My "Glastonbury moment"

This year’s Glastonbury reminded me why I first fell in love with the festival. I have been one of the faithful, having slogged my way through the last five Glastonburys, even declaring 2007’s Helm’s Deep of slush and sewage to be a success. But this year was faultless. The intricacies of on-site weather meant that Thursday’s downpour was in fact a blessing, preventing the site turning into a dustball in the ensuing three days of sunshine. Jay-Z was predictably brilliant. Neil Diamond was unpredictably brilliant.

But there was more to the experience than enjoying good weather and seeing good acts. For this year, I was one of those acts. Having played in bands since I was 18, I was asked to fill out a friend’s alt–country/folk outfit. We were due to play the Park stage at 11am on Friday, a small beer tent later that evening, then an even smaller green tea trading tent in the healing fields on Saturday afternoon. The first of the three gigs was great—four or five hundred people sitting down, enjoying breakfast, then kindly standing for an ovation, of sorts. The other two were fun, relatively low key, and pleasantly experienced through the warm fuzz of organic cider.

But the most intriguing thing about playing at Glastonbury is the strangely relaxed perspective it grants. A combination of soundchecks and gear-lugging means that instead of the endless walking involved in being a punter, racing from stage to stage, you’re coerced into drinking with a bearded sound engineer who has worked at the tiny tea tent every year for the past 15, and who in all that time has never even seen the Pyramid stage. Our gig in the healing fields, an area devoted almost entirely to alternative medicine, was watched by no more than 30 people, all of them happily drinking herbal tea. Yet, when we finished, the proprietor of the bar forced a plate of lentil curry in our hands, leaving me with the feeling that I had had a definitive "Glastonbury moment."

Of course, I’m not suggesting that such experiences are reserved for the likes of Jack White and Amy Winehouse, just as I am in now way comparing my own foray onto the stage with theirs. It’s merely that in previous years I have been guilty of wanting to ‘make the most’ of the festival, by squeezing in as many bands as possible. This year I saw fewer than ever, and at the risk of sounding like an old hippie, experienced more than ever. And the backstage toilets were clean. Let’s not forget that.