This last weekend, in a (very huge) field in Somerset, the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts raised the bar once again on exciting things to do in a field. I’m echoing several other bloggers here, when I say that too much has probably been made of the event’s corporate nature, which in comparison to something such as V Festival, for example, isn’t really the case. Glastonbury has got huge, and has to operate as a viable business to survive. It’s a gargantuan undertaking; the erection of marquees, tents, stages, stalls, even buildings, to make up a temporary small town. That’s before we come to the almost countless performance artists and other contributors at work there. However well organised Glastonbury is, there is always someone, somewhere, moaning about how it doesn’t compare to smaller events (which should be obvious) and how it can’t compete with the memory of the counter-cultural happenings of the sixties. Well, no, it probably can’t; times have changed, and we didn’t really have a festival like Glastonbury back then anyway, if we’re to be completely honest. It’s origins lie in that culturally seismic era, but here we are today with a rather different beast; and it’s great. A huge English garden party in acres of farm land, with music and performance, with a subtle edge of suspect but ambient mysticism. Look, it’s summer. What could be better than live music, fun and games in a field with that great British sense of surreal humour and a background touch of the Arthurian?? Don’t knock it, it’s a great summer tradition.. Continue reading
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