| 2004
- Sunday
– Bleary-eyed we awoke to our fifth morning of the festival,
minds determined to make the most of our last day at Glastonbury
for a year, bodies more interested in some much-needed rest and
sleep. The presence of the English National Opera on the Pyramid
Stage attracted much media attention, and was hailed by Michael
Eavis as a great success, but none of the HMZ team had sufficient
energy or inclination to haul themselves down to watch it, and
so this piece of Glastonbury history slipped us by. The first
people to drag us away from our campsite were scousers, bizarrely
not to rob us but to actually provide entertainment, in the form
of the Zutons on the Other Stage. Dressed in bright yellow boiler
suits they ran through a jaunty set, their music paying tribute
to and building on that of other bands from their part of the
world, in particular label-mates The Coral. The recently resurrected
Divine Comedy followed with a entertaining set of old and new
songs, capped with a fine jazz-like cover of “No One Knows”
by the Queens of the StoneAge - so unusual sounding that it took
us most of the song just to pin-point just whose song was being
covered. Roly-poly TV Presenter Phil Jupitus joined Ordinary Boys
onstage, who were up next. His pogo-ing up and down to a track
they were playing proved a serious threat to collapsing the stage
completely, in a repeat of the great sinking incident of ’97. |
| The
famous flag. Anyone who sat in front of a PC for hours
and hours on end, on a certain night in April will know
what we are talking about... |
|
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When
the tremors had stopped, we decided it was time to have lunch,
which has to be mentioned for the sheer incompetence of the BBQ
pizza stall. They were only selling four different sorts of pizza,
but even this proved beyond them as repeatedly orders were mixed
up, or they ran out of a certain key ingredient such as pizza
bases, and they must have had to give half their drink stocks
away as compensation for people waiting so long. But in fairness
when it actually arrived the pizza was very tasty. |
 |
| Speaking
of tasty, those who witnessed Joss Stone’s Saturday evening
performance had wasted no opportunity to inform others of how
lovely her bum is, and this attracted many more members of the
HMZ crew to her Pyramid Stage show. Dressed in pink trousers possibly
even tighter than those she had worn the previous night, she played
a shortened version of the set, whilst flirting outrageously with
two obviously gay security men. We were clearly not the only ones
to have developed such an infatuation with her, as one desperado
made his way to the front of the crowd with a large, hastily-drawn
cardboard sign asking “Marry me?”. Joss smiled and
waved, which only encouraged the pervert to smear “Yes?”
in mud on the back of his sign and show it to her. At this point
she seemed to realise the potential danger of this man and no
longer looked at him, preferring instead to keep her eyes firmly
fixed in the direction of Jungle. Perhaps. |
| When
the excitement finally came to an end we moved to the back of
the field, jaded after 5 days of constant standing, walking and
dancing, and sat back to watch Irish folk guitarist Christy Moore.
Without wishing any disrespect to a man who has enjoyed a successful
40 year career, he was pretty crap, and it didn’t take long
for the cider-thirst to take over. Unfortunately it was at this
moment that the festival reached its lowest point, possibly ever,
as one of the beer tents ran out of proper cider, with just Blackthorn
left. Dismayed we made do with the weaker fizzy version, hoping
that it was only a temporary shortage, but even that pint didn’t
get finished as a sudden heavy burst of rain sent many scampering
for their tents. Suitably kitted out with waterproofs and cider
we returned to the Pyramid to watch “The Godfather of Soul”,
“The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness”, “The
Living Legend” that is James Brown. It was an interesting
spectacle, watching a man now in his seventies dodder around the
stage, mainly growling his own name, whilst another man repeated
the above quotes ad nauseum, with two scantily-clad dancers completing
the bizarre scene. The version of “Sex Machine” must
have lasted almost twenty minutes! With The Libertines in Pete
Docherty-induced chaos their slot was taken by Glastonbury favourites
Supergrass, as a fitting finale to their greatest hits tour. It
was obviously tough choosing which of their many good songs could
comprise a greatest hits setlist, and inevitably a few were missed
out, but few bands could have had the crowd singing all the words
to as many songs. |
| "Sorry
lads, we're out of Burrow Hill" - the last words
this unfortunate man ever spoke before being rightly chucked
on the fire. |
|
|
The only
debatable decision was the acoustic rendition of “Caught
by the Fuzz”, which loses some of the energy of the full
version, but this was soon forgotten as they launched into the
rarely-heard “Alright”, to the crowd’s delight.
Another downpour brought a rainbow into view over the farm, a
photo opportunity not to be missed! |
|
| With
further downpours looking likely, undercover music seemed a good
idea, which took us to the Dance Tent for taff-chavs Goldie Lookin
Chain. Sadly the sound was not clear enough to make out all of
the lyrics, but it was possible to pick out some of the gems,
such as “Your Mum’s Got a Penis”. An hour of
rap was perhaps a bit much for those of us who aren’t generally
too keen on the genre, but it was good fun none-the-less. |
| The
final musical entertainment of the weekend presented a choice
between Muse on the Pyramid, or Orbital making their final Glastonbury
appearance on the Other Stage. From the size of the crowd it seems
the majority went for Orbital, and those that did were not to
be disappointed. Unsurprisingly they went through all their biggest
tunes, with great versions of “Belfast” and “Satan
Spawn” whilst giant blocks rotated behind them. The highlight
had to be “Halcyon”, which half way through was inserted
with first Bon Jovi’s “You give love a bad name”,
then “I believe in a thing called love” from The Darkness,
and finally “Heaven is a place on Earth” from Belinda
Carlisle. Truly surreal, but it received a great reaction and
sounded fantastic. The set ended with first “Doctor Who”,
and then “Chime”, which it seemed no-one wanted to
end, before the Hartnoll brothers hugged and left the stage to
huge cheers. While all this had been going on, many others from
our camping crew enjoyed Muse’s set, but have been too lazy
to write a review of this, so we haven’t got a clue what
that was like, sorry. |
|
| A
few more ciders and singing at the bus inevitably followed, and
although the singing never quite reached the levels of the previous
night the staff again generously provided some free cider for
their choir. There was even the opportunity to see the festival
from the other side of the bar, as it was temporarily abandoned,
but sensibly they had taken measures to deny access to the cider
itself. And then, as the embers of the fire died out, Glastonbury
was over for another year. The general consensus that it had been
as good as ever, the weather could have been better, at times
so could the music, but there’s still no better party in
the world that we know of. We now just have to hope that Mr Eavis
keeps quieter about the 2005 headliners and improves his ticket
system, so we can be sure of attending again next year, for more
cider, fire and dogging tents. |
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Buy CD's of artists who played on Sunday of Glastonbury 2004:
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Joss Stone - Mind, Body & Soul
Zutons – Who Killed The Zutons? 
Supergrass – Best Of 
Orbital – Works 1989 - 2002 
Goldie Lookin Chain – Greatest Hits 
James Brown – The Godfather 
The Coral - Nightfreak & The Sons Of Becker 
Divine Comedy – A Secret History 
