Glastonbury Stories

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

It was raised in the glamping discussion, but I don't think we've ever had a dedicated thread documenting the history of the festival from those of you who were there.

Were you there in 1994 when Orbital introduced the indie kids to electronica? Did you participate in the riots of 1990? Maybe you were front row for Bowie in 2000? Do you remember parking your car in the Pyramid field? Just how good was the Growler? Who remembers Bourbon Street? Share your stories here...without it becoming a debate on whether it's better or worse nowadays.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I'll be telling my grandkids about the day that I was there to see Stephen Sanchez take the stage.

[Skip997]

Here's a couple.

Some of you will have read them before

I'll have a crack at 1986 sometime soon

Edited November 8, 2023 by Skip997

[Quark]

34 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

It was raised in the glamping discussion, but I don't think we've ever had a dedicated thread documenting the history of the festival from those of you who were there.

Were you there in 1994 when Orbital introduced the indie kids to electronica? Did you participate in the riots of 1990? Maybe you were front row for Bowie in 2000? Do you remember parking your car in the Pyramid field? Just how good was the Growler? Who remembers Bourbon Street? Share your stories here...without it becoming a debate on whether it's better or worse nowadays.

Grandpa Simpson yelling at cloud gifs incoming

[fred quimby]

Ah 94 and Orbital, magical and slightly odd. 

I had gone to the festival with my mate and a woman he know. On the night we had candy flipped and they were off to see Jah Wobble. We walk down together and the lady and I were finding it so easy to walk when we realised we were actually walking a foot above the ground, was going to be one of those nights.

We part  and off to the the other, or NME never sure that year, stage i go. Get there as they are just starting but I needed a wee. Off I go to a portaloo at the back of field. After finishing turn around to see a man looking through a small window at me. Took me a while to realise said man was actually me in a small mirror on the door. By then the toilet had filled with aurora type lights and mist all pulsating to the sound of Orbital.  This however meant I could not see how to get out. Seemed like ages before I worked it out.

Into the night I went and on stage were what I thought were Aliens or insects just pumping out the best beats. It was their famous light glasses but took me most of the show to realise that, and who cared anyway. Danced and hugged my way through a truly magical set. Chime set the tears of joy rolling.

Must look up who else I saw, Johnny Cash for sure which I wasn't going to see but boy am I glad I did, brilliant set. 

[Harrison Hendrix]

Ok here goes!! I’ve been looking for a thread to tell this story in for ages!!

One day back in 1997 I bought a ticket to Glastonbury. I was in Cardiff at a B &B across the road from the Angel Hotel. I was going to a gig that night. I phoned this number in the NME and arranged to buy a Glastonbury Ticket at short notice. I quickly noted the name of the place down while on the phone. After the gig I went back to my B&B. The following morning I skipped breakfast and legged it out the hotel to the coach stop. Where was I going? Morden. That was it I was going to Morden. I hadn’t bothered checking the note I’d written on the NME.
 

I closed the door to the hotel room. Left the key in the door. I skipped down the stairs humming the lyric, In the deepest depths of Morden’, as I went. Good old Jimmy page!!! 
 

I got off the coach; skipped through the underground; changed somewhere and asked somewhere. I recall loads of smoggy stairs. I think a train heading to Brixton. Anyway there I was. Morden underground station. I’d been to too many gigs that month and was quite tired. I headed over the road to the supermarket bought an item and ordered a Black cab from the cab phone. The road between the station and supermarket was a taxi rank. It too was black, dark and smoggy.
 

I was concerned about the fair, but it wasn’t much. The house was two miles away. The cabbie took me there and waited. The guys mum answered the door. Her teenage son sold me the ticket. I happily handed over the money and nipped back into the cab. It rode off with me in it.
 

At this point something really strange happened. The taxi driver told me that there was another station. Only, one and a half miles, away. So I agreed to go there instead of back two miles, saving half a mile of cab fair. As the cab drew up to the, extremely ornamental, tube station building. I looked up at the glamorous art deco lettering. I got out the cab and the driver sped off. I had just arrived at Maldon tube station!!!
 

