I don’t often review gigs, but it seems appropriate in this week of not writing a Glasto diary that I’m doing two. This is a longer, slightly more personalised version of a piece that will appear in tomorrow’s Nottingham Evening Post. I took the arty photo above myself. If it’s any good, that’s a complete accident. Broken Social Scene are a collective from Toronto whose members have previously included Lesley Feist and Emily Haines. They play near grungy, avant garde rock with the occasional hint of prog. They’re at their best on their self-titled 2005 album and 2003’s classic You Forgot It In People, both heavily represented tonight. Their last visit to the Rescue Rooms, just over four years ago, was an outstanding two hours…
For those happening on this post because they’ve come to check out the new song of the week, you’ll find two new mp3s below and several more over the last three posts. This is an anniversary repost of my Glastobury 2000 diary, which appeared on my original, long deleted website. At the end of this final post, there’s a post script saying that the novel I was researching there has been commissioned. It was, indeed, published the following summer, although there was no Glastonbury that year. I also promise that I’ll write a diary about writing the novel. I never did. Perhaps, when I’ve got time, I’ll add a few reflections on the novel and Glastonbury. Meanwhile, here’s the final diary entry from ten years…
No more rain, so I put on my clean jeans. I’m meant to be meeting Tank, my brother from York, at midday behind the Pyramid stage mixing desk, presuming he’s arrived, but, first, I fancy seeing John Martyn, as does my neighbour Helen. Unfortunately, despite knowing about my experience yesterday, my neighbours were robbed in the night, stuff taken from someone’s trousers as they slept – twenty quid and a mobile phone. They’ve gone to get yellow security stickers, but it’s too late, really. They were in the tent when it happened, but, like me, slept incredibly heavily last night (it was much less noisy, which helped) and noticed nothing. There’s someone playing on the Jazzworld stage, but it isn’t John Martyn, who’s cancelled. I…
Here’s the third part of my tenth anniversary repost of the Glastonbury journal that appeared on my old website ten years ago today, with four relevant mp3s to download at the bottom. PART 3 – Friday. Most common sound heard at Glasto after a mobile phone rings: “Hello, Mum.” It rained on and off in the night. I gave up trying to stay asleep at quarter to nine, made myself a cup of tea. I had a Frusli bar for breakfast (boring but nourishing). I put on my wellies and my heavily mud spattered Diesel jeans, then went for a wash and a pee before setting off for the Welfare tent, a long trudge away. I got there early and waited while head of Welfare,…
This blog has been going for ten years next week. It began in June 2000, with my extensive diary of that year’s Glastonbury festival, which also acted as my research notes for the Glastonbury novel Festival, which was published the following year. My Glastonbury diaries (there were subsequent ones last year and in 2003 – you can find them in the archives) have always been the most read pieces on the site. Sadly, for its first three years, the site was on Geocities, rather than my own domain, and their archives are no longer accessible. This week, I’m going to dig around amongst some old back-up discs and see if I can find those original posts and put them back up here. No Glastonbury diary…