The sun was shining, we had all finished work and Wednesday was the day we begun our journey to Glastonbury 2005 woo hoo!!! Armed with a gazebo and all our friends' tents we headed for our spec in Pennard Hill Ground. Only to find there was no room, with 50000 ticket holders arriving on Wednesday morning the field was full. After what felt like the hike of all hikes we located a spot big enough with room for all our tents on the adjacent field. We set up camp in the dark, laughing between ourselves about the hole behind our camp and how funny it will be to see people tripping in it (ohhhh little did we know). After a couple of trips to the car and perfecting our camp we went for a rest in the Stone Circle field.

The Stone circle is a field which over looks most of the Glastonbury site holding at least 10000 people this field is where people go to chill out, watch the sunrise play bongos and generally be merry. The actual Stone Circle is egg shaped to mirror the Signus star constellation. The stone at the tip signifies the swan's neck and is pointed to the midsummerÔø‡Ôø‡sunrise. Under each stone are significant items that represent the direction of which each faces. There are crystals from Stonehenge, water from the Ganges, stone from the Pyramids, healing herb and many, other items of mystical and religious significance. While only completed in 1990 the Stone Circle feels as though it's been there forever. It has a medieval feeling with people running around with lanterns, fire poi and fire staffs and singing. There is constant chatter people running around trying to find there friends. Deciding we had many more nights of the sunrise we headed back to the tent as it was getting really cold. 3 hours later and shit I'm burning alive oh no!! After quickly scrambling out of the tent and into the gazebo we realized it was the sun cooking us in our tents. We got ourselves ready for final preparations making a few more trips meeting the final arriving friends we were here and ready to go.

What a perfect day the sun shining, the vodka flowing, we took the Glasto virgins on a tour of the site. Everything was mostly closed but they got the idea. Going our separate ways, Kate Mc and I arrived at the infamous wine bar stall which was blasting out as always some Beatles classics, joining the other 100 or so revellers screaming the words at the top of our lungs and trying to pretend the drunken stumbling is part of our dance we spent the next hour dancing away.

Crawling into bed about 4am drunkenly ignoring the rolls of thunder sweeping across the Pilton valley we feel asleep. Only to be woken 4 hours later by an exciting thunder storm, the tent was leaking slightly due to the half arsed assembly in the dark. As we were sitting on the floor you could feel the thunder rolling around the hills and the crack of the lightening as it hit the beer tent and various other stages. Heading out to the toilet Nish stuck his head out the tent with eyes as round with shock, asking what was going on I casually replied its raining, he asked if my tent was leaking and I said yes his would be ok(big mistake), on returning from the toilet we noticed a river had formed around his tent. Nish previously knowing it wasn't gonna be ok had packed all his stuff earlier and swiftly moved it out of the way. With the aid of some helpful passers by we tried to salvage his tent although it was too little too late, the river had spoken and taken control of the rave dome. Swiftly moving Ali and Sarah's tent just in time, their home for the next few days was saved, but poor Nish had to move in with Luke and Colin. There was now a fully formed river running through our site and through our gazebo. It was then we realized it wasn't a hole next to our site but a bog.. Doh.. If we had been more thoughtful we could have avoided that situation, never mind, Nish seemed very resilient, his glass was definitely half full.

After a trip down to the bottom of Pennard Hill Ground we realized we were lucky, the river which ran through our site had gathered at the bottom of the fields covering whole tents in up to 5 foot of water, the devastation of the mornings events hit home. Wondering whether people had drowned asleep in there tent (later finding out nothing like that had happened) and we had survived the worst rain in 17 years. The Glastonbury spirit was not lost a lot of people had left the site but a lot more stayed to party, people we heard saying the we just happy they were lucky enough to get a ticket, and they weren't gonna let this spoil there weekend.. Bring it on!!

Ôø‡Ôø‡ After rumours on Radio 1 that the Undertones had been bumped off the line up due to health and safety worries, we slowly made our way to the Pyramid stage, only to find they were on and we just arrived for the end of Teenage Kicks. Next was Australia's John Butler Trio, fresh back from a trip around Oz Kate Mc took us to see this previously unheard of melodic act. They mixed aboriginal with funky basslines, as the sun started to shine they were a great start to the Pyramid stage, liberating the smiling faces and bobbing bodies.

The Thrills took over banging out tune after tune, So Much for The City, One Horse Town, Old Friends New Lovers, the climax's being Santa Cruz and Big Sur with the sun getting hotter, you could feel the Glastonbury vibe all around, I think the morning's events had made people even more determined to have fun. Feeling a little done in, mainly from lack of sleep and the past few days events, I headed back to camp for a rest and a refill of drinks, deciding to have a little doze. Next Minute hearing Star 69 I woke screaming Oh No Roy we have slept right through Friday night, that's Fatboy Slim on The Other Stage!! I couldn't believe it after all the hard work getting tickets and getting here early to be ready for the party, I slept through The Doves, The Killers, and The White Stripes!! At least we caught the last 30 mins of Fatboy although he played a lot of stuff I have heard him play over the last year; Praise you, Walk Like An Egyptian, Yeke Yeke Outer Space, although we will let him off it was a festival set after all and he has the most amazing light show giving away glasses which made the lights look like smiley faces.. Nice touch

Not wanting to miss Saturdays events we decided to try to go back to sleep and luckily enough we slept right through to 9am. Lazy I know!!

