The Adventures of Swiggy Flowerdust

and the Ciders from Jars.

Hi, Andy. As ever there are no mistakes in this!

Glastonbury '98

The Adventures of Swiggy Flowerdust and the Ciders from Jars

Such recollections as may follow are clouded only by modicums of Boddington's, (no, you can't buy it there), and pints of hot spicy cider.

We arrived 6.30am Thursday 25 June at which time Will Newman removed his Inca hat to reveal a very short haircut, guided us to a hillside location for our large tent and left to find his friends. Returning at midday he said that yesterday on their journey down his friends had got so plastered that they only had left about £20 each. One such friend with a sleeping bag and no more money got in by paying a dodgy geezer £25 for an ultra-violet pass-out stamp. I assume that the turnstile operators were in cahoots with such toads. (I'd calculated that our £80 tickets would provide us with, amongst everything else, about £400 of live music had the bands been at separate venues). Sorne people, of course, have a marvellous weekend without seeing any bands at all.  

It was time to wander around. The site is truly vast and by Friday night held "as many people as the town of Bath", about 80,000 officially. We looked at crafty stalls, veggie food stalls, a Buddhist area, an army tank later completely covered with stick-on flowers, (including one of mine) and new age traveller camps. When the Police went through the crusties' area they were greeted by screamed choruses of, "Fuck off, Fuck off". But they didn't.

The Police work out of a marquee on a hilltop with a cctv camera hanging from a crane and crawl sluggishly around in hired white Land Rovers. I only ever saw two bobbies walking. I heard about watchtowers around the site but didn't see any. Near to the crusties' semi-derelict and ungreen vehicles was an encampment and display of fabulous teepees (or tipis).  

Potters worked alongside hammock sellers, candle makers, hemp sellers, bodgers, fletchers, jewellery botchers and the like. There are circus tents too. There's a modern stone circle to enter which had the most stunningly calming effect caused probably by magic, if not then by the permeating calm from other folks in the circle. (One night a trumpet player in the circle was repeating a tired old riff when it was suddenly picked up and thrown back across the valley by another trumpeter far off in the darkness). Our rough circuit completed we realised we'd glimpsed at best one third of what was there.

Pilgrims arrived in a constant stream, no gaps, an endless flow of mostly unselfconscious muddy-legged humanity often in various degrees of real or potential vulnerability. Nobody cared much how they looked as long as it fitted into a concept of festival conformity, (generally including almost ethically inadequate equipment). Envious glances were cast at our luxurious tent. Everyone seemed friendly and peaceable -you can expect it and get it. The only fight I saw was between two happy lesbians. Weekend hippies could be seen and heard -a stall was selling old German army jackets for £3 each. The festival vibe had got to me and I found to my bemusement that I was enjoying the music pulsing out of the Dance Tent.  

The living tents on the site now resembled a scene from a medieval battle or some biblical exodus, but so much bigger. Everybody there's on drugs, you're told and I'm sure if you include alcohol and nicotine and exclude most of the under fives then it's true, but to think that drugs might be necessary to counter the effects of the weather conditions, etc. is ridiculous. Refugees in Africa or Eastern Europe cope with far worse conditions but have no drugs - nor, of course, are they offered any. I was, about six times a day. “No, thanks, I'm completely blissed out on festival vibe and hot spicy cider", was not always a credible answer, I found).  

Another wander. So much veggie food for sale - a pity they sell dead animal parts as well, there's no need for that either. One stall sells bootleg CD's in vast quantities, incl. 20 by Bob Dylan. Some stalls stay open all night. Cider brandy is odd stuff.  

Friday 7am. Rain. The north wing of our tent had leaked but we had some magic spray to make it better. I'd planned what to see and planning gres against the spirit of Glastonbury but Smithy said he wanted a review and I'd assumed it should be about music!  

10.50am. The very first band of the festival, Brave State. We leave after their first three songs.  

There's a lot of music coming out of Bristol and on the Jazz Stage, President Bongo & The Democratic Republic Of Phonque represent it well, a big band with two frontgirls who are in danger of distracting us from their very good Mother Earth-like acid jazz.  

Taj Mahal was very good I was relieved to find, because he's been a bit erratic at times. His blues are cheerful and classy, not too innovative but he's very likeable. ("I'll Be Glad When You're Dead And Gone), You Rascal, You" was particularly well received.  

