Glastonbury nearly killed us...

25.06.07
We are sitting in a YHA at the moment in a little town in south west England named Street, just outside of Glastonbury, the home of the legendary Glastonbury music festival which came to a conclusion last night after a week of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy, or so you would be led to believe, but more about that later.
The last week was all smooth sailing, the gig @ the Half Moon in Putney, London was a good one, a healthy attendance of locals and Aussie ex-pats all sympathetic and receptive to the workings of the Lang.
Friday night was a smallish festival at a property that went by the name of “Pump Bottom Farm” about two hours south of London just outside of Chichester. The farm was a cider and beer brewery and had a tent with a 20 metre bar lined with kegs of about 30 different brews, needless to say Myf and myself gave it a good nudge and after a good gig, got to boogie to our old mate Geoff Achison with Alison’s 75 year old Aunty Jan who also enjoyed a pint and ripping cigarettes out of peoples hands who smoked near her and stubbing them out in disgust!
The next night was a gig in Exeter (after dropping in to see Myf’s friend Christine + her husband Michael who fed us tea and delicious Devon scones with jam and clotted cream, yum!), the gig was fairly uneventful except for the tandoori chicken and chips (+ vegie curry for myf), after the gig but it didn’t matter ‘coz we were all excited about our big Glastonbury experience the next day.
At every gig we’ve done so far, the people we’ve met have raved about how excited we must be and how awesome Glastonbury is but to prepare for the rain as it gets “A BIT WET!” Well we stocked up on Wellie’s (gum boots) in a most stylish way, Myf’s white one’s covered in exotic fish, Jeff going for rainbow stripes, but poor old Grant missed out by a few sizes on the Leopard print and had to settle for stock standard green. We were warned to get there with plenty of time to spare as it can take hours to go through all the festival red tape, not to mention traffic, to get on site. So after a stupidly early start (especially as we were sleep deprived from interrupted sleep the previous night due to some annoyingly loud snorer in the accom upstairs), we made it rather early to the fest. (Not bothering to check in to our accommodation because we were worried about getting there on time). The rest was fairly smooth sailing. We drove our car as far as possible where we were met by a 4wd to take us to the Avalon stage (where we played) and, as we warned the mud was horrendous!! Nearly 200 000 people had been at this place for 7 days and it had been absolutely bucketing down for most of it. Every square inch of everything (everywhere, all the time, for everyone) was covered in mud! The grounds were a thick sludge of at the very least ankle deep slop being constantly churned over by thousands of crazed festival goers whose spirits had seemingly not yet been broken from camping in these conditions all week. The rain however eased for a short time and it wasn’t too cold (ONLY foggy breath cold!) so we settled in, grabbed a beer and enjoyed the novelty. We saw some cool acts including Billy Bragg (who signed Myf & Jeff’s wellies!), our mate Emily Barker and had a beauty of a gig to a few thousand muddy Pom’s and enjoyed the rest of the night drinking pear cider, beer, spiced ginger wine, slopping between stages and eating good festival food, Jeffery sat in with awesome Irish band Kila who we ended up drinking with later, all was fine and dandy, until we wanted to go home!

It was only just after 10:30pm, we hadn’t checked in yet to our accom, so we didn’t want to leave it too late as we were well over the mud, the rain had started up again heavily and we wanted out. We asked at the backstage office to book a shuttle back to our car, which was only a 15 min drive away but was informed that there was a curfew on cars driving around festival grounds between 10pm and 3am without a safety escort (because in the past people sleeping in bean bag covers on the ground have been run over by vehicles) and not only that, they may not have room for us anyway but said they’d see what they could do.

