Mud Pogoing, camping with Flipron, and garbage smashing at Glastonbury '05

FRIDAY
I hadn't quite calculated correctly how long it would take me to get from Cambridge (where I had played a Glasto warm up show the night before) to Glastonbury. In addition to carrying my usual load which includes cases full of Sister Spinster, Hornicator, Backbeater, Guitar, and a backpack full of wires, effects pedals, and such, I was also encumbered by a tent, a suitcase with some clothes, sleeping bag and foam mat, etcetera. Basically I was dressed like a highly encumbered mule in a sky blue dinner jacket and stubbornly traveling by train as usual, so I made sure I pre booked a ticket that would take me direct to Castle Cary(the closest station to Glastonbury) after switching in London, where it was necessary to tube it to Paddington from King's Cross. At Paddington, however, 'special additional services' were supposedly being arranged to accommodate the glut of Glastonbury goers, and I was ushered to one of several cues. Here and on the trains I overheard news about massive downpours at Glasto which had swept away tents of some unfortunate early campers and lightning strikes which had ousted both certain stages and individuals, yikes! Eventually my cue was lead (up a huge flight of stairs and then back down stairs to another platform) to board a train bound for Bristol, where we would then transfer to a train to Castle Cary (so much for my direct ticket!)
It was with a sense of great relief that I unhitched my baggage from my broken back and sat down with a bunch of other tent-hauling maniacs to enjoy the ride, finally. Within twenty minutes, however, there was an announcement from the conductor: 'Passengers bound for Glastonbury should switch at the next station for a direct service to Castle Cary'. So back on with the encumberments, and onto the platform with most everyone on the train. However on the platform station attendants turned us back around. "Get back on the train! All the Glastonbury trains are full!"
So... back on to the original train we all went, unloaded, and reseated. Apologies from the conductor, who assured us that we'd meet a connecting train at the next stop. Load up, off the train, then, could we have guessed it? Back on, trains all full. This happened at every stop, until finally in Bath we got our connection. I had to wait about an hour and a half to finally squeeze on to one of the pathetic two-coach long sardine cans with all my mechanical bandmates and such. Another bus ride from Castle Cary to Glastonbury through a light drizzle and fog (the exciting feeling we were on our way into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory was the prevailing mood on the bus), then finally we were there at the pedestrian gates! Off into the mud. I had avoided getting Wellies though it had been recommended by everyone, just another thing to have to carry I thought.
I learned that the Lost Vagueness area, where I was to find my 'artists camp area' and perform this very night, and the next two after, was on the opposite side of the grounds. There was no way I could have carried all my gear in one go through all the mud, so I checked half of it in and set off. It took me about four hours to make the two trips through the mud and the hundred thousand people. Fortunately I met up with Kas, who had volunteered to do my sound for the four shows I had here, and he helped me navigate/carry. The Chapel stage, where I was to perform (at around 11:30, which was very soon) was under the unfortunate situation of having been shut down until cars which were illegally parked in the fire lane behind it could be moved. In the dressing tent were a colorful but miffed bunch: burlesque dancers in assorted degrees of undress, zombies with fake eyes hanging out, lots of creative people in colorful elegant attire, typical of the Lost Vagueness neighborhood. It looked like tonight's show might be canceled, though no one was giving up yet. I felt relieved. It gave me the opportunity to go pitch my tent, at midnight, in the space saved for me by Phil Taylor and Flipron: right in front of a giant black Lost Vagueness tour bus parked on an incline! A few hours and a couple of beers later the word came through: the cars had been moved and the show would go on!
Where does one get the energy to jump about the stage at 2 in the morning after a day like this? Most of it comes from recognizing a few familiar faces in the crowd who have somehow followed you into this wilderness to see you play. Of course, the Chapel, which is like a tall gothic church on a hill (Marriages all day, debauched cabaret and bands all night) is nightly packed full of all kinds of festival attendees, most of them grinning and dancing, none of them about to sleep, and some of them just totally off their heads. You're bound to get some bad apples in this kind of arrangement. The 'stage' is roped off like a boxing ring. I plowed through my short set with all the gusto I could muster. At one point towards the end of the set a beer can is thrown at Sister Spinster, and accurately hits it's target(!), bounces off and lands on the floor in front of me. The audience boos the asshole that threw it. I take a sip from what is pretty much an empty Carling and ask if next time they could throw something more classy, a Guinness maybe?
Sister Spinster appears unscathed, fortunately, she's tougher than she looks. Much concern is expressed by those who witnessed the event. In cloudy daylight later, I try to sleep. The ground is shaking with a rumble of Led Zeppelin covers from some stage that continues well into the morning. What the fuck?