Well, here it is - our fourth band and my highpoint of the festival, the most superlatively superlative performance by Ben Harper & The Innocent Crimihals. To me he'd been just a name in “Mojo". A passionate mix of hip hop, soul and blues, it said. It is immensely passionate, trail-blazing, mind-blasting blues, like a deconstructed, acousticcy Zeppelin, the classy bits pulled out and flung lovingly into the middle of next week to be plastered for ever across the front of your mind. There is little aggression in the music but the power is enormous. Ben Harper sits and plays slide on unusual handmade semi-acoustic but very electric sounding guitars and sings and speaks like a slow river. I knew none of the material except the final number, very slow, it sounded a bit like, it couldn't be, No, surely, hell, No, it must be, it is!.... "Voodoo Chile" like no-one has ever done it and probably need never try to again. I'd have sold my granny and yours too for a tape of that performance. (Three weeks later I videoed a more low key performance of Ben and the I.C's doing four songs from a gig last April on WDR's Rockpalast programme. They included Voodoo Chile).  

Finley Quaye set off with Bob Marley's "Natural Mystic". It was fine, but we were heading for the JTQ on the Jazz Stage. The James Taylor Quartet featured singers on a couple of numbers and also a horn section on a couple more. They started with "Mrs Robinson", included the theme from "Blow Up", then "Whole Lotta Love", (quote, "a tune made famous by Top of the Pops"). They finished with "Starsky and Hutch" and good though it all was I was frustrated for the most part, as with their studio recordings, by the guitar being so often too low in the mix. All in all it was dull.  

We went to see The Foo Fighters because of their previous connections, I must admit. I enjoyed but wasn't enthralled by their attacking, stylish but fairly simple rock music. They dedicated a song "to the best band here, Rocket From The Crypt" whom we'd missed and, although as usual we were near to the front, the steam rising from the recently drenched crowd often obliterated our view of the FF's.  

We hadn't rated James too highly, but from way up the hillside caught their last three songs and were very impressed.  

10pm and lastly Primal Scream - what a bloody let down. Scottish football flags on stage, "Remember Bannockburn", etc. and a sulky attitude from Bobbie Gillespie was quickly matched by the crowd's but a fullish beer can still took him by surprise. He threw one back quite hard though. Uncool though I'm sure it is I liked the stuff they played from Give Out But Don't Give Up, the album that sounds as if it wants to be The Stones' Beggars' Banquet. There were two false endings and slow returns to the staged before they left. We hung around singing along to "Let It Bleed” put on by, I suspect, a most mischievous DJ.

Later that night Will's girlfriend's expensive torch was literally robbed from him by a gang of West Indian origins.

11.15am Saturday, (after a peacekeeping phone call to wifey whose birthday it was), we watched Jules HoIIand and his band. It was pretty much like watching TV but he was cheerful and the crowd loved him and so we should because in his quirky way he's done, as did John Peel, a great deal for the sort of music we like. The Rhythm and Blues Orchestra were very efficient, but think there's more fire in the belly of an iceberg than there is in his "blues” guitarist's. Glen Tilbrook was brought on for "Tempted By The Fruit Of Another' which was so good and I was so sick to have missed Squeeze the night before.  

Meredith Brooks took me by surprise. She was excellent, sounded like a mix of Sheryl Crow and Keith Richard! She looks very much like a good friend of mine and I refuse to believe she's the bitch that she sings about.  

Caught the last few songs of Tori Amos'set. I didn't notice her playing her usual two pianos simultaneously but she still appeared to reach an orgasm while playing only one.  

Fascinating rumour today - one of the slurry tankers sent to pump liquid mud out of the Dance Tent threw a switch the wrong way and pumped into the tent most of the contents of a latrine pit which it had sucked up earlier.  

After a long wait in a holey old circus tent in a rainstorm World Party did an excellent but only 35 min. set on the Acoustic Stage. Or rather the songs were excellent but Karl Wallinger was so rude to us all that there were shouts for The Waterboys and worse. For some reason the Police had fetched the band to the site, (echoes of, "The New York Freeway's closed, man"), and guess what - Karl actually said, "Good job they didn't search us, know what I mean”. Didn't raise even a snigger from the audience, because we were all a lot cooler than him, (including the guy from Ulverston who'd spent the whole of his last 12 Glastos in this tent with his back to the stage).  