 

The two stations were not on the same line. At some point in the journey, from Maldon tube station too Glastonbury, I, bewilderedly, grabbed the NME out of my holdall. In large capital letters it said MALDON!!
 

I had scrawled this quite clearly. To this day I don’t know where I got the word Morden. I’d never been to either place in my life before. I had never been to Glastonbury. I hadn’t even considered it until shortly before making the call to buy the ticket. 
 

I have never forgotten this. I had no tube map. And even if I had how could I have known the two stations were equidistant from the house I was stopping of at!!? I got trench foot at Glastonbury, that year. It was very muddy.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Harrison Hendrix

[Neil]

50 minutes ago, Harrison Hendrix said:

Ok here goes!! I’ve been looking for a thread to tell this story in for ages!!

One day back in 1997 I bought a ticket to Glastonbury. I was in Cardiff at a B &B across the road from the Angel Hotel. I was going to a gig that night. I phoned this number in the NME and arranged to buy a Glastonbury Ticket at short notice. I quickly noted the name of the place down while on the phone. After the gig I went back to my B&B. The following morning I skipped breakfast and legged it out the hotel to the coach stop. Where was I going? Morden. That was it I was going to Morden. I hadn’t bothered checking the note I’d written on the NME.
 

I closed the door to the hotel room. Left the key in the door. I skipped down the stairs humming the lyric, In the deepest depths of Morden’, as I went. Good old Jimmy page!!! 
 

I got off the coach; skipped through the underground; changed somewhere and asked somewhere. I recall loads of smoggy stairs. I think a train heading to Brixton. Anyway there I was. Morden underground station. I’d been to too many gigs that month and was quite tired. I headed over the road to the supermarket bought an item and ordered a Black cab from the cab phone. The road between the station and supermarket was a taxi rank. It too was black, dark and smoggy.
 

I was concerned about the fair, but it wasn’t much. The house was two miles away. The cabbie took me there and waited. The guys mum answered the door. Her teenage son sold me the ticket. I happily handed over the money and nipped back into the cab. It rode off with me in it.
 

At this point something really strange happened. The taxi driver told me that there was another station. Only, one and a half miles, away. So I agreed to go there instead of back two miles, saving half a mile of cab fair. As the cab drew up to the, extremely ornamental, tube station building. I looked up at the glamorous art deco lettering. I got out the cab and the driver sped off. I had just arrived at Maldon tube station!!!
 

 

The two stations were not on the same line. At some point in the journey, from Maldon tube station too Glastonbury, I, bewilderedly, grabbed the NME out of my holdall. In large capital letters it said MALDON!!
 

I had scrawled this quite clearly. To this day I don’t know where I got the word Morden. I’d never been to either place in my life before. I had never been to Glastonbury. I hadn’t even considered it until shortly before making the call to buy the ticket. 
 

I have never forgotten this. I had no tube map. And even if I had how could I have known the two stations were equidistant from the house I was stopping of at!!? I got trench foot at Glastonbury, that year. It was very muddy.

probably could have avoided all that and got a ticket over the counter in your local HMV.

[Neville Street]

We have a few stories that will be nice in here. Will start with 1987, my first Glastonbury.

We were a bunch of students in Cardiff. End of finals and somebody suggested we go to Glastonbury Festival. I can't actually remember who suggested it. I was into music, had been to loads of gigs, used to hitch hike into London to go the The Marquee regularly. Had done Reading twice and already done a couple of big outdoor gigs, but not many as they were ££++ even back then, for a student with a minimum wage weekend/evening job.

We bought our tickets almost definitely at Spiller Records, or maybe even on the gate, but I think we had them up front. One friend had a vehicle and he took some of our group over on the Thursday evening I guess, and me and another friend went on his motorbike the following morning. By some minor miracle we found the others and we camped by the car/bike and in amongst a load of other vehicles and tents. It had rained in the run up to the festival so we were lucky to not fall off the bike in the mud and ruts. I think weather was why we delayed a day going on the motorbike. We got stopped and fully searched close to the site, wallets taken out and rifled through, the whole works. I feel like we were camped either where the family camping is now, or Big Ground or possibly a little bit towards Woodsies, in the field that has the Mandela bar in it nowadays. I remember coming in down a hill and past the tree where loads of people posted notes to try to meet up with people. There was a marketplace up at the top of Big Ground. All of this is from my head, totally happy to be corrected.