SATURDAY
Awakened around noon by the extremely loud rumble of mad drum and bass from what turns out to be a latex wear shop in Vagueness, up and off to see one of Flipron's two sets of the day at the Croissant Neuf stage. Brilliant, very few people there, but the band put on a spirited 'rehearsal'. A little girl passes through the tent selling little pieces of cake and cups of mixed fruit on a rolling cart at 30p each. I take three, it's the best and most economical meal of the fest. Afterwards I decide I'd better take in something on one of the big 'main' stages while I'm here (and it's free) so I head off trudging through the thick mud of the lower elevations to catch Interpol. It is quite a workout to get there and plant oneself along with a couple thousand other suckers in the deep mud before the stage. Not much foot tapping, forget dancing. I think I see my friend Blasco (Interpol's keyboard player) from where I'm planted 60 yards away, but I'll never get closer and wont be able to say hello. The band plays a fine set of miserable music in their fine linens as the drizzle continues but they are better witnessed on television and I'm bored and miserable and wonder for most of the set if there isn't an alternative route out of this mud. The upside of it is that I decide the big corporate stages are not the place to find happiness at this festival what with all the unique stuff going on in the smaller tents where you can actually get close enough to see the acts, I wont feel like I'm missing anything, though I will certainly go see my friends Brian and Amanda (the Dresden Dolls) when they play tomorrow afternoon, we've already agreed via email that we have to find each other and have a lettuce fight, I've been looking forward to this for the whole tour. I figure they'll appear somewhere around the ghost train or the 'Pretty Strange' tent, so I wander around that area and other likely places, like Lost Vagueness in fact. Just had this sixth sense we'd run into each other sooner or later. Sadly, it was not to be, though as it turns out Amanda was indeed in a Lost Vagueness bar later that very night.
I was supposed to go on at 2:30a.m., followed by Flipron at 3, but it wound up being more like 3 for me, and then there were other acts shuffled in before Flipron, so after I played we sat around our camp of spooky musicians, all of us looking a little spookier than usual, Jesse doling out doses of absinthe from a thermos to pass the time and get him in the proper Flipron mood (now that's camping!). It was well after dawn when they finally went on, following a stripper that performed suspended above the crowd by hooks in her back. (Now that's showbiz!)
Flipron's set was stunning. I thought they might lose the crowd, who were dancing madly to the intermission happy techno, by launching into their string of songs mostly about death. And in fact there were some very long gaunt stunned faces on very still bodies as Jesse spoke his foreboding intro to 'Skeletons', but as soon as the slide guitar and hawaiian swing 'Holiday' groove kicked in the room lit up with smiles and mad pogoing. It was the best Flipron show I've ever seen - at six in the morning on a Sunday no less!

SUNDAY
Wake at noon to the latex drum and bass. Uh oh, this is the kind of waking you don't want to do. Felt really good before laying down. Feel absolutely shit now. Today I have a radio interview around 2, and a matinee show around 6, and between I will go see the Dresden Dolls, but now I will rest another hour and hope my head recovers a little. Close eyes. Open eyes. It's suddenly 4 in the afternoon. What!? Uh oh, I have missed the radio interview, missed the Dolls, and will be tight on time to drag all my equipment to another stage in the green field to do my matinee. This is rude. Sad. This is the kind of Glastonbury sunday morning that is probably all too common.
My head does feel better. Jesse helps me move my gear to the Small World Solar Stage. Yes, the P.A. is actually solar powered and sadly not extremely powerful (Kas with his scottish accent reminds me of Scotty from Star Trek saying "I'm giving her all she's got but there's just not enough power!), but it's cool because I'm able to play some of the more poetic, mellow stuff that I could never get away within the madness of the late night Chapel, like the Butterfly song. There are even two-foot wingspan butterflies hanging as decorations around inside the tent, appropriately enough! Later I inhale oxygen (flavors Oliver Reed and Drew Barrymore) at the Vagueness Oxygen bar and drink a carrot orange coriander juice, and feel high on sobriety. I do only a couple Hornicator songs that night around midnight and it's probably the strongest of all my performances here, the last of a 32 date tour! Meet with Melita who was going to do the lost radio interview with me and we head off for a drink, run into Gary Twisted and friend, meet up with Kas and Flipron and Phil and the rest and we all harangue our way to a backstage bar/tent where we find a rare treat: REAL PLASTIC CHAIRS that are so nice to sit in that it feels positively transcendental. Imagine, sitting in a chair, what a wonder! Later as we wander back to Lost Vagueness Gary and I marvel at all the silhouetted figures lumbering along through the night. After days of standing and trudging through mud, they've all got the exact same gait and posture as the zombies from Night of the Living Dead! It's marvelous! Later still, as the sun rises over the hill where we stand near the Chapel and a thousand zombies stumble through their last rites of the mudfest, Gary fondly looks out over the throngs with a smile and a twinkle in the eye and just says 'Glastonbury!'

MONDAY
This one could be right out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Briefly, it involved three exhausted men crammed into the front seat of Joe Flipron's '75 Land Rover (packed so full of gear that our heads were pushed forward by guitars and keyboards), curiously abandoned illicit substances, and crashing through many 'backstage' areas without proper I.D. (Phil: "Just keep driving Joe! Don't stop!") All the celebrities were gone already, we just needed to pack our tents and to collect our equipment, which had wound up in several different camps, and get out of there. Phil was in the passenger seat giving his managerial commands ("Just keep driving Joe! Don't stop!") and I was crammed between he and Joe, the stick shift between my legs.
Rumor had it that the cues for vehicles exiting the site were anywhere between three and seven hours. Joe's skillful off road techniques and constant encouragement from Phil: ("Just keep driving Joe! Don't stop!") got us out in maybe less than an hour, though it seemed to involve taking every trail that was signposted "No Vehicles", "Not an Exit" or "Emergency Vehicles Only". Joe is not extremely tall so visibility over the hood (where was kept a giant spare tire) was a little dodgy to say the least, and thus we inadvertently ran (very slowly) over a bag of garbage (crunching and snapping, plastic bottles shooting out from under in all directions, stunned hippie types standing around in alarm with jaws dropped) and of course Phil: "Just keep driving Joe! Whatever you do don't stop! We're the scourge of this festival, we'll never be invited back again..."