| 65 x 2 = Wicked
& Weird
 We’ve
been here for days, for 4 in fact. Even though they’ve passed so rapidly it feels
more like a handful of disjointed hours and snatched moments. We know that can’t
be the case – our head’s holding a dull pain captive, eyes hang sticky with sleep,
our skin’s developing a unique new shade, and a stale fragrance stalks us to most
corners of the site. Trying to hold it together with a cupful of caffeine and
sugar on the wooden floor of the Guardian Lounge, possibly our finest Glasto moment
comes and finds us, handing the final day a renewed spring in its blistered step.
Any previous experience of Buck 65, either recorded, in print or performance
has been wickedly entertaining, a maverick hip hop artist trapped in hobo skin,
drawing influence from almost anywhere but. Still, we weren’t prepared for he
who shone so brightly before us today. Matching the mood, he slumps on a stool
with laughable plastic bags over his trainers, backed by a drummer and guitarist
who seem to be winging it as much as him, rambling sometimes off the cuff, sometimes
from the small notebook he clasps. He finishes with a Woody Guthrie song from
the 40s, every line uttered as if it were a new moment discovered right there,
each expression amplified exuberantly. Later in the New Tent, with his full band’s
UK debut, he epitomises the spontaneous, carefree, inspirational spirit that everyone
came here looking for. Some call him the hip hop Tom Waits – just let him be himself,
that’s good enough.
A Trick Of The Light?
 Don’t
think we’re undermining the Super Fence’s impenetrable authority here or anything,
but this year’s most successful (only?) gatecrashers were without a doubt obstinate
Camdenite/Swede indie-mongrels Razorlight. Who let them in anyway? More
importantly who gave them permission to steal the day away before we’d even had
our first lot of doughnuts? The following day they go on to break another presumption,
releasing one of the year’s most vital debut records, but most in attendance don’t
know that yet. If they know anything it’s their opinion on cocky front-loudmouth
Johnny Borrell and the words to ‘Golden Touch’. But such self-belief can only
turn intoxicating when you realise he’s telling the truth, and it does. They make
a lethargic, sticky and sun-kissed audience sway, shout and above all smile with
some victorious simplicity. They deliver super-charged Londoncentric candy-sweet
new wave like they invented it, they bring on inflatable letters to spell ‘love’
(which they do for about 6 seconds) and even a friggin’ gospel choir for the final
3 songs, like being second on the bill is going to stop them playing like they’re
second from top and out on a bid to upstage the headliner. They needn’t have brought
the inflatable letters though, quite apart from the fact they didn’t work, there
was enough of that heading their way by the time they closed with a devastatingly
direct and roughed-up ‘Rip It Up’. We’d say you can stop referring to them as
hopefuls from heron in then.
The Odd Couple (Of Hundred)
 Stood
in a Somerset valley sporting mucky wellies, watching the third act of opera’s
Ride of the Valkyrie on a mammoth pyramidal structure over the shoulder
of a dreadlocked hippie with a spliff behind her ear, at lunchtime on a balmy
Sunday in June – not a tale I thought I’d have in my cannon for the grandkids.
But this is Glastonbury, things like this can and do happen here. Some of them
are even real, in so much as the bloke next to you insists he saw the same thing
(we could tell you about the silver pirate ship we ‘saw’ drifting quasi-supernaturally
through the crowd at Orbital in 2000, but we’ve never had that verified). This
is real though. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes awe-inspiring, but very real.
Never before have so many people graced those boards simultaneously – fact! There
are over 120 of them up there (that’s not a challenge, Polyphonic Spree), and
they’re certainly not short of grace. Such a complete sound emanates lushly from
the stage, uber-relaxing and skin-tighteningly intense, heroic and inspiring.
Yes, all those things. Next to the comparative superficiality and minuteness unfolding
elsewhere on site it’s incomparable. It’s probably the best booking Michael
Eavis ever made. Shortly after recuperating from their set we see a peculiar
bowler-hatted gentleman scurrying through the hedgerows by the Acoustic Stage
with the X-Files theme music seeping from his tatty briefcase. This almost seems
normal.
Tantrums & Twig Tiaras
 It
ain’t all peace, pipes and reasonably-priced love round these parts y’know. Take
hundreds of primadonnas out of their fishbowl, drop them onto a plot of turf,
add intoxicants at will, the law of averages will do the rest. Liam Gallagher
obviously sees himself leading the charge, having already got the back-stage bust-up
rumour mill grinding. He skulks around up there in a ridiculous full-length fake-fur
coat like the kid who thinks he’s got the biggest knob in his class but can lay
claim to little more than a superiority-complex. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Glastonberrrry,”
enunciates he irritably, “and I’m the only fookin’ one ‘ere!”. It’s funny, but
alas for the wrong reasons. We knew I Am Kloot lurked on the more abrasive
side of the acousticity, but still. They launch into one final fluttering burst
of heavy-handed pop, only for the PA to be pulled. The stage manager enters, meets
a puffy-chested John Bramwell and is ejected violently to select cheers. A second
try simply finds power cut completely. Won’t be seeing you next year then. Making
the end of Badly Drawn Boy’s set we learn the boy Gough is well peeved
at only getting on the bill as replacement for Jet and has thrown a couple of
his squeakiest toys out the pram, surely moving him down the list for a return
invite too. You have to point the barrel away from you Damon. Hope Of The States
make gnarly noises on Saturday night about some gripe or other, but they’re nice
boys at heart and are more overwhelmed by the occasion, battering through a sometimes
scrappy, sometimes sensational set. So bollocks to this fighting then, eh, who
wants a drag on this?
Last Nite
 Everyday
is not like Sunday at Glasto. Sunday night has its own unique sense of gravity
– especially where the Other Stage is concerned, you can’t avoid the feeling that
such immense care is taken. Previous Sundays have seen heroic sets from Sigur
Ros, Mogwai and Spiritualized. This year though the final strait is so oversubscribed
we’re forced to discard GLC and Moz before it’s even begun. Buoyed through late
afternoon by a persistent, ravenous Six By Seven, inoffensive meandering
from Belle & Sebastian and bursts of joy from The Raveonettes, the
evening starts proper with an extraordinarily resolute BRMC. They astound
even your scribe (a veteran of 20ish gigs) with the fire in their belly tonight,
following the Virgin split it’s as if they’re greeting every day as their last.
The weekend’s most beautiful sunset as a backdrop to the most devilishly honed
‘Salvation / Heart & Soul’ segue we’ve yet heard? That’ll do. Happily we make
Stellastarr* by a whisker, they’re offering a near-capacity New Tent elastic
abandon and look like they may just snap during ‘My Coco’. They’re your fantasy
band, they’ve got everything, you bow down. But we were en-route to Muse
(sorry Orbital, maybe next time – doh!) who initiate their own campaign to prove
they have more of everything than anyone who preceded them (English National Opera
obviously exempt from calculations). They succeed. Unexpected hit of the weekend
by a country mile, they’re the only headliner with nothing to rely on but their
innovation. The only headliner who really mattered in the end. And who could deny
that after 6 years this was their finest moment? A turning point. They finish,
there are fireworks and then it’s all over. Which is only fitting. Relevant
sites:
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk
Photos and Report by James Berry for Crud Magazine 2004©
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