Festival review by : Dave Green

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

Another festival, another great week.

Sure the festival is changing, and there is a bit of the corporate sponsorship creeping in to the festival, but come on, this is the 21st century - a long way from the seventies of the last decade. In a time where the almighty pound/dollar is watering down sport, filling the music charts with insipid girl/boy bands, and every event is heavily sponsored, Glastonbury is still a quantum step in the other direction. Commercialism has been around for a long time, and in this age where profit rules everything, Glastonbury is still as far away from the mainstream as it ever was.

As for the band line-up this year, perhaps it wasn't as good as last year, but then Glastonbury is about so much more than bands. I only saw about 6 bands this year, but Moby and Reprazent will be happy memories forever, and being up near the front on Saturday in the dance tent followed by dancing the night away in the Glades with my best friends is a night we'll all remember, even as we head off to different corners of the world. More special are the times we spent watching acts in the Cabaret tent, wandering around the Green Fields, and sitting outside the coffee stall watching the world go by. Oh, and the afternoon with the mushrooms....

Glastonbury is still, in my mind, the best melding of an outdoor music festival with a display of alternative values that you will get anywhere. Every year I've been its eroded some of my capitalist tendencies, provided an experience that keeps me counting down the days until next year, and left me with some of the best times I've ever had with my friends.

Everything changes, and everyone of every age eventually gets to complain that things were never as good as they used to be. That Glastonbury is still only 'Glastonbury', and not 'The Sony-Natwest-Channel4-Nike Glastonbury Festival' is something of a small miracle. As long as Michael (and now his daughter) can continue to move with the times without selling out, the festival will continue to be a very special week.

review submitted by
Dave Green