Corruption Cabaret

Glastonbury Festival 2000

Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th June 2000
Worthy Farm, Pilton, nr Glastonbury, Somerset, England
£89 including booking fee and postage

Daily capacity: 80,000

Located in the Green Fields this is the "secret" piano bar created by digging a pit into the ground, the whole thing covered by a bender frame and then a tarpaulin. From the outside you'd have no idea of the delight within.

Spacecraft tell us "Part of what makes Corruption Cabaret special in a multimedia age is the fact that it's a gig that is very inclusive of its audience." - and we'd have to agree!

We missed Michael Eavis singing along to Jools Holland's accompiament; we'd been told on Friday that with the BBC capturing this performance - or rather private show for the camera's - getting in would be hard. So we left it till the cameras had moved back, and caught the real show.

As Spacecraft themselves tell us about the BBC intrusion:

Our encounter with the folks from BBC was surprisingly lacking in the stress and misunderstandings often associated with publicity. Obviously a large crew, sound and camera could not help but somewhat disrupt the flow of events. Unfortunately a lot of people were not allowed back in again after the crew had set up.
The only disappointment was that the incredible style and talent of the Corruption collaborators (the various performers of the weekend) did not get the opportunity to sample some of the BBC spotlight.

Jools sat himself at the piano, and let himself go... playing with the accompaniment of a fiddle player, and later joined by an accordion player, and Billy Bragg on guitar, he gave those there a relaxed, involved performance.

Jools Holland

After Jools came Billy Bragg, who treated the crowd to a solo rendition of Jabberwocky.

Billy Bragg

Next up was a band consisting of 4 - I didn't catch their name - but they were more like it. They played some soothing folk, and after one number one of the audience offered his services on the piano "providing it's not more than 3 chords". The offer accepted, he showed his keyboard skills to be more than the entire Status Quo back-catalogue, and the combined efforts of him and the band created a beautiful feel in this unusual venue.