After about 5hrs of sitting, cold, damp and staring at the relentless rain (and Grant getting really smashed) which pelted down turning the sloppy mud into muddy rivers the friendly staff finally managed to organise a ride (which felt like we were on the last chopper out of Saigon). Sitting waiting in the backstage office we watched a massive truck containing millions of dollars of sound equipment list dangerously to the point of almost toppling over, so badly that they had to get a forklift kind of crane thing to prop it up until they could get some heavy machinery in to pull it out of the bog (which wouldn’t come till the next day). We also heard that a guy had died the previous night of a drug overdose (it didn’t sound like that was uncommon). Needless to say we were totally over being there. There is no way in hell any of us would pay 170 pounds for the experience especially after seeing the public toilets which smelt so rotten you compulsively wanted to vomit and looked just as bad. So we get our ride out to the car and thankfully are not bogged in, load up in the pouring rain, turn the heater up full and drive out. Now the organisers in their infinite wisdom (this is no comparatively immaculately run Woodford ladies and gentlemen) change the exit routes out of the festival, which supposedly eases the traffic flow (yeah right). We end up on some backwater, glorified donkey track, somewhere on the outskirts of Glastonbury town driving around in the dark for what seemed like forever, somehow we hit the main drag again and start to head to Street where we are staying in the YHA. Here ends part one of this lovely tale...(to be continued).

26.06.07
It’s getting light, and we have the address for the YHA but do you think we can find the street? Nuh uh. We drive around the english countryside, excruciatingly tired feeling as though we have been cursed by some cruel god, everything is shut and there’s not a soul in sight, finally we drive back into the main street so Myf can find a wifi connection to look up a decent map. We see a young baker walking to work and ask for directions but he couldn’t help, and then we see an older lady who knew where it was but was very uncertain with her directions (...”just go straight through the T-junction to a nasty cross road”- Lady...”Don’t you mean we should turn right or left since it’s a T-junction? And what do you mean by nasty exactly so we know what we’re looking for?” - Us...“No, you go straight through and well it’s just a particularly nasty cross road” - Lady...etc...bless her heart, she meant well), Myf then manages to connect to a wifi hotspot and hallelujah we have a map and directions. (P.S. The afore-mentioned cross road was particularly nasty, after not seeing a car on the road for hours we nearly get collected trying to turn right!).

It’s by now well after 4am and daylight when we pull into the YHA carpark, drag our stuff out of the car, walk up to the front door and press the night bell, and we wait, and wait, nothing, not a soul stirs. To the right of the door a window is ajar, we look in and there is an unoccupied room and the beds (figuratively) have our names on them. The thought of going back and sleeping in the car till reception opens whilst knowing those beds are within reach is unbearable, so Grant tries the window and it opens a little more but not enough, not even for Myf to squeeze through. Da da! Enter Dave (Grant’s leatherman), a screw loose later the window is open and we are in. We had pre-paid for the room and they were expecting us, the thought of being charged with breaking and entering did cross our minds but to be honest we were delirious and collapsed on the beds to sleep (except for Jeffery who went to have an icy cold shower first, there was no hot water). At 8am Myf heard the the reception guy come down the stairs and got up to explain how it happened to be that we were inside, he was lovely and said he would have done the same given the circumstance, so feeling morally redeemed we slept until midday.

We got up to find some breakfast and drove into Street to a life saving café which served the best tomato and lentil soup known to man, Grant said he felt 73% better afterwards. Suits were dry cleaned, clothes were washed of mud and all was right with the world. We bought supplies for vege burritos, a bottle of wine, chocolate and Coca Cola for Jeffrey. We hiked up the amazing Glastonbury Tor to the 15th century Church Bell Tower and were nearly swept away by the cyclonic winds. Then back to the hostel where Grant and Jeff cooked up whilst Myf got some work done on the laptop, the hostel itself was gorgeous like an old skiing chalet, dinner was delicious, the setting sun shone through the dining room windows and the wine was a welcome sedative. We went to bed looking forward to our first good sleep in three days......Cue suspicious creaking in the room directly above us, we wake in the middle of the night to unbelievably loud human carnal activity, let’s put it this way, she was having a good time (and possibly practising every move from the Kama Sutra) and we didn’t need to hear about it. About an HOUR later it’s finally over (if you know what we mean) and it’s possible to fall back asleep.

Next morning we head back to the café of tomato and lentil soup and then head off with plans to make it to Tintagel, of Arthurian mythology. But time and road closures get the better of us, we spent most of the day meandering around Exmoor, which is not a bad way to while away a day off. We’ve ended up in majestic Lynton on the coast across from the bottom of Wales in another lovely YHA with a beautiful view, we just a had a yummy indian dinner and a walk around the village, now just sitting in our room listening to Mathias and the Necessary Few. Hope all’s well with everyone. xxx Myf & Grant (and Jeffrey).