David Roberts from Grist puts together an annual 'best of' CD which, remarkably, he's happy to ship to anyone who requests it for free. Last year's edition turned me on to a lot of stuff I'd never heard before, most notably the Avett Brothers.
Relatively unknown in the UK, the Avalon tent was respectably populated but nothing like the ridiculous roadblock for the preceding errr....Wurzels.
The performance was insane, incredible energy and musicianship to match the jawdrpping songwriting. I and You and Love and (party banger) Slight Figure of Speech were highlights, but I've picked Laundry Room here; one of the most beautiful songs I've heard in a long time.
Wandering around the site on the Friday night after the main stages finished, we inevitably ended up in the Shangri-La/Block 9 area where dancing and loud music was available *all night*.
Turning the corner into Block 9 was the only moment my jaw genuinely dropped, on seeing this:
An extremely convincing stage set of six storey high block of flats impaled halfway up by an Underground train, under which was a superb club space, a long, low ceilinged strobe-hole.
My only Glastonbury regret was not spending more time here during the weekend. What time was spent here was mostly in Bez's Acid House, some good music marred by dodgy DJing; although this could possibly be excused by Bez 'delivering vibes' in close proximity to the decks at all times.
Having said that, once one of the greatest intros in the history of music kicked in, needless to say it 'went off':
In an attempt to prevent all this year's Glasto memories evaporating, I'm counting down my top 5 moments in reverse order, one per day, in true Fluff Freeman style. In at 5...
Glastonbury is all about serendipity, seeing the stuff you wouldn't normally make an effort to or would never even come into contact with. If anyone says to you "don't fancy much in the line-up this year" *that's not the point*. There has never been much I really like in advance; the first year I went, this house music fiend was not catered for at all but still had the time of his life.
Anyhow, Flo and her unspecified contraption are just the sort of thing Glasto is for - I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see her Kate Bush 2.0 stylings but was intrigued to see her live. Her performance was superb: generating huge stage presence with nothing more than great theatricality and an astonishing voice. I thought some of the songs were over-long and, on occasion, a little dull, but I was clearly the minority in a large, loud, adoring crowd.
The unexpected treat was a cover of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, something suprisingly few partists have tried. Here's an audio version, probably a case of enjoy this before it's taken down:
PS I'll be linking to YouTube material in these Glasto posts. There is a ton of material available on the BBC's Glastonbury site (including the Florence gig), but I believe it will all be taken down fairly swiftly in true iPlayer fashion. In addition, most of the material is not embeddable anyway.
I don't know the ins and outs of the copyright issues involved, but surely the BBC would be better equipped to defend its spending on the coverage if it was a permanently accessible archive of a national arts institution, rather than something that disappears after a few days.
