How to have the best Glastonbury ever (even if you’re not going to Glastonbury)
1. Ready your response for when people start saying Glastonbury has become ‘too commercial’ and lost its original spirit. Because this is absolute horse potatoes. At the very first Glastonbury in 1970, Marc Bolan turned up at the farm in a pink velvet-covered Rolls-Royce — ‘Don’t touch my car, man,’ he sneered as Michael Eavis tried to greet him — and refused to get out until he was paid (an agreement for an ongoing share of the milk profits was eventually reached).
2. If you think it’s ‘all about the music’, stay home and watch it on TV. I’ve been to Glastonbury plenty of times but never seen as many acts as I did last year when I was ill and watched it from my sofa. The BBC’s coverage is now comically comprehensive: allowing you to teleport between stages that onsite are ‘f*** that’ distances apart. That’s before you factor in chance bump-intos with that digital person from work who never says a word but has dropped acid for the first time in 20 years and wants to bro down.
3. If you want to stay sober, play the Alex Turner stage bantz drinking game. The rules of which are simple: every time the Arctic Monkey-in-chief says something other than ‘Hello, Glastonbury’ or ‘This one’s called “Brianstorm”’, you take a shot. I can guarantee that you will still be fit to drive your auntie to the hospital come the set’s end.
4. Reminisce about hippy dippy peace and love Glastonbury times past. Like in 1994 when Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers — who are playing this year on the Sunday — sneered, ‘I say let’s build some more f***ing bypasses over this shithole’ during their Friday evening performance. Or in 2005 when a spangled Bobby Gillespie greeted a loved-up Sunday night crowd with, ‘The war on terror is a pretext for the international police state’ and then said, ‘Do you wish you were seeing Kylie Minogue? [Kylie had pulled out of her headline slot that year] Well f*** you!’
5. Start false rumours. I had five messages last year informing me, prior to Kendrick’s headline set, that Eminem was just down the road from Worthy Farm swimming lengths in the pool at Babington House. I had zero messages the night before saying that Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl were going to come on with Paul McCartney. The latter happened, the former didn’t. So basically if you start tweeting that your friend has just seen Thom Yorke and Harry Styles fighting over the last pasty in the A39 services, everyone will believe you.
6. If no one decent is on, watch David Bowie’s legendary set. On the tour leading up to his show in 2000, Bowie had been playing a set that you would politely describe as ‘for fans only’: featuring nothing off Ziggy Stardust…, nothing off Let’s Dance, no ‘Heroes’, no ‘Space Oddity’ and some quite stupidly obscure oddities (an encore of 1979’s ‘Repetition’, anyone?). Cometh the hour though and he did… everything. Literally everything. People were weeping with joy like little baby aliens.
7. And/or watch Beyoncé’s equally legendary set. Except for the cover of ‘Sex on Fire’, which was truly awful: a misfire almost on a par with that time she launched an album that was a love letter to Black queer culture, then kicked off the tour promoting said album with a corporate gig in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.
8. Do some special guest detective-ing. Glastonbury has an illustrious history of secret sets and everyone can join in when it comes to figuring out who this year’s are. Like, a band called The ChurnUps playing at 6pm on Friday. What’s another word for ‘churn up’? That rhymes with ‘gulp’?
9. Speculate who next year’s headliners will be. In response to criticism of 2023’s All Male Rock Guys headliners, Emily Eavis has already said that next year’s bill will be topped by two female acts. One is surely Taylor, who was supposed to play in 2020? Guns N’ Roses, meanwhile, were allegedly drafted in for 2023 after Rihanna pulled out, so… Rihanna, Taylor and… Oasis? One Direction? Or maybe it will be the history-making turn of the AI Frank Sinatra. All together now, ‘We wanna be a part of it, AI, AI…’
10. If it’s as muddy as 1997, 1998, 2005 or 2007, probably just go home. And if you’re not onsite, prepare to feel gleefully smug.