I can hardly believe I'm saying this but for me the outstandingly best gig of the day was Robbie Williams'. He opened with Let Me Entertain You and didn't he just. “You're my first real audience", he shouted, "You've all got pubic hair!", and charged into "Teenage Millionaire", a heartfelt song from a man who could afford not to give a shit about anything. Men old enough to know better sang along with "Angel" and I was very glad that snobbery hadn't caused me to miss the gig.

Headliners Blur were most professional - it was obvious why they're as famous as they are. They must have been a bit disappointed though to see the audience go maximum doublenuts when they did such an early song as “There's No Other Way".  

Sunday got off to a good start with ten of the twelve Medieval Babes on the Main Stage with their ecclesiastically flavoured Latin, Chaucerian English, (and at times downright devilish), almost unaccompanied choral singing. I suppose they look like white witches but they came down to earth with a tale about how after two days on the site one of their white dresses got muddy and had to be washed in shampoo. One of the Babes seemed intent on stroking her thighs into oblivion and led to the lecherous male comment, "I think I could make it big in the Medieval Babes". That was just before the male dancer came on dressed only in a thin coat of white paint.  

At one point it was announced that 400 people had been arrested for thefts on the site and "you might expect that anyway in a town the size of Bath", (which is bollocks, of course). The Police press office said that during the whole festival 196 were arrested including 51 for theft and 90 for drugs.  

Steve Earle had to be left after one song as we dashed to the Other Stage for the Dust Junkys. Why? Reputed Hendrixy guitarist, but, well, you know, he was good but he wasn't special. More noteworthy for having a Slash hairstyle really. I quite liked what they did, a basic rock band line-up but shared rap-style vocals, turntables for scratching and hip-hop style beats and world-beating bass playing. Best thing?A mostmenacingly powerful version of Fleetwood Mac's, "Oh Well". Worst thing? The audience - never have I seen so many chemicals go down the necks of so many boys and girls in such a short time before they sloshed back to the Dance Tent from whence they'd slithered.  

Now Tony Bennett. What was I doing there? Being handsomely entertained, that's what. Every song seemed to have a weather theme, every mention of weather got a cheer, Ralph, his pianist, was adored by the audience, (the guitarist was very dinner-jazz and impressed no-one much, the drummer made Ginger Baker seem disadvantaged, (which he is in some ways, of course). "Tony, I love you", squeaked a shoulder-riding early 40's girlie with his name in mud across her chest.  

So there we were, three rows from the stage waiting for Bob Dylan's scheduled appearance when there was an announcement that Sonic Youth were on next. I ignored it, assumed it was a mistake. It wasn't. Sonic Youth have three guitars, no bass guitar and a sulky frontwoman. I watched one song and trudged off sulking too.  

Bob was next however and I still got a good view. "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat”, a bitter, sarcastic and funny song, (and therefore a favourite of mine), was the opener. "Masters of War" soon followed in a style that seemed appropriate to today, strong, confident, and certainly still relevant. It all seemed relevant. “It's like Bob Dylan but better", I shouted to the couple next to me. I'm told I kept saying as well that I had to keep reminding myself that he was really there and that I wasn't just watching a video. How famous is this guy? 35yrs on or near the front line makes the U.S presidency look like a pretty small deal in comparison. "Tangled Up In Blue”, "Blowing In The Wind" to finish all backed by a very competent blues-type backing band in which Bob even took a solo or two. What a milestone. I was there!  

Caught Dr John's last song on the Jazz Stage and then Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters or apparently The Headhunters featuring Herbie Hancock. Lots of sound problems, a late start and a surprisingly low profile performance from Herbie who sat behind his keyboards with green plastic leggings over his suit trousers, but what a band. Mike Clarke with the world's biggest drumkit, Bill Summers is the percussion wizard who can even make beer bottles sound good, (so that's how they did it), on "Watermelon man". They did "Chameleon" as well from the original Headhunters album and from the new, (Return of the Headhunters!), album an astonishing sound picture called "Frankie and Kevin" featuring mainly Bennie Maupin, woodwind person extraordinaire, ex Miles Davis' Bitches Brew album. Paul Jackson, a bassist with a five mile thumb was astonishing, a huge black guy with a bald head that steamed!, was the front man and his bang up to date basslines drew gasps and gawps from the mainly young audience.  

From the back of the field we saw a couple of songs from Pulp and it was over. A four hour delay getting off the muddy field next morning and back to work feeling like I've had three weeks holiday in four days and that the real world is a very strange place. Will I go back? Not sure yet but there's so much I didn't do and it's likely that Michael Eavis will pull out after 2000 so there's an incentive anyway.

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