Me and my camera on the festival circuit, my adult playground, my glastonbury

Every conceivable genre of music and its corresponding crowd are represented at Glastonbury. Whatever you are, whatever you listen to, you have your own corner. Techno ravers,  heavy metallers, retro revivalists, rock bashers, drum & bass nutters, gypsy queens, disco freaks, pop tarts, acoustic airheads, square dancers and everyone in-between are all present and correct (well, not so correct). Despite their apparent differences they all have one thing in common, all they want to do is dance. That is why we are all there. To rock out from dawn till dusk till dawn.

Wherever you go, whatever time of day or night, whether you are at a tent, a main stage, in the middle of a wood, Bez’s acid house or at the Strumpets & Crumpets food stand, there is always dancing. Sometimes there are thousands of people busting their moves, sometimes a few, sometimes just one. But they are always giving it their all. And one dancer at Glasto is worth 50 anywhere else.

Seeing people dance (and dancing myself) is probably my favourite outdoor activity on Earth. It is the ultimate celebration of life and to watch people’s chosen tunes course through them, filling them with energy & expression is just glorious.  When you dance to your desired music you feel connected to the inaudible rhythm of the universe. Glastonbury facilitates this better than anywhere else I have ever been.

To see the full Glasto gallery please click here

 

Me and my camera on the festival circuit, my adult playground, my glastonbury

Glastonbury with mud is hard. Its gruelling, knackering & 100% slog. Glastonbury without mud is easy. Its enjoyable, relaxing, 100% do-able.  The difference is extraordinary. If the sun is out it is blissful. You can lie out, you can sunbathe, you can sit wherever you want. Your journey times are magnificently manageable. If it has been raining you cannot sit down..anywhere. Every step is arduous and it takes a debilitating amount of time to get from A to B. This year it barely rained. It was hot, both day and even at night. I have never been there when it has been warm at night. It was like being on holiday.

The only downside to hot weather at a festival is that you have to vacate your tent by about 8.30/9am as it is just too damn hot to tolerate. After that you have to be out and if you don’t want to cook yourself for 8 hours straight you begin the process of shade chasing. Glasto is pretty wide open. There is not a lot of shade anywhere, apart from the music tents and the bar tents, which means you start your festivities early. And as there is always somewhere to being having fun your party hours get longer and longer.

As the festival goes on you end up staying out later and later until by about day 3 (which was thursday in our case) you end up back at your tent after the point when you need to leave it. You end up taking naps in random places. One afternoon we had an impromptu kip in the middle of a gig and woke up to people taking pictures of us passed out as the music blared.  Fortunately I am untaggable (for these kind of reasons) but if anyone has a pic of an unconscious couple on a bed in the bimble inn next to an empty pizza box please get in touch…

Me and my camera on the festival circuit, my adult playground, my glastonbury

There are about 200,000 people on site at Glastonbury including punters, performers and crew and a huge chunk of them dress up in outlandish outfits. It feels that most are just doing it whilst they are in a safe haven where anything goes, an opportunity to release the more flamboyant aspects of their personality which remain largely hidden in their normal lives. At Glasto no-one is going to bat an eyelid. Pirate, cross-dresser, giant banana, no-one gives a shit. Its quite funny to watch as the days go on and as the Glastonians (is that what they’re called? they are now) feel more and more liberated how their outfits get more and more outrageous and provocative. As the grip of the real world loosens so does their inhibitions.

A smaller minority of revellers look like they have come as themselves, vaudevillian circusy travelling tinker types and aren’t in costume, they are like that all year round. There used to be many more in this category but as the festival has become more mainstream and more expensive the representatives of an alternate society has decreased dramatically.  The organisers of Glasto used to give out thousands of tickets to performers, circus folk etc to add to the atmosphere but at £250 a pop someone got out a calculator one day and worked out how much money they were losing to potential purchasing and that was the end of that.

But regardless of whether you are a libertine tourist or a 365 festival freak Glastonbury encourages this freedom of expression. It is an opportunity to rid yourself of the shackles of normality and to express yourself as you see fit, without fear of recrimination or judgement. This is always a good thing. It is in fact a beautiful thing and should always be celebrated, even if you will shortly be back in your office, in your work suit, trying to scrape off a bit of glitter that escaped first inspection.