Glastonbury is now 'corporate'...

it's very in and fashionable to go to festivals these days philip, in september if you don't have a leeds festival band on you just aint in the scene!

My ex who i have my daughter with is planning on going to leeds festival this year, she couldnt even tell you the line up and neither likes indie rock or metal or anything, it's just the place to be now!!!!

i have a few friends going who have been going since lates 80s but you look at the photos from the place and it all just so...

Creamfields for the over fourtys

Glasto is great. But it is full of middle class tossers who just want to say they were there. If you ignore them, you'll have a great time. The right on stuff like make poverty history and Sir fookin Bob preaching at you is annoying, but it gives Tarquin and Cresseda the chance to go to work on Monday and wax lyrical about their "Glastonbury moment" and tell their mates how they helped drop the debt (over a 4 quid skinny latte, fairtade of course).

Hartlepool is always well represented for some reason. Seen loads of people from the town. So at least some real people there.

Neil Young, Bruce Springteen and Blur headlining? It's not for kids is it? Especially at nigh on 150 quid a ticket.

Definitely not for kids. They'd rather have people who have more expendable income than that.
Business and money - as our society is set up to be focused round.
Surely it didnt use to be revolutionary in some small way did it?

go to download festival instead, i mixed in well with all the metalheads in my pools shirt

Yep, spot on.

As soon as the fence went up the whole thing changed forever.

Mind, it did stop teams of scallies steaming through the campsites nicking anything not nailed down. A mate of ours came back one night to find an empty space where his tent had been! Everything gone.

Ah, the good old days!
I went in 1989 or 90 and saw RY Cooder and The Cure - whilst I was on acid
Some Welsh travellers ran across to my tent with haybale that was flaming and they tried to set our tent on fire.
And we were all tripping thinking whoah what the fuck is going on here?
V1997 (or was it 98 or 99?) was the worst, where they stipulated exactly where you were allowed to park and how many centimetres had to be between your tent and the next one. At the time I thought it was horrific. I can see now how that may have commen sense but I never went to a festival again for nine or ten years.

I'm going. This will be my 8th time at Glastonbury and i've been to loads of festivals and nothing even comes close to it for so many reasons.

I'm not even that arsed about watching the bands either. The only defos for me will be The Specials, Hugh Cornwell and The Wonderstuff.

If there was such thing as a Glastonbury season ticket, i'd stump up straight away.

Was at V98, was that the last one in Leeds? All I remember of that was the horrendous walk from the car park to the campsite. One of our lot had a pot on his leg. The Verve were shit as well.

Oops! 2 things then.

yeah V98 was in Leeds. I was at that too. Some good stuff on that year. Iggy Pop was quality as were Underworld.

I'm not boshed about stuff being corporate. Who gives a shyte? Even the V festival can be reasonably priced if you are clever enough about it.
The worst one i've been to was the Leeds Festival, but I still enjoyed it. I just love live music!"

V99 was in Staffordshire. I was at that too!

V99 was great. Hot and sunny. No fooker went. we got tickets in the carpark for half price, lovely half empty campsites and sitting in the sun watchin a spaced out Shaun Ryder singing every song 5 seconds behind an equally shambolic Mondays.

Good stuff!

I got tickets for nowt for that. Went on the Saturday morning and left on the Sunday night. Was back in bed with the ex by 3am!

Can only really rememeber Orbital and Manic Street Preachers from that one. Must have been constantly blaked!

I too was at V98, what a bloody good weekend that was. I tried to throw a bottle of piss at Chumbawamba. I missed. The highlight for me was when Green Day plucked some young fan from the crowd, and let him play Billy Jo's guitar to the chorus of Basket Case I think it was?

When the fence went up it changed for the better,as the days of the hippies etc had long gone by then.
For me the 'old Glastonbury vibe' died in the mid 90s & was replaced by the criminal elements.The last couple of years before the fence Glastonbury was rife with thieves & muggers.It wasnt an assortment of oddball hippies & characters getting in for nowt,it was pretty much all scumbags there for no other reason than to thieve.
Glastonbury festival didnt so much sell out the original festival ethic,the great British scumbag stole it away

9am tomorrow I will be setting off to do my 16th Glastonbury,hopefully on site,tent up & a beer in my hand by 4 in the afternoon.
It may have changed,but it is still the most unique festival there is.

Exactly right Mr Crimes. The trouble we had in the beer tents the year before the fence went up was legendary. I must have got called out about 40 times that weekend to sort out trouble with the scallies and mancs. It was a scary place to be. Also Mr Norge was correct about the present crowd (as far as 2005) but at least they're a peaceful bunch and just tedious without being dangerous.

Both true.

It is much better without the scumbags.

Unfortunately as Mr EAD has said, "doing Glasto" is now a trendy thing to do. Which results in a sizable portion of the crowd who struggle to deal with all that goes with a festival, including large crowds, bad toilets and mud.

Pretty much the same as football. The new punters, having listened to the media bollox, expect the perfect experience and are disappointed it does not live up to the hype. Which is why you get whingers at festivals and boo-ers at football.

It's a fine line between getting rid of the scumbags/hooligans and sanitising the whole thing to appeal to the people with highest disposable incomes. There's a whole new debate there.

I have never heard anything but good things about The Wickerman. Have a great time Mutts.

Make sure you're not the virgin sacrifice tho'!