Glastonbury 2009 - the inthenews.co.uk review
Glastonbury 2009 - the inthenews.co.uk review
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Wednesday, 01, Jul 2009 01:08
Its trio of headliners might have been criticised as safe and staid, but when a Glastonbury Festival combines a generation's Elvis moment with a staggering set by a crotchety old rocker, a curfew-baiting epic effort by a resurgent voice of America and a lump-in-throat display of unrelenting singalongs by an Essex four-piece who reunited over Eccles cakes, the annual pilgrimage of thousands to a mammoth Somerset dairy farm remains as exhilarating life-affirming as ever.
With his body clock almost restored to normality, and free of the horror of waking up in a tent hotter than the sun, Lewis Bazley looks back over five days on the farm.
Thursday June 25th
With festival organisers having now realised that the huddled masses arrive on site well before the first acts take to the Pyramid Stage, there's thankfully more to do on the Thursday than just sitting listlessly in the stone circle or excitedly frittering away your money on the first pear cider of the festival season. Maximo Park kick things off with an oversubscribed set at the illogically-moved Queen's Head stage, while other performers include Metronomy, Stornoway and East 17 who drew a huge crowd to the Dance Lounge. But the night belongs to the late Michael Jackson, as initial scepticism about the growing reports of his death translate to shock, sadness and, later, a celebration of the King of Pop's music as bars and tents around the site blast out his hits.
Friday June 26th
After a very rainy night, Mr Hudson starts the show at an hour so early that you can only assume organisers had fretted over his synth-pop reinvention under the tutelage of Kanye West. But any anxiety would have been misplaced as the Oxford graduate delivers a silky and promising performance, leading the crowd in a singalong of forthcoming smash Supernova and paying the first onstage tributes of the weekend to the late Michael Jackson. The drizzle continues during a kooky performance from Regina Spektor, who wins the hearts of the audience with musical dexterity and hooks that have given birth to a new generation of female singer-songwriters. The sun begins to surface for a note-perfect performance from a shy Fleet Foxes, though the earliness of the hour means the beauty of many of their harmonies is lost thanks to the crowd members who've apparently travelled all the way to the festival so as to talk throughout every performance.
Festival veteran Lily Allen is as spirited and crowd-pleasing as you'd expect as the sky starts to turn a heartwarming blue, and wears a single glove as another MJ tribute, but it's Friendly Fires who almost steal the entire day. The salsa-infused three-piece prove themselves the quintessential part band, with Latin rhythms and soaring choruses leaving a sizeable crowd getting their groove on under a perfect Westcountry sky. Jack Penate opens his John Peel Stage set with new album title track Everything is New and his hugely exciting foray into pastures new is mesmerising, as well as continuing the brief phenomenon of Napoleon Dynamite-esque white boy dancing, after Friendly Fires' Ed Macfarlane proved the tightest jeans in Christendom are no barrier to shaking your moneymaker.
The reunited Specials get scores of balding rude boys skanking through the night but fellow headliners the Boss and Blur must have been left twitching after a bar-raising headline performance from Neil Young, including a 12-minute, repeatedly-reprised version of Rockin' in the Free World and a sublime cover of A Day in the Life.
Saturday June 27th
inthenews.co.uk's festival correspondents begin the day blistering in the blazing sun and hanging around the backstage bar to secure the following interviews with Paolo Nutini and White Lies - and both acts are as accommodating and polite in person as they are impressive on stage, the former a particular festival highlight as cuts from #1 album Sunny Side Up prove he's more than just a pretty boy.
Spinal Tap, "direct from hell", apparently, begin their maiden Glastonbury appearance with Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You, Tonight and in weather like this, it's hard to suppress a grin at the splendid silliness of it all. All the favourites are here and turned up to 11 - Hellhole, (featuring guest keyboardist Jamie Cullum), Sex Farm and Stonehenge, replete with miniature relic and dancing midgets - but there's something oddly missing. The between-song banter feels disappointingly threadbare - you'd have expected this trio of comedy greats, sorry, rock gods, to have prepared some stronger material for an anniversary tour - and a Michael Jackson 'tribute' from Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls - "I can honestly say if there hadn't been a Michael Jackson, there wouldn't be a Spinal Tap" - falls extremely flat. Thank god, then, for the long-limbed guest appearance on bass from Jarvis Cocker, who proves surprisingly adept at plucking out the lolloping refrain of Big Bottom.
Any disappointment at the dark knights of rock failing to Tap into Glastonbury are swiftly allayed by the excellent Dizzee Rascal who spreads a party atmosphere through a surprisingly large crowd with a mash-up of Michael Jackson classics - though the crowd seem more interested in MJ's music than Dizzee's call for applause for a lost legend - and a masterly closing triptych of Dance Wiv Me, upcoming single Holiday and Bonkers, the festival anthem of the summer. Dizzee's come a long way, baby, and while he might have lost some grime credibility, there's no doubt he's one of the most vibrant and exciting pop artists around.