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Ôø‡Ôø‡ Waking up early and raring to go after Friday nights mess up, I headed for the leftfield tent for the Q&A session with John Pilger bags packed for the day with Vodka, chairs, loo roll, warm hat for the evening, no way was I chancing wasting a minute heading back to the tent. John Pilger did a no show so it was across to the Pyramid stage to meet the gang. Goldie Looking Chain was on strutting about the stage, I'm not a fan of hip hop but Goldie Looking Chain kept me entertained & had me giggling with there cheeky quips.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Kaiser Chiefs were next and oh my god how good are they, I knew a few of their songs that I had heard on the radio, but even the ones I didn't know were amazing too. Ricky Wilson (their lead singer) was ready to burst with energy, swaggering around the stage, crowd surfing to 'I Predict A Riot' the crowd went wild as the security scrambled to get him back, he even adopted a huge dinosaur which was circulating in the crowd and donning it with his tie, when he tried to give it back at the end the crowd kept throwing it back to him. 'Everyday I Love You Less and Less' 'Time Honoured Tradition' 'Oh My God' 'Take My Temperature' were just a few of the songs which made up one of the most energetic sets I have seen on the Pyramid stage.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Ash had a really hard act to follow and at first the crowd settled down after going mental to the Kaiser Chiefs, but as Ash's set progressed, so did the atmosphere the high points being 'Goldfinger' 'Girl From Mars' 'Oh Yeah' and 'Teenage Kicks'''''Ôø‡Ôø‡

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Scouse boys The Coral took to the stage with the crowd watching with reverence, they ambled through the first few songs but when the first few cords of 'Dreaming Of You' were played the crowd was woken, 'In The Morning' sent the crowd right off.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ One of the highlights of my festival were next Keane, after seeing these guys play The Other stage last year, Hopes and Fears become a permanent setting on my Ipod. So this years set meant so much more as I could now scream every word to every song. Ôø‡Ôø‡Starting off with "Can't Stop Now" which is one of Keane's more upbeat songs, the atmosphere was electric straight away; Tom Chaplin (their baby faced singer) went into some new songs including their new single "Nothing In Your Way". The crowd was swaying along; although most of us didn't now the words, the Keane sound was still having an effect. Tom was overwhelmed after singing "We Might As Well Be Strangers" you could just see the gratitude in his face as he told us how amazing it was to hear the crowd at the Pyramid stage sing his songs, we if he thought that was good, god knows what he was thinking when they played "Everybody's Changing". It felt like the whole field was belting out every last word, with hits like "Somewhere Only We Know" and "This Is The Last Time' their set went from strength to strength. Keane's final track was "Bedshaped" and this time I was sure 60000 were screaming the words at the top of their lungs. Keane is a band that people love to hate 'they don't have a guitarist' 'they are too soppy' blah blah blah.. Well at least they had 60000 people enthusiastically singing their songs..Well done lads!!

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Could this day get any better, yes it was about to do just that as New Order graced the stage. They may be old and they may look like they should be gracing the local Bowling Green instead of the Pyramid Stage, but nobody cared as this was definitely nostalgia city!! The crowd had become more compact and it was time for us to pick up those faithful camping chairs we had been resting on all day and squeeze into the crowd. Hit after hit came blaring out, uniting the crowd who seemed to be competing for the highest jump to 'Transmission' which was dedicated to the late Joy Division front man Ian Curtis and with 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' dedicated to John Peel the celebration had begun. To finish off Keith Allen arrived onstage, riding a panto donkey and was dressed as a Matador, he was here to fill in for John Barnes rap to 'World In Motion', again uniting the crowd as we sang along, the only disappointment was that 'Blue Monday' was missing from the set, although I still had a wicked time. Stacy wasn't too happy that was the only tune he wanted to hear from them and he come back from the toilet with overheard mumblings of them being too old and fucking up throughout the set that they didn't have time to do it.. ah well who knows!!

