best memory of Glastonbury will be the whole tent full of people (50 or so) being so happy because the Bagpus mice could fix it!! I saw big burley men with tears of joy in their eyes....it was amazing. We went back to the tent and found our way to our sleeping bags feeling chuffed because there was still two days left. 'GET UP YOUR TENTS ON FIRE' <-- this was a rather amusing prank our mate played on us when he got back, Ha Ha Ha, back to sleep. Saturday was pretty weird, everything was in full swing and a hell of a lot happened. I'm still trying to remember most of it, however my memory betrays me right now, all I can remember is cider, beer, bands, food, cool people, the heat, the toilets, the market area and having a really great day! We also found some of our best mates who had decided to come down at 4 AM Saturday morning in a frenzy of boredom to see if they could find us... and they did... WAHEY! I saw them after an episode in the dance tent had forced me to leave...the bass in the tent had vibrated my body so much that those Chilli potatoe wedges had decided to make a hasty exit from my body, TO THE TOLIET! I'll say no more except that I made it in time.....phew. After that I got back and met up with all of them, so we toddled off to see Carl Cox, who was very good. When that was all over and the music had ended we made our way back to our meeting point to revue our plans. I wanted to go back to the groovy moovy tent but I think it had left some of the others a bit dazed so we just wondered for a bit. We just sort of danced around the market area trying to find a nice place to be. We went to this place called skank or spank or something like that and there was just one guy there dancing to this pretty cool jungle (LTJ I think) so, we joined him...It was great....we left him! We travelled around and ended up at the stone circle next to the drums. After a while I started speaking to this group of people sitting next to us, it turns out that these people were also from Scotland and in fact one of them lived about 10 miles away...cool....after a little time of trying to figure out the probability we headed back to the tent for some well needed kip. "BOLLOCKS".

Sunday, the last day had come and it was not raining like everyone had told me it would so....HOORAY! we got up chilled for a bit, then headed out for a wander and some more cider. We found Al Green at the main stage and he was truly great, then we bumped in to Keanu at the other stage, he was truly crap...sorry to all Dogstar fans but the really do suck! We had to go and visit the dance tent for the Scratch Perverts and some breakdancers for no real reason except to go see them. After that we headed back for some food and a chill again. At the tent we just soaked in the whole thing and decided definitely to come back next year. This place is truly, truly great! That was about it then, on Monday it took us two hours to get out of there, but we didn't mind...life is great. So that is my experience of Glastonbury and I love it, thanks to everyone who manages to put it all together...you really deserve it!

Anyway, I babbled on a bit so I'll end now....See you next year