How to Glasturbate successfully (Glastonbury 2002 in general)

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Glastonbury 2002 in general
Date:	02/05/02 (175 review reads)
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Well, it's May now. That means it will soon be June. I'm looking forward to June, or at least the end of it, because that's when Glastonbury happens. Yay!

It didn't happen last year. I think because of the number of people that usually get in for free by climbing over the fence. This year it is happening, and I'm going to give you some advice, in case you're going for the first time.

There are two main ways to get there, by car or by train. Car is better, as you can park right next to the site, and take more stuff with you. The main disadvantage is that when you come to leave on the Monday you'll have to queue for hours to get out. But you can live with that, and if you leave it until late afternoon before trying to leave you won't have to queue for as long. The other disadvantage is that your car is vulnerable to crime. We once had all our petrol stolen, which was infuriating.

Don't worry if you don't have access to a car. You can get a train to Castle Cary (from Paddington, usually). When you get off the train there are coaches laid on to take you to the festival. The drop off point is on the complete opposite side of the site from where I normally camp, but that's not a problem for most people. Leaving the festival on the Monday is far more difficult by train, though. You'd be well advised to get up at the crack of dawn and queue for a coach (not necessarily something you'll want to do, but it will be better in the long run). You get dropped off at the station, and things get a little scary. You have several hundred festivalgoers waiting for trains. It ends up with a huge crowd, some trying to push forward, even though they can't get anywhere, and the station staff treating you with general disdain. Last time I did this they wouldn't let you onto the platform until the train arrived, they wouldn't let you on the platform without a ticket, and they wouldn't sell you tick
ets to anywhere but London. There are frequent trains laid on specially. They stop at Reading and London, and you can sleep all the way if you manage to get a seat, so I guess it's not as bad as it could be.

Make sure to take everything you'll need. A tent is a good start, along with a sleeping bag and maybe an inflatable air mattress. Food is also good. There's a lot on sale there, but it's all quite expensive. You'll also very possibly find yourself having weird cravings for snack food at odd times, so stock up on Pringles and that kind of thing. If you take tinned food don't forget to take a tin opener and something to cook it with. Take some bottled water - when you finish it, you can refill the bottles with tap water and carry them around with you. Take headache pills, suntan lotion (very important, that), any other medicines you need. Toilet paper is essential, as are soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush.

Take a variety of clothes, for those hot afternoons and cold evenings. Waterproof clothes, too (especially boots of some kind), in case it rains for five days. Don't take anything you'd hate to lose, as things do get stolen. If you take anything of genuine value then keep it with you. Apart from my tent and sleeping bag, I take nothing that I'd be that bothered about losing. If I take a camera I buy a cheap disposable one.

If you smoke, stock up on fags, tobacco, Rizlas etc before you go. You can buy cigarettes on site, but again they'll be more expensive than normal. If you plan to drink anything harder than beer, again, take it with you. The same goes for drugs - there are plenty of people wandering around the site offering to sell you all manner of substances, but I wouldn't trust them. If you do use illegal drugs, buy them before you go. Take money with you. There are cash points on site but huge queues form around them. Obviously keep your cash with you at all times. In years gone by
I've tried to take about £100-£150. How ever much I take it's never enough, though, and I usually annoy my friends by borrowing heavily from them.

Don't forget to take your ticket, whatever you do. In years gone by thousands of people have got in by climbing over the fence (and huge sections of the fence have been torn down). I've never done this, as I doubt I'm athletic enough. But this year we are assured that the fences will be impossible to get over. It seems that the festival is on a final warning over this, so hopefully they've sorted it out. Tickets have sold out (all 100,000 of them), although I daresay they can be obtained from shady sources.

Glasto opens its doors on Wednesday 26th June, with the events kicking off on Friday 28th. It ends on Sunday, and most people leave on Monday. If possible, I'd recommend getting there on Wednesday. That way you get to pick your camp area, which is a huge bonus. I have a group of friends who go most years, and we always camp in the same place, which means that we all find each other easily. Also, if the site is still relatively empty you can pitch your tent away from the roads (which aren't really roads, they're actually big metal walkway things put down over the grass). Doing this means that you'll have loads and loads of other people's tents between you and the roads, which seems to make it slightly less likely that you'll have things stolen. It also means you'll trip over lots of other ropes, tents etc. in the dark, which is always funny. Obviously don't camp near toilets, that would be the height of foolishness. They start out smelling bad and get worse and worse as the week progresses.

