I shall be at the Diana Concert on Sunday. I've even studied the tube map to figure a route that may be less mad. No chance.
I'm guessing that there will be a special act at the show.
I'm guessing that David Beckham will introduce it and I'm guessing that it will be the Spice Girls.
If there are conflicting stories about them not doing it, I guess they won't be ready -however, it would be too good a global promo opportunity to miss for a relaunch.
UPDATE: already seeing denial stories!
I'd arranged to meet Roger at Canary Wharf yesterday evening. We were outside one of the wine bars looking at the water.
Roger was bass player for the Bomb, a band which is now defunct, but at the time were noted for their shiny red guitars (we both thought that maybe the guitars were a bit better than some of the music!)
Anyway, it was a fun evening, comparing notes on various folk we both knew and extending some of our contacts. In fact we stayed there until pretty much the last trains, then he headed away to Essex, and me back to Chelsea.
I will start posting about other topics again, but I thought there were a couple of aspects of the journey back to London worth a comment.
The coach was fine; all of the seats had special seat covers as protection from the mud. Actually there was quite a lot of banter about the gigs and so forth, but also a surprisingly long discussion about the different types of mud we had encountered; we all seemed to have developed a full vocabulary to describe the gloppy, the see-through, the slow-sink, the stinking, the mainly hay - and so the list went on - and got ruder.
The journey was stopped part way at a services and it was entertaining to see the spontaneous response of normal folk to a bus load of grimy revellers descending on the Service station. I think they worked out where we were from.
It was also strange walking on normal surfaces again. I've got so used to the mud and wellington boots effect and the services were a sort of return to normal walking. Most of us had a strange zombie like shuffle - a combination of sleep deprivation, having to stand for the last 4 or 5 days and the strange support provided by Wellies.
The next interesting part of the journey was arriving at Earls Court. Ten o'clock in the morning in central London, yet the overwhelming impression was of how quiet it was. This is the post Glastonbury noise effect, because nothing ever really stopped at the festival. People,. music, chatter, happenings twenty four hours a day.
And then on the tube - people pointing "they've been at Glastonbury". And surfacing at Sloane Square. It was as if the entire Square stopped to look at us as we walked to a 137 for the last stage.
Proper photos and some short video of the Long Blondes and the Who, to follow - but probably at the weekend.
Update...here's another Glastoblog
Sunday continued to rain, but our spirits were lifted by some great shows. Surprisingly, at this point the Shirley Bassey and The Who were both amazingly good. Shirley Bassey performed mid afternoon and showed us what 'show-biz' can be like. Warmly received.
The Who were later and it was raining quite hard. Still a great gig. Finished with a quick tropp around some of the late clubs but decdied to get back to the tent rather tahn see the dawn.
Actually the Vango has survived really well. No leaks and hardly any mud, unlike some of the others. Picking a spot away from the main areas helped.
I'm writing this on the coach back to Earl's Court. Managed to get one at 5.30 in the morning instead of 6. We've brought just about everything back, and because of the waterproofs, there is far less mud on clothes than one might expect.
A bit of a night yesterday.
Didn't finish until around 7.
Just going for coffee.
Saw Kate on stage with Pete in the Babyshambles gig.
Leather.
More l8r as the text says.
Refreshed with a couple of bands this afternoon, I've just paused for a large fruit drink. Last night became this morning without really any gap. The time seemed to go very quickly, by the time we had checked out a few of the dance tents and the strange attractions of Trash City.
There seem to be several new areas here this year although it is possible that I just missed them before. There were definitely Dance tents last time, but not on the scale of this year's Dance East and the nearby Dance West. We also spotted a Wild West area called the Pussy Parlour with some rockabilly type band at full speed.
And as for the New York area, the burlesque clubs, pagoda shaped opium den and the pole dancing ballerinas - or maybe I just imagined some of it. A lot to handle in a single evening. I'm also conscious that there's still several of the main tents that I havn't really visited.
Still there's another night.
The only reason this is so early is because of camping. I'm now drinking a fruit smoothie as a kind of breakfast preparation. I was near the front for Bjork. Fantastic with a set that was like someone had landed from outer space and then progressively took control of our minds. By the end there was so much light and strange pulses that we could have been beamed to a space-ship. I also sense that I have changed into a proper festival goer by this point because it is now quite easy to spot the people who arrived late on friday and still look slightly shiny.
>
Better weather at the moment. I've decided to build today around the Long Blondes (of course), plus Lily Allan and Babyshambles. Then I'll catch one of the main acts later, but in between I'll browse some of the smaller gigs and other shows. The mud makes it take twice as long to get from one place to another, plus the sudden surges of crowds as various sets finish and people have plans to get to another stage. Last night's Russian tank commander sweatshirt purchase has been surprisingly useful.
Forget what I said about the weather- it must have been a few minutes of sun, then back to full sweeping rain. The orange cagoule, Millets finest waterproof trousers and wellies make me invincible though.
Still. The Long Blondes rocked at a rather early time for their music and of course I could sing all of the words to every track.
Then I managed to catch part of the Dirty Pretty Things - from a distance - positioning for Lily. I hadn't realised that I sort of knew the DPT album off by heart. Already feels like a great day and its not even the evening yet. More pics on the way for rashbre to post.
UPDATE: adding pix to the moblog posts: rashbre
Some people are a bit snobby about Lily, but I thought the gig was a great afternoon festival set. Bouncing around in luminous pink with a cigarette and a really strong ska reggae band, it was a real spirit lifter. Rain? What rain?
Now sitting with a drink. Need it after working our way to the front for the last set. We had to start whilst the previous band were still on. John had brought a small camera with a good lens so we've got some quite good Lily pictures and I'm going to see whether I can send them from my phone.
Wet. Muddy. Who cares.
I linked up with Ben today although I had to go back outside. Ben was supposed to have been included when we bought the tickets, but his pre-registration had not been accepted because his photo was so bad. Instead of fixing it, he left it so when we eventually got the tickets, we couldn't include him.
So back at the mad Sunday when all of the tickets sold out in two hours, we did eventually get through and get coach tickets (an extra £42 each). Despite the transport delays it was still better for the journey.
Ever resourceful, Ben then applied for car parking duties and actually has Friday night shot until Saturday morning. He's not allowed into the site though until after his duties have finished. At least he made it.
I've seen some bands now: the jaunty Fratellis, fabulous Rufus Wainwright, happy Coral, intense Arcade Fire and a very wet Automatic set amongst others. I didn;t see Bloc Party. All great, but its a bit difficult to write a review on a mobile phone keyboard. Actually I brought a spare old Nokia phone because that way I had two batteries fully charged. The Nokia doesn't have a camera but is a good standby. Just sending some pictures to rashbre central to get uploaded.
Waiting for Bjork.
A chilled day although i can't believe how busy it has become already. Last time, a lot of people arrived late on Friday but this year everyone seems to be taking extra time. A lot of people I've spoke to seem to have been using the coaches, I think the way the tickets were allocated made it easier to to get coach tickets and most to them seem to have been for Wednesday and Thursday. There's been a steady stream of people and the media circus seems to be starting early as well. Loads of food choices, but they've already run out of wellington boots once.
No technology at the moment, so its emails from my phone to the blog. rashbre can access it too, so I may ask for some uploads if I can send some pictures to rashbre central. The coach from Earl's Court was around 4pm, but it was really about 10 o clock before we were here. Damp weather but not a disaster and we have a good camping area. Its already getting fairly busy because a lot of the coaches have been arriving today.
