Glastonbury. Wow.

I should have written this post just after we got back, but alas other things get in the way… like planning for the parental units to make a stop in Scandinavia.

Glastonbury. Wow.

Almost all I can say.

In Edmonton we used to go to a lot of music shows. Be it a large rock show at Rexall, a sweaty punk show at Ed’s, a tiny indie band in the basement of the Starlite Room, or the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, we went to go see live music a lot. A LOT. And we never really appreciated it. We were always a little to quick to complain about the few bands that wouldn’t make it up to Edmonton. Now, having been in Umeå for a year, I can say my live music fix was well into withdrawal. WELL INTO WITHDRAWAL.

Then came Glastonbury. The biggest music festival in the world. We bought our tickets in October for the festival in June. Not knowing anyone on the lineup. We only knew we were in for 4 days of music and camping along with 177,000 other people on Michael Eavis’s farm in Somerset county England.

Part of me was scared when we first saw it from the bus window. The site was like an entire city unto itself, taking up all the space in a beautiful valley in the English countryside.

Having been to more than a few music festivals which suffered from a horrible lack of logistical planning (ie. not enough water, campsites, showers, toilet paper, price gauging for food and water etc), I was aware how nasty this 4 day stay could get.

and All I can say is WOW.

Glastonbury was so amazing. It was so well planned, organized, and executed for such a large festival. I can see why people have gone back to it year after year after year.

There was so much going on other than the music itself. There were art installations in Shangri-La and Arcadia, there were debates and poetry at the Left Field, there was a circus, a travelling band of gypsies, and an entire hippie village at the Green Fields which had the best food I ate the whole weekend along with Vegan cafes and organic soy smoothies. The site was so big it took us 50 minutes to walk from our campsite over to the John Peel tent on the other side of the festival site.

We could have spent 4 days just checking out all the non-music related stuff there, but of course, we didn’t.

We were there for the music.

And since I am writing this blogpost as I should be packing (we leave for Norway in an hour) I have decided to give a play by play of all the music and bands we saw in my next post after holidays.

so, to be continued…