Wednesday's the day for arriving, setting up tents, getting firewood (get as much as possible, you'll probably want a nice big fire every night, at least until someone camps on your fireplace or nicks your wood). There's not much going on,
so just relax, get to know the layout, find out where everything important is. Maybe buy a silly straw hat. It's fun to sit and watch the fields fill with tents. Arrange nice easy to find places to meet your friends if you all wander off to see different things, as you'll almost certainly lose them if you don't. Thursday is one of the best days, as all the shops and stalls are up and running, and you have a chance to check them out without the distracting knowledge that you have to go and see a band soon.

Then the festival starts. You won't see everyone you want to, as there are always annoying schedule clashes (Pulp vs Portishead in '95 was a bad one). Be sure to properly read the programme of events, as you can find some great stuff in the smaller tents and stages (The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown in 2000!). There's lots of cool weird stuff going on in the strange hippie parts of the site (The Green Fields), odd performances of juggling, little plays, Morris dancing, that kind of thing - a bit like Covent Garden on a Saturday afternoon, but better. On Sunday morning a local brass band always plays on the main stage, and that's fabulous, especially watching the little crowd of mind-altered people sitting there listening with rapt attention to Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance marches.

If you want to take drugs, chances are the police won't stop you. In previous years they've been happy enough to ignore the vast quantities of cannabis being smoked around them. They might clamp down this year, but I can't really see it happening. If you're going to take drugs, I'd suggest avoiding anything that will make you feel paranoid, as there are huge crowds everywhere. Also, spare a thought for people who aren't on drugs. I remember in 2000 myself and a friend had to watch all of the Happy Mondays concert (the worst thing I've ever seen, anywhere, ever) because another of our friends had taken so much LSD
that he couldn't stand up. We had to stay and make sure he wasn't mugged or anything. If you can't tolerate people who take drugs, I'd advise that you stay away from the festival entirely, as I'd imagine most people there will take something at some point.

I fear that the general tone of the festival is shifting in the wrong direction, unfortunately. In the last couple of years it seems that almost as many people are going to get drunk as to chill out. The music is gradually becoming more and more corporate and faceless, with bland soundalike dadrock acts like The Corrs, Manic Street Preachers, Texas and REM all playing in recent years. With Mean Fiddler now having taken over the organisation, this can only get worse. The only three rumoured acts I've heard mentioned for this year's festival are Blur (not too bad, but not something I'd see), Pink Floyd (could be OK as long as they avoid everything since Wish You Were Here) and Rod Stewart. Some ageing rockers are cool (Bowie), most are not but just about get by on past glories (McCartney), and some are so bad that you have to wonder if God has created them as some kind of test of our endurance, like he did to Job. Rod Stewart falls into the latter category.

Still, what do I know? I thought the Pet Shop Boys were the best act I saw last time. And anyway, the music's kind of just an added bonus. I look on the festival as a big camping holiday, where a few fields in the West Country become a bit like Amsterdam for a few days, somewhere I can get back to nature (by not washing for a week) and ogle scantily clad ladies (if the weather's nice). The music is cool, but it's almost peripheral to my enjoyment. Unfortunately, as more and more beer cans make their way onto the site, and as the music becomes less diverse and interesting, the culture of the festival is in danger of being eroded. I feel this pleasant near-utopia will change for the worse - I give it a
few more years before it's a mere shadow of its former self, another money-making exercise. I still think it'll be good this year, though.

I have some great memories of past Glastonburies. Thinking impure thoughts while watching PJ Harvey. Seeing a weird little Australian guy dressed as a pixie who'd been awake for 48 hours and was obviously having some kind of drug-induced psychotic episode in front of an appreciative audience. Helping to boo Evan Dando off stage. Drinking half a bottle of absinthe in an afternoon. Watching dozens of people tearing down the fence. And so on. Hopefully this year's going to be just as good.

I just hope it doesn't rain.

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