Sparkadia

Day 1


We were VERY excited to be heading down to the infamous Glastonbury Festival, albeit unable to express much of this due to the nature of our transport. A tiny, tiny hire car, though luxurious, with five people (PhDj was in on the trip) and five people's camping equipment AND instruments, there wasn't an organ uncrushed.



We made it though, three and a half hours later, and began setting up our tents under a tree and probably way to close to the toilets, in hindsight.






Next stop, Queens Head stage where we played our set to about a thousand pumped festival-goers who were, being the first day, keen to get the proceedings started. Everyone seemed to have a rocking good time and it was nice to have a few Aussie's there, supporting the troops.



Day 2



By day 2 the rain had been coming down sporadically and so the mud was plentiful. But it's not really Glastonbury without it, is it? Donning wellies and fashionable fluoro ponchos, we got involved the best way we knew how. At the bar. We were lucky enough to be offered a second slot on The Park Stage that day too, which was pretty awesome (though it wasn't in the program obviously as us playing and the crowd was a little smaller). It was a massive high to play a stage like that and nice to have Kyle our tour manager from The J.E.W. tour back on sound.




After the gig we split up and checked out the bands we wanted to see. Some that were seen were Battles, Lupe Fiasco, Kings of Leon, Amy Winehouse, MGMT, The Raconteurs, the list goes on. I spent quite a while in green fields (the hippy bit) perusing the bizarre and beautiful. Fairy dancing 101, dragons in river mouths, how to be a blacksmith classes, medieval jewellery making, permaculture, and general free-spirited shenanigans. Nice. Night 2 in tentsville went down like a glasto goer in the mud. English bogans off their trees talking at the top of their voices about the breasts that past them by for 8 hours straight. Not happy Jan.


Day 3



And the sun was shining! The blisters from the wellies intense and the beer a flowing. The 'Love the farm. Leave no trace' slogan didn't seem to be resonating too well. Whoa. 170, 000 people living it up for 4 days? You get the picture. Got a bit pseudo-homesick watching Crowded House at the Pyramid stage. One of the best things about European festivals is the flag bearing. It felt like we were going out to battle when you looked across the crowd, flags of all varieties (countries, pirates, peace signs, octopuses) waving frantically in the wind. It is the most epic sight. Pole weilding's banned at festivals back home coz the bogans bash each other up. Boo! Stuck around for Jay Z but missed Amy's biffo as we had to make the journey back to London and it was getting into the wee hours. Caught a bit of Massive Attack on the way out though which was incredible.



Over all, Glasto was a mud covered blast of brilliant bands and brilliant people, all there to rock out and the job was done well.

-Tiff-

Just opened the NME...