The Best Weekend Ever - Glastonbury Part 2
Last time I got all nostalgic and reminisced about my first ever experience at Glastonbury back in 2016. If you haven’t had a chance to read the first part of this article, click here. In the previous part I talked about my adventures arriving at the festival’s site and my first ever Glastonbury performance along with the live session I did for Worthy FM. I also included some useful tips for the first time goers to help them make the most out of their journey. This time I will continue sharing my favourite memories of the festival, reminisce about my performances and tell you about the most awkward interview I’ve ever had. I will also continue proving my point as to why it’s definitely worth fitting your own Glastonbury experience into your schedule for 2019, when the festival returns!
So, two days at Glastonbury passed in a blink of an eye, but the best parts of the festival were still ahead of me. On Saturday I woke up ridiculously early, as I was bouncing from the adrenaline rush before my most important performance among all four scheduled sets! After applying way too much glitter all over my face and securing a flower crown on top of my head, I headed to the sound check for my performance on the Bandstand.
It’s a lovely rounded stage with a bright red roof decorated in flowers. The Bandstand has a perfect location and is situated on a crossroad between two busy paths on the way to the Pyramid Stage. It’s known as an introducing platform for emerging artists who are just starting out their musical journey. Many acts that played on the Bandstand later moved on to much bigger stages. The person behind the selection process is Mr. Steve Henwood – a true legend among the upcoming musicians! If he liked your music and booked you a slot, you should feel incredibly lucky.
So, here I was, getting ready for my most important performance at my very first Glastonbury Festival. Despite playing on different stages throughout my career from teeny-tiny bars to big open-air festivals, it’s always been this place and this crowd that I’ve craved the most. I used to be ridiculously nervous each time before I went on stage. I’d take a deep breath and reassure myself 10 times that I was ready and then I’d go on stage and do my best.
However, recently I’ve noticed that I’m no longer nervous to go out there and play. Instead of panicking, I feel excited and thrilled to step on stage and connect with the audience! I take so much pleasure from a simple fact that I perform in front of people and they enjoy it. What used to feel like auditioning in front of an exam board, now feels like having a dialogue where the audience is a direct participant of the show!
As a rule, I try not to have any expectations about the turn out or the response I get during my gigs. It’s always unpredictable and you can’t help but feel disappointed if the outcome doesn’t match your predictions. I go on stage to have fun and that’s what I do despite any circumstances. So, naturally, I had no expectations about my performance on the Bandstand except for that I wanted to do my absolute best to impress whoever was around the stage at that time. I started my set and very quickly a little group of people gathered around me, which quickly grew into a bigger and bigger crowd. I couldn’t even imagine that my set would accumulate so many people! After all, the Bandstand was located on the way to the Pyramid Stage and there were much bigger acts to see. At the end, the set went really well and I was even asked to perform encore – something that always gives me this incredible feeling of absolute thrill from knowing that the audience really loved my music!
After the shows, I always make sure to come out for a little chat with the audience! First, it’s great to hear about their experience the listeners had but also it’s important to say thank you for their time and their energy, which blows me away every time! I also like chatting to the crew, who work tirelessly to ensure the best sound and the smoothest conduction of the show. It’s also interesting to look at your own performance from a different perspective and no one can give you a better outlook on your show than people who make it real.
After the gig I went on exploring! I saw Wolf Alice on the Pyramid Stage, who surprised me with the sincerity of their performance. Then I decided to see Tom Odell, who I wanted to check out so I could figure out how to handle a huge crowd while “hiding” behind a massive grand piano. Not only Tom demonstrated that he could rock the crowd effortlessly, he also maintained an unbelievable level of drive throughout the whole set, 90% of which he spent by the piano. I also saw the 1975, who’d been one of my most favourite bands for quite some time now! You can hate them or love them but it’s absolutely impossible to ignore them! The night ended with a beautiful performance of Adele, who dispelled all the gossip that she wouldn’t make a great headliner!
The official music part of my perfect Glasto Saturday came to an end but the day was far from ending! Finally, it was my chance to see the nightlife of the festival! After finishing some glitter touch-ups, my friends and I decided to attend the most spectacular night scene one could imagine – Arcadia! It’s a crazy construction in a shape of a huge spider that never stops moving! The best DJs play along the best light and fire shows accompanied by some crazy acrobatics and surreal installations of aliens! I saw the show once when it was held in Bristol, but you can never get tired of that spectacular view and the amazing atmosphere! After partying all night, I headed back to the tent to recharge my batteries for the final day at Glastonbury!
Sunday always feels bittersweet at every festival I’ve been to. You’re excited because it’s the most epic day of the whole programme but you’re also sad because your care-free time is about to end! You might also be quite hungover and tired if your Saturday went well! Not like I’m promoting drinking, but it happens at festivals, we all know that.
