Glastonbury

The last three days I've spent all my evenings sat watching the tv wishing I was somewhere else, and for a change the somewhere else wasn't somewhere sunny by the sea, it was a muddy field in Somerset. I've not been to Glastonbury since 1997, and that seems a long time ago at the moment. 1997 was the year that got so muddy there were actually cases of trench foot, the year that Radiohead played the gig of their lives and it was still in the time where you just showed up, chucked your stuff over the fence, went under the fence and didn't worry about tickets. Since then, Glastonbury has had to tighten up on security, now the fence is 10 foot tall and patrolled by professional security rather than the off work farm hands that I'm sure used to do it. This means that the only way to get to Glastonbury is, quite fairly I suppose, by buying a ticket. 122'000 tickets went on sale and within three hours they were sold out as 2 million people were left disappointed. I was one of the disappointed ones. Just to rub my nose in this, I've had three texts today from three separate friends who are all there enjoying themselves and seeing all the bands that I want to see.
Luckily, the bbc's coverage this year has been fantastic and I've got to see nearly all the bands I wanted to. To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with the first day. The Killers were excellent but the white stripes (who were headlining), as good as they were, just didn't seem to fit into the huge Glastonbury stage and atmosphere. Yesterday however, was brilliant. The Kaiser Chiefs played an incredible set, they're the new band everyone will be talking about like Snow Patrol and the Scissor Sisters were last year. Athlete played a nice set, although it seemed a bit jaded to me. Ash were as excellent as ever playing a greatest hits set including my personal favourite 'Girl From Mars'. Keane spoilt it a bit by showing up and singing their nicely dull songs, I love Noel Galagher's comment about Keane 'the biggest three twats in a band are always the drummer, the keyboard player and the lead singer, need I say more?'. But keane left and Coldplay came on and blew everyone else away. The Coldplay set was immense, Chris Martin was on top form messing about with the lyrics and getting the crowd singing along with every song. they even did a cover of Kylie's 'can't get you out of my head' since she was supposed to be headlining today, but had to pull out because of her breast cancer, which she is now recovering from. At the same time on the other stage, Razorlight were showing that despite having only one album they were worthy of a headline spot.
Today's lineup wasn't quite as good. The Bravery, from the two tracks I saw, were excellent. Brian Wilson sang the Beach Boys greatest hits, which is always going to be good to listen to (if you like the beach boys). The recently reformed La's played 'there she goes' and it sounded as good as ever. Other than that today's been fairly disappointing so far, with only primal scream (who I'm not a huge fan of) and Ian Brown (who will be great if he plays some old Stone Roses stuff) to go. It's been great to watch though.
There's something wonderful about live music, even when you're watching it on the tv. I love the look on bands like the Kaiser Chiefs face when they suddenly realise there are 30'000 people singing along to the songs they wrote. Music somehow manages to draw people together in a way no other art form, or anything else I can think of for that matter, can. That's why the U2 gig was so powerful, and why Coldplay and whatever other band you happen to love listening to are so special, because they draw people together and just for a couple of minutes, remind you that there's other people in the world that think and feel like you do.