Ôø‡Ôø‡ We had now arrived at Saturdays Grand Finale'Coldplay were next, the crowd was getting tighter and tighter now with people trying to squeeze themselves in the non existent spaces at the front. And here they come are they the worlds most famous 4 piece, well if not they are close enough starting of with 'Square One' the first track off the new album X&Y, the crowd are right there with them swaying and singing joined by a laser show which is second to none. 'Politik' is next a song from Rush of Blood, but the first defining moment in their set was Yellow, this as with New Order united he crowd to a Karaoke frenzy. With my all time favourite following 'God Put a Smile upon Your Face' chanting along this Coldplay masterpiece seemed so right for that moment. After screaming Crazy Frog where are you now? Chris Martin enters into another of my favourites 'Speed Of Sound' and then dedicating 'Till Kingdom Come' to his dad, everyone's dad and even the dads from my two dads, giggling to himself Martin asks the crowd, 'Do you remember that show?' and the Scouser behind me goes 'Yeah it was on channel 4 at 6 o clock!!' ha ha classic.. Tunes like The Scientist,' 'Don't Panic,' and 'Clocks' and 'Swallowed In The Sea' make up the rest of their set. After coming back for an encore with another emotional moment with Chris Martin's dedication to 'absent friends' playing a brilliant cover of Kylie's 'Cant Get You Out Of My Head'. The crowds reaction was brilliant with mostly the girls in the crowd singing la la la, la la la la la, la la la, la la la la la, and the boys smiling along it was perfect. Ending with 'In My Place' and 'Fix You', Saturday night was complete. Well that was until we tried to use our legs again, after standing in that jam packed crowd for the last 5 hours, we started trying to walk in the squidgest mud ever. With 60000 people attempting the same task we changed our minds and opened the trusty camping chairs, whilst resting our legs and killing ourselves laughing watching a huge game of stuck in the mud!!Ôø‡Ôø‡ We composed ourselves and went to the Stone Circle, after and optical illusion and an encounter with the little people, we settled at the top. Knowing we had to take a visit to the cash machine, two of us left ahead of everyone else thinking we were smart beating the queues at 4am. The queue was about 1/4 of the size it was in the day time but it still took us 2 hours to get to the front. It didn't seem that bad as there was a certain sense of camaraderie as everyone around was in the same boat.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Ôø‡Ôø‡ And so the last day has arrived. And you start to realize this is the last time for 2 years, normally its ok as we have next year, but no we don't we have to wait till 2007. Even will all the mud, rain and the rubber rash from the wellies, I don't wanna go home! Ah well lets make the most of it, we got to claim our spec at the Pyramid Stage. Ôø‡Ôø‡ Jools Holland was in full swing and you could tell the day pass people had arrived, all clean and well prepared and most of them seemed to be middle aged, but they loved it like they were 16 again, swinging along in the sunshine to Jools Holland's timeless Blues and Jazz; with a mix of guitars, trumpets, sax, percussionÔø‡Ôø‡all jamming also joined by vocalists, Sam Brown and Ruby Turner. Ruby Turner joining in a funky version of Dylan's 'Blowin InÔø‡Ôø‡The Wind'.Ôø‡Ôø‡Jools Holland and his crew were definitely a winner all round.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ After Jools follows a mix of Blues Jazz Soul and R n B with Van Morrison, the crowd was loving it singing and dancing to songs like 'Have I Told You Lately', 'Moondance' 'Jackie Wilson Says' 'Brown Eyed Girl' and 'Gloria'. I was not sure what to expect from Van Morrison but with the sun shining he was the perfect tonic for Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury.

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Now the legend Brian Wilson takes to the stage, with expectation buzzing around the crowd for the genius former song writer and member of the Beach Boys. Wilson suffered a drug induced breakdown in 1967 and this was obvious due to his static performance, that he will always feel the brunt of that. Although his voice and songs were enough, this was one of the greatest performances I have ever seen at Glastonbury, like I did last year with Paul McCartney, I went to see Brian Wilson for the sake of it because he was Brian Wilson and boy am I glad I did!! Wilson had brought the Californian sun with him and it was beating down now. Every person at the Pyramid stage had their hands in the air and were using their voices to the optimum level not forgetting to place the biggest smiles across their faces.. It was hard not to jump about in unison to hits like 'Good Vibrations' 'Sloop john B 'Heroes And Villains' 'Surfer Girl' 'In My Room' 'I Get Around' 'Do It Again' 'God Only Knows' 'Barbara Ann' 'Surfin' USA' and 'Fun Fun Fun'. To add to the festival and west coast buzz there were 2 crowd surfers getting carried along on full size surf boards. Only in Glastonbury!!

Ôø‡Ôø‡ Garbage were next Brian Wilson were a hard act to follow and I don't mind Garbage but following an afternoon of legends their set just didn't compare. We hung around for a few songs and after a dance to Stupid girl we headed off to feed ourselves and to get a spec for our Grand Finale. Arriving at the Acoustics tent for Tori Amos we set up our chairs outside and settled in. At first we found Tori Amos to be quite soothing but after a while the same high pitch grated on us. Although she is a very talented lady spending the set switching between 2 pianos and doing an amazing cover of Simon and Garfunkel's 'Feeling Groovy' she just wasn't for me. The crowd dispersed and we headed into the tent to get a good spec for The Beautiful South, not long after this tent was packed; again smiling faces everywhere and a huge buzz all around the tent. This was definitely another feel good set with 1000's belting out their hits 'Everybody's Talkin' 'Let Love Speak Up Itself' 'One Last Love Song' 'Dream A Little Dream' '36D' 'Old Red Eye Is Back' 'A Little Time' 'You Keep It All In' 'Song For Whoever'. I normally finish off Glastonbury on the Pyramid Stage with the headliner, but the emotion felt in the Acoustics' tent will have been hard to beat and I am so glad I was part of it. Ôø‡Ôø‡The tuneful voices of The Beautiful South rounded off another emotional Glastonbury!
By J McLean

www.glastonbury.co.uk
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