Glastonbury 2016

[amidar]

Yep I know its a big commercial exercise these days but its become a bit of a tradition in our house to watch it on the box every year. Unfortunately getting over a trip to Scotland and that other event I missed most of Friday and only caught a bit of 'Underworld'.

Watched 'Adele' with the missus not my cup of tea but she put on a decent show if that's your thing. Caught a bit of 'Mercury Rev' who were great and various Indie acts who were pretty turgid and some 'Grime'.

Anyway I don't even know the line up. I do know 'ELO' are kicking things off on TV tomorrow night and 'Beck' is on so might watch those. I don't think I can bear watching 'Coldplay' headline AGAIN!

So is there anything I've missed I can catch up with on Iplayer worth watching or coming up or has anyone even been watching?

[treeboy]

Do you get the "vibe" watching it on the telly? I used to go a long time ago when it was considerably smaller, and it was all about the feeling of being there. Years later, when John Peel presented highlights I would watch, just to see and hear him really. Haven't seen it for years. I'm all for families sitting down together and sharing the experience, however commercial it is. I saw Adele on the news this morning and it seemed liked one of those Glastonbury "moments" for the crowd. I hope it was, as I'm sure we have all been in those situations where you are unashamedly lost in the music, and all seems well with the world, if only for an hour or two. The inherent powers of music seem to be amplified in the setting of large gatherings of people. I kind of miss that shared experience, but am no longer prepared to put myself through the necessary "hassles" to enjoy it. No pain no gain I suppose, but that's my loss at the end of the day. I hope ELO are great. By Sunday at Glastonbury, you are generally up for anything if my memory serves me correctly, so the crowd will be on side from the first note. I'm happy for Jeff Lynne that he is enjoying the resurgence of interest. I won't be watching though, I'll be having a very different experience watching Radio Birdman at a small club in London as they attempt to destroy what hearing I've got left Saw The Scientists at The Lexington last night. Those Aussies are going to be the deaf of me.
Have a good evening btw

[peretti]

I grew up round there so went/worked but the last Glastonbury I went to as a punter was early 90s when attendance was already up to 70,000+ so it's been very big and commercially curated for a long time. Suzanne Vega got death threats because she was too 'mainstream' (or shite as it turned out) so 25+ years later Adele seems par for the course. We've had Radio 6 on around the house but not watched anything yet...

[MPFlapp]

Saw The Scientists at The Lexington last night.

I'd like to have been at that - saw a few pictures and reports on FB - sounded a winner - I don't think I've seen The Scientists since Strathclyde University Union in the later 80s ;-)

No TV access, but I did hear Gilles Peterson shows yesterday - well worth a listen for the sets from Shibusashirazu Orchestra, Bixiga 70 and Rokia Traore (a female artist from Mali - sadly she has only released CDs no vinyl) - link here

[amidar]

Nah I wouldn't say you get the vibe, we could act all student like and layout the picnic blanket and all that but I wont be doing that. It's a good chance to get to see a few bands you probably wouldn't usually check out. Like yourself I've done my fair share of festivals, probably more so free raves as the festival scene had started to become big commercial entities when I first started going as 'Peretti' said it started in the 90's and they had become hugely commercial springing up everywhere.

I probably went to Glasto the last year it was possible to sneak in around 95-96, don't remember much about it apart from it was hot. Did a few of other others that popped up and some of the biker festivals that had been going for years mainly to go and see 'Hawkwind' as they usually topped the bill at these things. Had to to sit through 'Saxon' and 'The Playgirls (a strip show! and the Acid was kicking in by then!) Then someone scattered someones ashes on stage and I got a mouthful of dead man. Mixture of happy and sad memories, I think that togetherness vibe in the case of festivals had kind of gone when I was going in the 90's.

My problem is I hate camping, really, really hate camping so TV is a safe bet or a gig in a building for me these days. Adele seemed to try and bring everyone together but there was obviously some split in the crowd, well I detected anyway might be just the way I'm feeling at the moment. At one point someone must have been taken ill and they had to stop the gig and make a pathway out but because she's such a talker in between songs she managed to do a very good job of getting this huge crowd to make a pathway out of the main area. Probably as a ballad singer I'd wager there was no moshing going on but she had the crowd enthralled is what I took from it.

I'd go to something small but I don't think my wife wouldn't be able to handle it for various reasons. She has happy childhood memories of ELO I've never got with them myself but I'll be watching with interest.

I enjoyed catching 'Sun Ra's Arkestra' without the man himself of course on the player a couple of years back, I was mad they didn't put Gong headlining one of the stages up when Hillage rejoined them. Wonder if they are there this year in tribute, huge tribute to Bowie last night and Gong were at the first one as I remember.

Oh and thanks for the heads up Mr Flapp.

