REUBEN & ROSIE - OFFLEY, JUNE 2005
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GLASTO
I have never felt remotely tempted to attend the Glastonbury Festival. Not even in the days when I could put on wellies standing up & crawl through the mouth of a one-man tent without dislocating vertebrae. A lifelong antipathy towards camping accounts for most of the reluctance. I have deep-seated problems with the concept of accommodation made out of the material from which we manufacture clothing. Having invented the house brick, you’d have thought that humankind would have been delighted to turn its bent back on a dwelling that, in comparison to the commodious cave, is perversely primitive.
So the notion of crawling out from beneath a large pocket handkerchief at dawn & staggering about in liquid mud looking for toilet facilities designed by Hieronymous Bosch has never really appealed. But attending Glasto from the comfort & sanitary convenience of my own home is an entirely different matter. I wouldn’t miss it for the world & the 2005 version fulfilled expectations & more. I shan’t bang on at length about what, for me, was hot & what was not, but a few swift mentions are in order
I’m not, generally speaking, a musical nostalge (sorry – I just invented the noun). I believe that music’s never been in better shape & although way back when there was much cache in discovering the authentically off-the-wall, I’m glad to have such ease of access to a broad musical spectrum now. However, Brian Wilson’s appearance did do for me in a big way. Although at first, not at all. He sat expressionlessly behind his keyboard, gazing into the middle distance, apparently indifferent to what was going on around him, onstage & off. He was surrounded by a strikingly un-rock’n’roll collection of musicians, most of them dressed as if for a works outing, all looking decidedly uncomfortable. And, for the first few bars, the dry, tired voice singing of girlfriends & cruising & a world that receded a thousand tides ago was unconvincing, even a tad embarrassing, like karaoke at a retirement party.
And then something remarkable happened. The motley crew suddenly came into their own. The little weasel-faced guy at the front - normally to be seen working behind my local post office counter – had a trumpet up to his lips, was strapping on a guitar, was singing his heart out. The sulky-looking convent schoolgirl became the theremin for Good Vibrations. The bored-looking social club drummer was getting round his kit like John Bonham. And this strange, shambolic collection became The Beach Boys – the Wilson brothers, cousin Mike Love, friend Al Jardine – those ethereal voices, that exquisite polyphony recreated with unearthly skill. And by the time the weasel-faced guy blew out those first few French horn notes to God Only Knows & a girl slow-mo surfed the crowd on a surfboard I was in tears. Only at Glastonbury…
Garbage were magnificent. Intelligent rock music for grown-ups – uncompromising, fresh, loud & feisty, the other side of the park from the AOR of those bands whose audiences wear suits or, for casual, jeans with creases ironed in.
And the Gay Messiah, Rufus Wainwright. Having read a couple of interviews with him & heard him being arch on BBC 6 Music, I’d decided that he was more prat than high achiever, but as soon as he loped into the 3/4 shuffle of Beautiful Child in that strong, clear tenor voice, so much his own for all the aristocracy of its origins, I was won over completely.
I don’t know whether they’ve travelled yet, but if not it’ll only be a matter of time – The Kaiser Chiefs. Rising without trace here during the past year or so, they kicked into a magical set with I Predict A Riot, the best song The Specials never wrote. Sharp, witty. melodic & very British.
We’re off to Cambridge Folk Festival in a few weeks, but we’ll drive the 30 miles morning & evening. The closest I shall get to a tent is along the walkway through the nearest of the campsites. And I shall contemplate the various yurts, wigwams & marquees & feel unashamedly smug that I shall sleep that night in my own bed, untroubled by some tone-deaf pillock in the next tent along singing 40-verse Appalachian ballads to an untuned banjo.
11:11:19 PM 
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