Saturday.
After hitting the sleeping bag at
5.30 I was rudely woken at 6 ish by some arsehole falling over the guy ropes
and them half falling right on top of the tent, obviously pissed. As he fell
& knocked the tent all the condensation from the inside dropped onto my
sleeping bag and all over my face. It was if someone had thrown a jug of water
over you just as you were dropping off. I must admit though by bellowing “FUCK
OFF DICKHEAD!!” at the top of my voice was quite funny. I could hear his little
spindly student legs peg it –he must’ve thought some crazed scouser was going
to emerge half- naked from the tent with a baseball bat and break his legs.
That is not really my style as I am a natural born coward. Brushing the water
off the sleeping bag I turned over and fell back fast asleep.
Until 8 o’clock when the heat of
the sun through the tent became too much to bear and claustrophobic. Unzipping
the muddied zip for the front and poking my head out like a bleary-eyed
dormouse I could see that nearly all the clouds had burnt away and there were
blue blue skies overhead! Needing a wee and a coffee I pulled on my muddy jeans
and made a quick trip out with every intention of going back to bed as I really
had had only two hours kip. And having to do another late one Saturday night.
But, intentions being merely that, once I was up it seemed a bit daft to waste
time at Glasto on a beautiful day being asleep. (I could always nip back in the
afternoon for a cheeky little nap?)So one coffee down I was wide awake and
raring to go. Queued for the showers in the mud which was still there but not
getting any worse, full breakfast and back to the tent to tidy up.
In my generally knackered state
the night before had not checked or realised that the flipping tent had leaked
with all the rain and my rucksack with all my dry clothes in was soaking. I
therefore had to take everything out, unbag all of the clothes which were ok
but all the little things in the pockets of the rucksack were ruined-packets of
paracetmol, jelly babies, spare lighters etc. Can you imagine how messy a full
packet of rain sodden ginger nuts can get? However, major disaster was averted
and by 11 ish was ready to go.
Although the forecast was good
with no rain and the glasto veterans assured me that with a day without rain
all the mud would dry up it had been so bad that it was still difficult to get around.
It was now the consistency of glue actually. I decided to head off for the
Pyramid and saw in turn Tame Impala (sunny psychedelica perfectly fitting after
the rain-sun-kissed tunes and all that), Gaslight Anthem(clash-y) and Rumer
(ace 60s pop Bacharachy).Sitting with a 99 and a coffee in the sun at 3 o’clock
thought that things, well, actually are turning out pretty damn fine. It
doesn’t get much better than this etc. Best get back to the tent for a couple
of hours sleep though.
By the time I got back I ended up
chatting with a couple of people and it hardly seemed worth it. So after
evening meal and packing up banana for mid evening break went back to the bar
for my 7 pm -3 m shift. On arrival I was informed that there would be a special
secret (oooh!) guest playing 1am-3
am-DJ Yoda.I don’t know if you are as
hip as the kid who told me that but it didn’t mean anything to me. I asked if
he was a little green bloke with pointy ears but either the tragically hip
student could deadpan like no-one else or had an oxbridge sense of humour (ie
none). Again the night went in a blur –it was packed all night though I was
counting the hours down before I finished.
During my half hour break I
legged it (as much as anyone can wearing wellies) to see Coldplay and managed
to catch two songs. Although they
are an easy target one of the best live bands I have ever seen. So in 30
minutes I caught Chris Martin and the boys, smoked three ciggies, had two cups
of tea, two bananas and a Mars Bar. Who needs drugs? I was as wired as fuck and
ready for the little Jedi Knight.
Surprisingly, DJ Yoda was ace,
and what could be called a master of the genre. Mixing hip hop, 30’s blues, kids
cartoon songs and bits of the Doors (I am stoned, immaculate etc) he never put
a foot wrong. Any more of that and I would be using glo-sticks. Possibly. Not.
Too old.
Well, by 3.30 all my working
shifts were done! With the weary bones of someone who hadn’t slept more than
three hours in the last 24 I slowly slowly made my way back to the site with
one of the crew who was in his late thirties who was as knackered as me.(The
rest of the crew were young enough to want to go on and party).Literally
crawled into the tent. Tomorrow would be another day.
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