Glastonbury 2011

The festival season once again begins and always among the first to start proceedings, the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts, is arguably the biggest and best. The line up is extremely versatile with the three main stage headliners as U2, Coldplay and Beyoncè. However, I decided to boycott the three, an arguably controversial decision but I have no regrets. The festival is huge; from the car park it can take an hour to walk to a campsite and can take up to half an hour to walk to the furthest stages. There is no way you could see everything you wanted to see, this is what makes the festival special. You could go to Glastonbury one hundred times and not see any of the same acts, so reviews of the festival are extremely subjective and you make it your own. Beginning with an abundance of mud and ending with sweltering sun, the weekend was unforgettable.

Without a doubt Queens of the Stone Age were the best band of the weekend. Without a new release in almost four years, they implemented a voting system which would allow the fans to decide what they would play. It could not have created a better set-list. Beginning with ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ and finishing with ‘Song for the Dead’ they demonstrated their epic riffs, incredible drums and an outstanding ability to play live. ‘No One Knows’ was the high-point of the set, reflected by the crowd’s singing-along, not only to the lyrics, but to the opening riffs too. Whilst Beyoncè evidently claimed a large portion of the crowd, those that remained faithful to the band truly helped make the set incredible and when Josh Homme asked for the lights to be turned up so he could see the extent of the crowd he was impressed.

Another highlight was Darwin Deez. The American Indie band entered onto the stage with the background song ‘Throw some D’s’ and a delightful tongue-in-cheek dance routine to accompany it. These were interspersed throughout the set, every two or three songs, in total contrast to the indie music. The super skinny-jeaned lead singer even rapped for several minutes. The antithesis of the melodic indie and crazy choreography made the set thoroughly enjoyable.

Whilst Coldplay were performing, I was watching the Wild Beasts, who were quite charming. They seem like such lovely people and the music they make seems to reflect this. After they finished, the crowd chanted for an encore but it was to no avail, for the screens went on and the lights went up. Whilst this was disappointing, they were able to deliver the songs that fans demanded, such as ‘All the King’s Men’.

Other notable mentions would be Metronomy, Fleet Foxes, Radiohead’s secret set and Patrick Wolf. Radiohead played a lot of _King of Limbs_, their most recent album. Whilst this received much criticism, it worked effectively and was well received. The album does not consist of particularly mainstream songs, like ‘Creep’ or ‘Idioteque’, but sounds more like a collection of b-sides. Obviously the band want to have the opportunity to perform their new album live and this was a perfect time to do so, for if they were headliners the crowd would want songs to sing-along to.

Whilst there is a lot of excellent music at Glastonbury, there were two bands that thoroughly disappointed; Esben and the Witch and Cage the Elephant. Esben and the Witch was simply self-indulgent. Some bands have a tendency to get too involved in their music and descend into “jamming”, and this is essentially all Esben and the Witch did. There was no drummer and the female vocalist just wailed. On a par, was Cage the Elephant, a band that only has two notable hits. These were crowd-pleaser’s were digestible, but the rest of the set was just a din. This was not due to simply the songs themselves, but the horrendous acoustics of the John Peel stage. Other bands, such as Warpaint, flourished there, but Cage the Elephant certainly did not.

Having been to Reading Festival twice I feel that I have a point of comparison for Glastonbury; The former is shadowed by the latter. The people at Glastonbury are so much more pleasant, you do not have to fear an impending bottle of urine in a crowd and everyone is so much friendlier. Glastonbury is not just about the music, reflected in its title as a performing arts festival. After the music has finished Shangri-La has a plethora of bars and places to go and explore. So much effort is put into creating the atmosphere, with flaming statues and costumes. Without a doubt Glastonbury has become the festival that I will strive to attend each year.