Glastonbury

Got a ticket, not entirely sure if I’ll be able to go but fortunately there’s the deposit system now.

Resurrecting this thread.

Thoughts on this years offerings?

How do you feel about “Glasto”

I always watch a bit on TV. It’s a good introduction to a lot of acts I wouldn’t otherwise have heard of, being thoroughly out of the loop, and a nice chance to see some old favourites.

I do find the complaints from the indie purists funny.

My boss at work goes every year by volunteering as a litter picker.
She rarely sees the televised acts - there’s so much more going on than that. Plenty of stages with ‘traditional’, ‘credible’ ‘respectable’ acts playing. And lots of circus and other types of performance happening about the site. You can have a totally different festival experience from what’s on telly and never see a single headliner.

Festivals can be great fun, but they, along with a lot of their long-term followers, are having a bit of an identity crisis. Most of us are convinced the music of our youth was the best ever, and everything since is useless. When it comes to the live experience then we usually hark back to our student days. It's a relatively recent thing that people who (maybe) were expected to have outgrown festivals insist they should still cater to their tastes.

Smaller festivals can get away with being niche and targeting a particular audience, which is usually white, middle class and male. Not that women never went to festivals before, but there was the acceptance that most of the acts would be male and we were to leave our love of pop and/or boybands at home for the weekend. But larger festivals need to be more things for more people, especially if they want to get tv support.

That means scrabbling around to book female or black artists, many of whom made their names without any support from the festival circuit. I've seen some festival organisers complain that some of the biggest music acts in the world don't want to 'support' festivals, but how many festivals were supporting those artists establish themselves? That means not all bookings are as good as they might otherwise have been. 

There were a lot of complaints about Cincy Lauper being not very good. On paper she's a good booking, and I'd probably have made a bee-line for her myself. I'm not sure how a festival checks if older acts can still perform well unless they are getting regular gigs, so it can be chalked up to a lesson learnt. Dua Lipa ticks all of the boxes for a traditional Glastonbury headliner in terms of album success, but doesn't fit the stereotype on the grounds of being female and poppy. People who don't want that can easily find something more rock or indy orientated on another stage. But from what I can tell lots of people who bought tickets did want to see her, so a success as far as the Glastonbury festival is concerned.

Yet another headliner set from Coldplay is a cliché. Boring and unimaginative maybe, but I saw a clip and they pulled a massive crowd. People who want something new and innovative won't be hanging around the main stage anyway.

It's ages since I've been to a music festival, but one thing I noticed in later years was that between the serious blokey rock/indy acts on stage, the music chosen by organisers would be sing-along chart pop. The boys with heavy metal t-shirts sang along to "Reach for the Stars" with just as much enthusiasm as the girls. 

I haven’t seen Cyndi Lauper’s set yet.
With older acts there’s often a case for seeing them before it’s too late, even though they are past their prime. There’s also a case to be made that some amazing acts missed playing Glasto in their prime precisely because of the snobbery of the indie crowd.

Elton John played for the first time last year. Elton has been a huge artist throughout the festival’s life, but there would have been absolute uproar if he’d been booked as a headliner in the 90s or 2000s. He wasn’t ‘cool’.

I watched Seventeen’s set and was rather amused. Small crowd for them but great reviews because they are the first K-pop act and are huge worldwide. No-one dare complain. But they are basically NSync, musically - there may be lots more of them but they are a boyband through and through. And yet it has done no damage to the hallowed boards of the Pyramid stage to have them perform on it, and I now know something about an act that were the second best-selling in the world last year who I hadn’t heard about until last week.

Shania Twain incredibly ropy in the Legends slot. Feels like she is having some sound issues because the various clips I've seen from the rest of her tour on social media haven't been like this.

My favourites (admittedly watching from the sofa at home) were Jessie Ware and Avril Lavigne! The Other Stage was dangerously packed for Avril, think the organisers underestimated the power of nostalgia on that one!

Was disappointed not to have been able to see the Gipsy Kings headlining on Sunday night. The Acoustic Stage wasn't broadcast.

Had to turn off Shania three songs in.

It was embarrassing - like a drunk woman who thinks she sounds amazing on the karaoke at the pub.

Such a shame.

Just watched the Sugababes-set - very enjoyable, all the hits. Not pitch perfect all the time, but good.

They were upgraded to West Holt after their success last time they performed. From what I've seen they might be due another upgrade - apparently they had to close the West Holt-area due to danger of overcrowding during their set.

I watched it on BBC Iplayer and it sounded fully live (like usually when she does a festival).  Which her tour wasn't.  I went to 2 shows last year (London & Birmingham) and some songs/bits were pre-recorded.
Must admit, I haven't seen any other clips of what's she's done in the past 2 weeks due to being on holiday.

She has great days with her voice, and she has quite bad moments with her voice (I've been a fan and following since 2000).
But then, that's just my opinion about it, I'm sure others have other opinions about how her voice sounds these days.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what "ropy" means, then just ignore me, lol.

Always funny to hear criticisms about the festival from people who clearly didn't/don't go (or haven't been for a long time maybe) - the music (although personally I think they did an excellent job this year, a year of generally weaker festival lineups across the board - suggesting Dua Lipa; one of the most streamed artists on the planet; shouldn't be headlining is a laughably out of touch opinion) is such a small part of the festival, and the main stage / BBC coverage acts an even smaller part at that. Criticisms of a handful of acts at a festival of over 2,000 are so worthless as to almost be completely pointless.

Had (another) amazing time there. Not losing any of its magic - don't believe the nonsense.