Levellers

The Levellers – Jazzworld, Saturday

It’s a long time since the Levs played a stage this big and that was the Other Stage, way back and one of the most memorable gigs of all time. So good a track from it appears on the Glastonbury Anthems DVD. Finally after so many years at smaller stages, or playing solo, they are back on a big stage and attract the biggest crowd ever seen at the Jazzworld stage. In fact it was so big some latecomers were stopped by security over crowd fears and couldn’t even get into the field. Funny, because I was thinking with an early slot like 2pm they’d never be able to draw much of a crowd, estimates put the numbers at around 30,000!

It’s great to see them back at Glastonbury and in front of such a throng of happy festival goers. There are a fair few greying heads at the front this time around and despite the numbers there is much less of a crush than in ‘92 or ‘94. Although it nearly gets nasty when Jeremy asks all those with dreadlocks to take a step forward! Even the photographers in the pit are singing along to the Levellers.

They aren’t the only ones, everyone is singing and dancing to our favourite Levellers tunes as they belt out ‘15 Years’, 'Carry Me' and 'Sell Out' before telling us they have a new album out. There are signs to let us know all over the site and the these also mention their very own festival for ‘family and friends’ Beautiful Days. The Levs thank ‘quite a few friends’ who have been doing all the hard work of stringing the signs from every available spot on the site. They play some of the new songs and they are well received and sure to become favourites in the future but it’s the old tunes that really get the field buzzin’.

‘One Way of Life’ turns into a huge sing along and it’s mighty impressive, and I dare see it makes a few new life long Levs fans this afternoon. I hear later that they could hear us singing in The Pyramid stage crowd. Fantastic! Mark acknowledges our vocal efforts before a technical glitch means we have to sing loud again (not that we weren’t before) to help Simon Friend sing the words to ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ as his mic is dead.

The party atmosphere is sustained all the way to ‘Riverflow’ and as the boys walk off stage, the noise is incredible. They return for an encore and ‘Liberty’ and the looks on the faces of everyone makes it clear that Glastonbury festival spirit is alive and well. Well pretty much so apart from the stall near me, who have decided to start playing hard house at full blast all over the last few tunes! I never thought I could get so irritated, thankfully just as I reach the counter they shut it off.

What started as a muddy field has been compacted by all that jigging and crazy dancing and it’s a great way to sort out a wet field at 2pm in the afternoon. The Levellers create festival electricity at its best and the jam packed crowd slowly filter away beaming. The Levellers are still the best festival band on the planet!

Wonder what the organisers of the festival made of it and I wonder where they’ll programme the Levellers in 2007? My heart hopes for a Pyramid slot as they are one of the few bands that can play anytime of day and it’ll be perfect!

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