Over in the John Peel Tent, the Gaslight Anthem are tight and tenacious and move this reviewer to tears when Brian Fallon's shh-ing of the crowd to hear "the waves of my hometown" heralds an ecstatic, unexpected guest spot from Bruce Springsteen on The '59 Sound. It's the greatest moment of the festival so far, and a moving passing of the torch of working class rock.
With the sun blazing despite early evening rearing its head, Crosby, Stills and Nash are chilled and dreamlike, with a lovely cover of Ruby Tuesday, though hopes for a guest appearance from Neil Young were never likely to be realised. What a pity then, that the atmosphere and stunning weather is marred by Kasabian, whose boorish, sub-Primal Scream drone is only surpassed by the loutish fans who swarm into the Pyramid Arena, drowning "la-la-la" along with the band's mediocre-terrace-chant choruses and, most pleasantly, urinating over trees and bushes. If ever a band were characterised by their followers, it's this one.
Luckily, a fair proportion of the simian scourge leave before a masterful, epic set from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, who earns himself a £3,000 fine by playing beyond the 00:30 curfew and saves his biggest hits for last. Not as epoch-making as Jay-Z's 2008 set, but with the same once-in-a-lifetime tone, and a crowd of thousands are energised and moved.
Sunday June 28th
The excitement of Springsteen's appearance with the Gaslight Anthem meant this reviewer got… over-excited, so it's with a sore head that we trudge up the hill to the cinema field for elevenses and an exclusive UK showing of Disney/Pixar's Up. It's not out here until October, so I'll be holding fire with the first review, but sufficed to say, they've done it again. It's hilarious, romantic, incredibly mature, utterly thrilling and one of the finest films you'll see this year.
Packing beckons, so there's scant time available for synchronised swaying to the three-chord anthems of Status Quo, so the veterans do get the audience rockin' all over the field… ahem...
Off to the Other Stage field for the long haul as some irritating drizzle at least brings relief from the humidity, though the ferocity of Enter Shikari means there's steam rising from the moshpit nonetheless. The St Albans quartet look nervy and sloppy, but their passion is infectious and as Rou Reynolds exhorts the crowd to sing "loud, proud and with conviction", right-thinking members of the audience must surely concur with Getcapewearcapefly's Sam Duckworth and bemoan the critics who criticise Shikari's politicised lyrics. Hell, at least they care.
Later, Karen O's a vision in a multi-coloured nu-rave take on a Native American headdress as Yeah Yeah Yeahs arrive on the Other Stage, with the outfit completed by a paint-splattered poncho and sea-green leggings. Sadly, her get-up is the main talking point in a set whose impact ruined by poor scheduling. The New Yorkers belong in the middle of a Friday night moonlit sugar high, not in the early evening of the final day, with much of the crowd simply too tired to dance.
Luckily, Bat For Lashes requires less booty-shaking, more nodding admiration as a field of fans lie back and gaze in admiration at Natasha Khan's fantastical astral folk-pop, with erstwhile Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley proving a fine vocal foil for Khan.
The end is nigh but a staggering Bon Iver performance makes a late break into the top five moments of the 2009 festival, with a loveably shambolic 'lecture' ahead of Wolves prefacing a spine-tingling audience singalong of the sad refrain "What might have been lost?" His voice is gentle, calming and fragile, yet his falsetto has the power to reach the very back of the field - roll on album two.
And it looks like we might have made it to the end. Blur are simply magnificent. Damon Albarn claims the "most obvious statement of the weekend" award with his cry of "There's a lot of people here!" after an ecstatic Girls and Boys and the overriding impression of the set is just how many great songs Blur have written. You might not have heard Tracy Jacks, End of the Century or Jubilee in over a decade, but the words come flooding back and with Damon and co appearing not to have aged a day - Alex James looks like he's been teleported in from 94, with baggy jumper, fringe and fag all present and correct - there's something timeless and triumphant in the air. Yes, there are some dull-as-f**k Oasis 'jokes' from some mid-crowd morons but with close to 100,000 people standing in a field at sunset singing "love's the greatest thing", it'd be churlish to fret. There's time for a Phil Daniels guest spot on a manic Parklife, a mirrorball-lit To the End and a wondrous rendition of This Is A Low that proves animated simian bands, a growing African obsession and writing an opera haven't lessened the power of Damon's voice at its strongest.
They close with The Universal and with this festival now forever linked with a generation coping with the loss of one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived through pushing themselves to the limits in a hedonistic, sun-bleached weekend of music and madness, it's hard to disagree with Damon as he sings "no-one here is alone".
Lewis Bazley