It didn't feel too scary, but it was downright weird just seeing people in hoodies selling drugs everywhere. I don't remember bars at all, we had no money so all the food/beers had gone in with the car (which was tiny, but carried enough bread/cheese/beer to get us through a few days). I remember vans with sound systems, campfires, flares, chatting with strangers. I think I might be mashing up one of the Reading festivals, but there was a van that literally just played Comfortably Numb on a loop 24/7. Maybe it was at both festivals! Maybe there was more than one of those vans.......

Can't remember much of the music really, it was a long time ago. I was already a Billy Bragg fan and I seem to remember the Acoustic Stage being in the same place but a smaller white tent with open sides, and not being able to get in as it was busy when he was on. Pretty sure we saw Elvis Costello, but I have better memories (and a bootleg) of him from 1989.

Most of us left on Sunday as we had tickets for David Bowie in Cardiff on the Sunday night. Glass Spider, so not his finest, but the only time I saw him and I do remember the glass elevator thing that he came down onto the stage in. I looked up the setlist a while ago and it had a fair few great songs on it.

Will reminisce on 89 & 90 at some point. Slightly better memory, and even a couple of dodgy photo's from one of them. Photo's which have a whole story attached to them.

Cheers, NS

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

12 hours ago, Harrison Hendrix said:

Ok here goes!! I’ve been looking for a thread to tell this story in for ages!!

One day back in 1997 I bought a ticket to Glastonbury. I was in Cardiff at a B &B across the road from the Angel Hotel. I was going to a gig that night. I phoned this number in the NME and arranged to buy a Glastonbury Ticket at short notice. I quickly noted the name of the place down while on the phone. After the gig I went back to my B&B. The following morning I skipped breakfast and legged it out the hotel to the coach stop. Where was I going? Morden. That was it I was going to Morden. I hadn’t bothered checking the note I’d written on the NME.
 

I closed the door to the hotel room. Left the key in the door. I skipped down the stairs humming the lyric, In the deepest depths of Morden’, as I went. Good old Jimmy page!!! 
 

I got off the coach; skipped through the underground; changed somewhere and asked somewhere. I recall loads of smoggy stairs. I think a train heading to Brixton. Anyway there I was. Morden underground station. I’d been to too many gigs that month and was quite tired. I headed over the road to the supermarket bought an item and ordered a Black cab from the cab phone. The road between the station and supermarket was a taxi rank. It too was black, dark and smoggy.
 

I was concerned about the fair, but it wasn’t much. The house was two miles away. The cabbie took me there and waited. The guys mum answered the door. Her teenage son sold me the ticket. I happily handed over the money and nipped back into the cab. It rode off with me in it.
 

At this point something really strange happened. The taxi driver told me that there was another station. Only, one and a half miles, away. So I agreed to go there instead of back two miles, saving half a mile of cab fair. As the cab drew up to the, extremely ornamental, tube station building. I looked up at the glamorous art deco lettering. I got out the cab and the driver sped off. I had just arrived at Maldon tube station!!!
 

 

The two stations were not on the same line. At some point in the journey, from Maldon tube station too Glastonbury, I, bewilderedly, grabbed the NME out of my holdall. In large capital letters it said MALDON!!
 

I had scrawled this quite clearly. To this day I don’t know where I got the word Morden. I’d never been to either place in my life before. I had never been to Glastonbury. I hadn’t even considered it until shortly before making the call to buy the ticket. 
 

I have never forgotten this. I had no tube map. And even if I had how could I have known the two stations were equidistant from the house I was stopping of at!!? I got trench foot at Glastonbury, that year. It was very muddy.

Nice story. Would still prefer that than the stress of pressing F5 for 32 minutes 

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

13 hours ago, fred quimby said:

Ah 94 and Orbital, magical and slightly odd. 