So, partying at a festival is a totally different experience that everyone should try out, but unfortunately, no one canceled work the next day. Bright and early, feeling surprisingly energised even without coffee, I showed up for my pre-scheduled interview to talk about my performance on the Bandstand the day before. Every interview is unique and there are countless ways you can answer even similar type of questions. Having some journalist’s experience myself, I know that a good interview mainly depends on the person who asks questions. And I love questions! I’m good at asking and pretty decent at answering. What I’m not good at is being able to produce a monologue on the spot. So when the host of the interview asked me to state my bio and my biggest achievements to date without any pauses or breaks, things got a little bit tense. We sat down backstage and, naturally, people who were hanging out around got curious and started watching my awkward attempts of producing a decent speech, which of course didn’t help me focus. Until that moment, I couldn’t even imagine it was possible to stutter 10 times in a brief introductory paragraph. After beating all records of human stupidity I was finally free to go. What a relief it was!
Almost straight after the interview I went on playing another set at the Buzz Stop. For the first time ever I wished I could be in the crowd rather than on stage. Ellie Goulding was rocking the Pyramid while I was playing to an empty tent. Clearly, whoever was awake at that point didn’t want to miss out on Ellie’s performance and I couldn’t really blame them!
After finishing my set and cleaning up my poor pedals from a thick layer of mud I still had a few hours to look around the festival. At the huge event like Glastonbury with a lot of big names on the bill, it’s easy to forget that there is so much more to the whole festival experience than just live performances! I went on exploring and saw a massive cardboard tower that people were trying to build in the drizzly rain that seriously threatened the stability of the construction. Nearby there were acrobats that performed their tricks balancing on tiny robes and building geometrical figures in the air. And how could anyone neglect the circus, which was an absolutely magical experience in its own right!
The time passed quickly and I needed to go backstage to the West Holts, which is the third biggest stage of the whole festival! There I was scheduled to play a secret gig for the crew and the artists who worked on the West Holts! Earlier in this article I mentioned that over the time I stopped having any stage fright and finally lost this pre-exam feeling of paranoia. However, playing in front of the most recognised professionals of the industry is like going to a job interview. You perform in front of the musicians, sound engineers, operators, organisers and critics, and you know that you’re being tested. Can you interact with the crowd? Will they show you a warm welcome? How will you arrange your set? If all those things go well, your name will be circulated in the industry, which would lead to so many new opportunities. However, imagine if something goes wrong…
Throughout my music career, I had a fair share of concerts that went amazing but I also had quite a few ones that went awful. There’s a whole range of circumstances that can make your set go horribly wrong, and some of those circumstances are completely out of your control. For example, you might experience some electricity issues or random feedback will ruin your sound because one of the monitors absolutely hates the pedals that you use. Thankfully, West Holts gig became one of my top performances, and what was meant to be an awkward ‘industry exam’ turned into a passionately driven performance that I will remember forever!
So, the business part of my Glastonbury experience was over! There were no more gigs to play and no more interviews to give. I felt overjoyed with the outcomes but also a little bit sad because my best festival weekend was coming to an end!
I managed to catch the end of Beck’s set, which didn’t stand out among others despite him being known as a music genius. And then, it was the time for the main headliners to go on stage. Coldplay absolutely blew my mind and massively contributed to my ideolisation of Glastonbury Festival as the most surreal experience that you need to go through at least once in your life! Coldplay had it all: sing-along hits, great connection with the audience, amazing light and firework shows, lots of sparkles and a thousand balloons that the crowd kept throwing around! They even had those cool colourful flashing wristbands that Ed Sheeran could totally use instead of the mobile phone flashlights. It was an epic ending to an epic festival!
After having the best night out with my friends in the Dance Village, we greeted the sunrise on a hill near the Stone Circle like the local tradition prescribed. I wish I could tell you that it was the most spectacular view I’d ever seen but in reality it was so cloudy that we didn’t even notice when the sun rose. Though, we did get a little bonus in the face of Cara Delevingne, who we bumped into near the Stone Circle. I heard that this year’s sunrise was spectacular, so it’s nice to know that the tradition survived the bad weather crisis. I also heard there was literally no mud during the whole Glastonbury 2017. This is a hard thing to comprehend for a person who managed to survive the swim in the largest mud pool along with all her equipment.
That’s it! My best festival weekend was officially over! I had a great time and saying goodbye was hard! However, people who go to Glastonbury tend to return, so it never feels like a farewell, but rather like a temporary parting. I seriously recommend you gathering your funds and starting to emotionally prepare your friends because in 2019, when the festival returns, Glastonbury will be even more spectacular and absolutely unforgettable! As for me, on the Monday morning on the 27th of June 2016 I took a quick stroll around the closing stalls and purchased a little silver promise ring. You know, I’ve always been very sentimental! So now I better work hard if I want that wish to come true!
Based on the two articles written by Ria Timkin for Rock-Vector N26(46) & 27(47).
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