There’s a lot of fuss whenever Glastonbury takes place these days. Not just the to-be expected media driven “isn’t Glastonbury amazing and wonderful?” fuss but another, supposedly more interesting, shitstorm of opinions that can be summarised as the “Glastonbury is so fucking lame dude” school of thought. Yes, everyone from Charlie Brooker to Richard Hawley has had their say on why Glastonbury is actually awful. Hawley claims he refused to play the festival this year on the basis that it had long ago sold its soul to the corporate devil.
So, is the most famous festival of them all actually dead and buried? Is the event taking place in deepest wizardville right now nothing but a pale facsimile of the original Glastonbury?
Probably, yes. Let’s be honest. Glastonbury was more than just a gathering of music fans in 1971 when it started, it was a hippie driven concept; an idea. Now it is a strictly organised, red tape bothered, trendy affair full of as many people who want to tick it off their bucket list as actual music fans. Glastonbury, as it originally was, died a long time ago, and it’s never coming back.
Not that it matters, not even a jot. You see what’s worse than Glastonbury becoming the ultimate commercial festival in so many ways is that people actually care that Glastonbury has changed as it has. More than any other festival in the UK, Glastonbury is completely avoidable. The enormous demand means that buying a ticket has to be planned like a military operation. There’s little chance that any member of the anti-Glasto brigade will ever find themselves at the festival by accident; you have to go to some bloody effort to be there. Furthermore, just because it’s on BBC Two over the course of the weekend you are free not to watch Fearne Cotton et al from the comfort of your living room providing endless build-up to a glorified headline set by Sheffield’s version of The Coral. You probably don’t watch BBC Two at 11.30pm most Fridays, so why should this one be any different?
Glastonbury may be the most hyped event on the British musical calendar (in fact, besides Wimbledon it might be the most hyped annual event in the entire British summer calendar) but that doesn’t mean it need bother you. It’s not exactly hot off the press news that the British summer festival scene is dominated by mainstream music after all. It would be impossible for Glastonbury to exist today if it was still run in the haphazard fashion that it was originally so, given its size and reputation, it’s hardly surprising that it has evolved into the distinctly un-hippyish monstrosity that it is today. Why waste your breath complaining about something so completely inevitable?
A (Rare?) Glastonbury Highlight