I had gone to the festival with my mate and a woman he know. On the night we had candy flipped and they were off to see Jah Wobble. We walk down together and the lady and I were finding it so easy to walk when we realised we were actually walking a foot above the ground, was going to be one of those nights.

We part  and off to the the other, or NME never sure that year, stage i go. Get there as they are just starting but I needed a wee. Off I go to a portaloo at the back of field. After finishing turn around to see a man looking through a small window at me. Took me a while to realise said man was actually me in a small mirror on the door. By then the toilet had filled with aurora type lights and mist all pulsating to the sound of Orbital.  This however meant I could not see how to get out. Seemed like ages before I worked it out.

Into the night I went and on stage were what I thought were Aliens or insects just pumping out the best beats. It was their famous light glasses but took me most of the show to realise that, and who cared anyway. Danced and hugged my way through a truly magical set. Chime set the tears of joy rolling.

Must look up who else I saw, Johnny Cash for sure which I wasn't going to see but boy am I glad I did, brilliant set. 

Love this. I'd love to hear more from 94 and 95

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

52 minutes ago, Neville Street said:

We have a few stories that will be nice in here. Will start with 1987, my first Glastonbury.

We were a bunch of students in Cardiff. End of finals and somebody suggested we go to Glastonbury Festival. I can't actually remember who suggested it. I was into music, had been to loads of gigs, used to hitch hike into London to go the The Marquee regularly. Had done Reading twice and already done a couple of big outdoor gigs, but not many as they were ££++ even back then, for a student with a minimum wage weekend/evening job.

We bought our tickets almost definitely at Spiller Records, or maybe even on the gate, but I think we had them up front. One friend had a vehicle and he took some of our group over on the Thursday evening I guess, and me and another friend went on his motorbike the following morning. By some minor miracle we found the others and we camped by the car/bike and in amongst a load of other vehicles and tents. It had rained in the run up to the festival so we were lucky to not fall off the bike in the mud and ruts. I think weather was why we delayed a day going on the motorbike. We got stopped and fully searched close to the site, wallets taken out and rifled through, the whole works. I feel like we were camped either where the family camping is now, or Big Ground or possibly a little bit towards Woodsies, in the field that has the Mandela bar in it nowadays. I remember coming in down a hill and past the tree where loads of people posted notes to try to meet up with people. There was a marketplace up at the top of Big Ground. All of this is from my head, totally happy to be corrected.

It didn't feel too scary, but it was downright weird just seeing people in hoodies selling drugs everywhere. I don't remember bars at all, we had no money so all the food/beers had gone in with the car (which was tiny, but carried enough bread/cheese/beer to get us through a few days). I remember vans with sound systems, campfires, flares, chatting with strangers. I think I might be mashing up one of the Reading festivals, but there was a van that literally just played Comfortably Numb on a loop 24/7. Maybe it was at both festivals! Maybe there was more than one of those vans.......

Can't remember much of the music really, it was a long time ago. I was already a Billy Bragg fan and I seem to remember the Acoustic Stage being in the same place but a smaller white tent with open sides, and not being able to get in as it was busy when he was on. Pretty sure we saw Elvis Costello, but I have better memories (and a bootleg) of him from 1989.

Most of us left on Sunday as we had tickets for David Bowie in Cardiff on the Sunday night. Glass Spider, so not his finest, but the only time I saw him and I do remember the glass elevator thing that he came down onto the stage in. I looked up the setlist a while ago and it had a fair few great songs on it.

Will reminisce on 89 & 90 at some point. Slightly better memory, and even a couple of dodgy photo's from one of them. Photo's which have a whole story attached to them.

Cheers, NS

Great story! Notes on a tree! Probably better than the Vodafone signal this year, to be fair. 

The open drug dealing I was unaware of. The vans with sound systems sound great.

[Neville Street]

20 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Great story! Notes on a tree! Probably better than the Vodafone signal this year, to be fair. 

 

In 1989 my sister was there, she would have been 20. My mum made me promise to call to say I had found her. I found her somehow and then had to queue for what felt like hours for one of the pay phones up near the farm just to phone my mum to say my sister was OK (or was OK when I had seen her some hours earlier!). 