Do you get the "vibe" watching it on the telly? I used to go a long time ago when it was considerably smaller, and it was all about the feeling of being there. Years later, when John Peel presented highlights I would watch, just to see and hear him really. Haven't seen it for years. I'm all for families sitting down together and sharing the experience, however commercial it is. I saw Adele on the news this morning and it seemed liked one of those Glastonbury "moments" for the crowd. I hope it was, as I'm sure we have all been in those situations where you are unashamedly lost in the music, and all seems well with the world, if only for an hour or two. The inherent powers of music seem to be amplified in the setting of large gatherings of people. I kind of miss that shared experience, but am no longer prepared to put myself through the necessary "hassles" to enjoy it. No pain no gain I suppose, but that's my loss at the end of the day. I hope ELO are great. By Sunday at Glastonbury, you are generally up for anything if my memory serves me correctly, so the crowd will be on side from the first note. I'm happy for Jeff Lynne that he is enjoying the resurgence of interest. I won't be watching though, I'll be having a very different experience watching Radio Birdman at a small club in London as they attempt to destroy what hearing I've got left Saw The Scientists at The Lexington last night. Those Aussies are going to be the deaf of me.
Have a good evening btw

[bradx]

I had a quick look last night on the tv and saw Madness doing a sublime version of My Girl. The sun was shining and everyone was smiling. It looked ok - but I wouldn't want to be there. I dislike crowds.
The year I went to Glastonbury was 1983. Curtis Mayfield, King Sunny Ade - the only two acts I remember. It was very hot and I sunburned my nose, the end swelled up like a red ping pong ball. I think capacity was about 30,000, could have been more, seemed enormous to me anyway. My mate went on to Stonehenge afterwards but I was too lightweight and just went home.
In the 70s I went to a couple of Reading festivals, which were ok ... and Knebworth (not really a festival, just a one dayer.... Zappa & The Tubes, good fun).
Around 2000 got a free backstage pass to the V festival in Chelmsford. Bloody awful even with free booze. I won't be going to any more.

[amidar]

Well I watched ELO and caught the end of Beck's set and a bit of 'EW&F' who were in a far too smoochy mood even the up beat classics are played with a chilled swagger about them these days and no Maurice of course in fact only 3 original members still going. All in all a bit of a damp squib for my tastes this year, all seemed very safe as you would expect, well what was streamed or shown on TV at any rate. All kind of overshadowed by the events unfolded and unfolding.

I read the entire line up tonight it made me feel old.

'Coldplay' made me think of people throwing bottles of urine and I was surprised there is a wiki page of bottling incidents throughout the years at various events:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...idents_by_year

[candiman]

Very underwhelmed by the line up this year.
Got into watching it on tv a few years ago and actually looked forward to doing so for a couple of years. But lately it has been getting worse I think. Didn't watch much this year but the sense of event was somehow absent I thought, as said already probably overshadowed by things elsewhere.
Adele not my cup od tea but certainly pulled in the crowd with her chat and made it, dare I say, cosy.
ELO by comparison were really flat. No stage presence. Played a song, silence, played a song, silence. They have some good songs but I don't know, I can't remember if they were a big live band back in the day? .v. Lionel Richie last year who was tremendous fun.
The rain didn't help either. It looked like it may have been a pretty miserable affair this year.

[amidar]

Yep I thought much the same about 'ELO' but the wife seemed to enjoy them, not my cup of cha. I asked if they were faithful renditions and she said they were but I dunno I didn't feel much energy there. I felt having two headliners in 'Muse' and 'Coldplay' who have both headlined the festival in recent years before if memory serves was a bit lazy in my opinion. Surely they could have pulled in at least more big name act who hadn't headlined it before and I agree for my sins Lionel rocked it!

[Melter]

Performance-wise I thought Christine and the Queens were pretty damn good in an alt-pop vein.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...and-the-queens

[reza]

Yeah I thought they were pretty good and I suprisingly enjoyed this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...6-lady-leshurr

[babycart]

My son´s mate yesterday: "Imagine if you went out with Adele and then dumped her. You'd literally never hear the end of it. "

[Paul-K]

everything I heard was completely bland, flat. no dynamics.
I might have missed some good bands, but I gave up

[amidar]

I'll have a looksie at those links there was tons of stuff I hadn't heard of it, wasn't even aware of the live streams on the iplayer until Sunday evening. A lot of grime which is not my thing in the main but I'm sure there are bands/artists within that I'd like.

BBC sound is always pretty crap or maybe its Glasto I dunno but I'm with a few the energy seemed flat on the whole. Every time I've seen Underworld which is a few times here and there the sound has been crystal clear, all sounded muffled on the catch up.

[Mang]

I went in '93 to see The Velvet Underground. I think we were under the impression that the Glasto gig would be their sole performance but they latterly announced the gigs at the Forum so we ended up seeing them there too. Anyway I found Glastonbury to be pretty depressing on the whole. The music seemed secondary to a lot of tossers who just wanted to sit in a field with loads of other tossers and get wasted. Plus the endless trudging from one part of the site to another soon became very tiring/tiresome. I watched a bit of this year's festival on the TV. New Order seemed a bit drab/lackluster. People seemed to be raving about Coldplay. Coldplay!