I had a mobile phone in 1990 but it barely worked anywhere (not just at Glastonbury, anywhere at all). It spent the festival in the car in the car park. Which reminds me of a 1990 car park story. For another day.

[Sawdusty surfer]

Quite tempted but would take a while, I'm a very slow at typing. 

 Possibly best avoided as some content could possibly incriminate both myself and others and also seem fictional.

[BlueDaze]

On 11/8/2023 at 6:08 PM, Harrison Hendrix said:

Ok here goes!! I’ve been looking for a thread to tell this story in for ages!!

One day back in 1997 I bought a ticket to Glastonbury. I was in Cardiff at a B &B across the road from the Angel Hotel. I was going to a gig that night. I phoned this number in the NME and arranged to buy a Glastonbury Ticket at short notice. I quickly noted the name of the place down while on the phone. After the gig I went back to my B&B. The following morning I skipped breakfast and legged it out the hotel to the coach stop. Where was I going? Morden. That was it I was going to Morden. I hadn’t bothered checking the note I’d written on the NME.
 

I closed the door to the hotel room. Left the key in the door. I skipped down the stairs humming the lyric, In the deepest depths of Morden’, as I went. Good old Jimmy page!!! 
 

I got off the coach; skipped through the underground; changed somewhere and asked somewhere. I recall loads of smoggy stairs. I think a train heading to Brixton. Anyway there I was. Morden underground station. I’d been to too many gigs that month and was quite tired. I headed over the road to the supermarket bought an item and ordered a Black cab from the cab phone. The road between the station and supermarket was a taxi rank. It too was black, dark and smoggy.
 

I was concerned about the fair, but it wasn’t much. The house was two miles away. The cabbie took me there and waited. The guys mum answered the door. Her teenage son sold me the ticket. I happily handed over the money and nipped back into the cab. It rode off with me in it.
 

At this point something really strange happened. The taxi driver told me that there was another station. Only, one and a half miles, away. So I agreed to go there instead of back two miles, saving half a mile of cab fair. As the cab drew up to the, extremely ornamental, tube station building. I looked up at the glamorous art deco lettering. I got out the cab and the driver sped off. I had just arrived at Maldon tube station!!!
 

 

The two stations were not on the same line. At some point in the journey, from Maldon tube station too Glastonbury, I, bewilderedly, grabbed the NME out of my holdall. In large capital letters it said MALDON!!
 

I had scrawled this quite clearly. To this day I don’t know where I got the word Morden. I’d never been to either place in my life before. I had never been to Glastonbury. I hadn’t even considered it until shortly before making the call to buy the ticket. 
 

I have never forgotten this. I had no tube map. And even if I had how could I have known the two stations were equidistant from the house I was stopping of at!!? I got trench foot at Glastonbury, that year. It was very muddy.

you are not related to @Yoghurt on a Stickare you.??

[philipsteak]

20 hours ago, Sawdusty surfer said:

Quite tempted but would take a while, I'm a very slow at typing. 

 Possibly best avoided as some content could possibly incriminate both myself and others and also seem fictional.

Just put "this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to real people is entirely coincidental" at the start. 

We'll know.

Doesn't help with the slow typing though, sorry.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

On 11/8/2023 at 5:27 PM, fred quimby said:

Ah 94 and Orbital, magical and slightly odd. 

I had gone to the festival with my mate and a woman he know. On the night we had candy flipped and they were off to see Jah Wobble. We walk down together and the lady and I were finding it so easy to walk when we realised we were actually walking a foot above the ground, was going to be one of those nights.

We part  and off to the the other, or NME never sure that year, stage i go. Get there as they are just starting but I needed a wee. Off I go to a portaloo at the back of field. After finishing turn around to see a man looking through a small window at me. Took me a while to realise said man was actually me in a small mirror on the door. By then the toilet had filled with aurora type lights and mist all pulsating to the sound of Orbital.  This however meant I could not see how to get out. Seemed like ages before I worked it out.

Into the night I went and on stage were what I thought were Aliens or insects just pumping out the best beats. It was their famous light glasses but took me most of the show to realise that, and who cared anyway. Danced and hugged my way through a truly magical set. Chime set the tears of joy rolling.

Must look up who else I saw, Johnny Cash for sure which I wasn't going to see but boy am I glad I did, brilliant set. 

I witnessed that set too - although in much more of different way than your lovely tale. 

[Crazyfool01]

On 11/10/2023 at 10:01 PM, Sawdusty surfer said:

Quite tempted but would take a while, I'm a very slow at typing. 

 Possibly best avoided as some content could possibly incriminate both myself and others and also seem fictional.

Aw go on I’m sure you have something tucked away that won’t incriminate 

[glimmers_of_hope]

I've got a couple of random memories of various Glasto's.  Start with my first one 2003.

I remember getting tickets for my first Glasto in 2003.  I was working in a call centre and my mate leaned over the desk and asked whether I was getting tickets for Glastonbury because they had just gone on sale.  We must have had a conversation about it previously in a kind of "wouldn't it be fun to go" type way but I don't think it was seriously something I was considering, but in that moment I just though, yeah, why not! found the telephone number, called up and got through without any issue and bought a ticket - had no appreciation that it would sell out.

Back as a fresh faced 22 year old who had only been to a couple of day festivals in Bristol before I hadn't got the appreciation of size and scale of Glasto.

I travelled down on the train with my girlfriend at the time and I remember we arrived really late after the sun had gone down.  We came over the hill on the way from Castle Cary station on the top deck of a double decker bus and just saw all the lights of the festival site off to the side and it almost took my breath away. It was love at first sight.

We lugged our kit on site (I had packed a load of food and small gas stove thinking that we would go back to the tent to eat pot noodles).  I called my mate who had saved us a space and he came to meet us.  I put my bag down in the old cinema field and when I picked it up again I hadn’t noticed that my Doc Martin boots (which I had tied on to my bag by their laces) had become untied, so I lost those within minutes of arriving.

We followed my friend up to where they were camped which was the back garden of Worthy farm and pitched my small 2 man tent in the dark at about 11 o’clock at night and had a relaxing herbal smoke.

I wasn’t drinking alcohol at all that year but I did pretty much wake an bake that festival.  I think the first act we saw were the Darkness opening (or on early) on the Pyramid and I thought they were a hilarious comedy act, couldn’t stop laughing.

It was really hot that year but for some reason I spent the whole festival wearing a pinstriped brown suit, paisley shirt and at some point I acquired a sombrero.

At some point during the Friday we were sat at the Pyramid and there was a dealer walking around and shouting that they had weed for sale, I asked whether he had any mushrooms, he didn’t hear but a lady next to us said “don’t buy off him, I’ve got some” and sold me a bag of ‘shrooms.  I remember late at night looking at the grass walking home and it looked like I was looking down at a labyrinth or maze.  Also, I remember not being able to look at my GF because I thought she “looked like the devil”.

Anyway, made a massive error in judgement and instead of seeing REM I was convinced by my then GF to see Fat Boy Slim in the old dance tent – I hadn’t appreciated at that point that he played every year.  We saw quite a few acts in the Dance tent that festival and I can remember dealers walking through the crowd with 2Litre cola bottles full of pills selling them.  Also seemingly on every bridge.

Wandered up to the stone circle after FBS and had a cup of tea in one of the tents and chatted to people really chilled out and friendly.  We didn’t find the Lost vagueness that year, I don’t think we even knew it existed.

Next day was Radiohead which was the big one for me.  Remember enjoying Flaming Lips and making our way close to the front for Radiohead – was an amazing performance, still one of my favourites.

That festival I saw, The Darkness, Har Mar Superstar, Suede, Royksopp, X-Press2, Fatboy Slim, 80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Thrills, 2Many DJ’s,The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Damian Rice, Macy Gray, Sigur Ros, The Roots, The Streets.

I can’t remember much about lot’s of those acts other than being very glad we swerved the Sunday Pyramid headliner Moby to watch The Streets in a packed Dance tent and it being really awesome.

Next day we left and waited for hours at Castle Cary station tired & sunburned, minus my Doc Martin’s but my life had been changed. I knew I wanted to do it every year.