Glastonbury 2004: reports and reflections

Baileys, Mushrooms and a Tipi
Report by 'Wolfie', July 2004 (tipi pic: wiskey)

Shirl and I arrived late Thursday afternoon after stopping of for an emergency bottle of Baileys in response to a caps lock panic text message along the lines of 'NEED MORE BAILEYS... PLEASE BRING SOME SOON...'

At last years Glasto we had admired the tipis and, on moving house about 6 months ago we had a bit of money to spend on maybe a summer house or a conservatory or, even better, a tipi!

So we bought one from Shelters Unlimited ( www.tipis.co.uk) in Machynlleth and they agreed to deliver it to Glastonbury and erect it, then take it down and put it back up in our garden later. So this would be the first time we had seen our purchase.

The luxury of having a pass for the traders car park meant we got on site and parked up quickly, but it also meant we were about as far from the tipi field as we could get. So we loaded up the heavy duty Radio Flyer wagon and trundled our stuff along the railway track.

We wandered around the tipi field for a while trying to spot which was our tipi and then found the one with the orange trim and a PRoD sticker � Dubversion had obviously been here before us.



The tipi is absolutely beautifully made. A structure that has been developed and refined over hundreds, maybe thousands of years, I reckon this modern incarnation is near perfect.

The Radio Flyer wagon (an American design classic) is pretty good too � we got asked on numerous occasions where we'd got it from. We met up with fellow Urbanites at the Cider bus around 6-ish in the first of many drunken encounters. This one ended with a Baileys drinking competition between Shirl and Dubversion.

We woke the next morning to beautiful sunshine and clear skys although from here on my memories do get hazy. I remember sitting outside the tipi with Tarannau and Lizardqueen drinking cava.

I'm sure we ended up at the cider bus again later on and then back at the tipi drinking Talisker and eating olives with the Mooses and Tort and William and Stig and Wiskey and Dervish and I'm sure there were others. I know I was still there in the early morning when it started to rain and I crawled inside and slept.



I remember the mud.

That special Glasto mud that sticks to everything and makes it twice as hard to walk anywhere.

I remember a conversation between mates in the acoustic field ... are you getting anything off these mushrooms?
just the usual wave of nausea ...

Then half an hour later

how are the mushrooms now?
I just got the nausea then nothing
interesting nausea tho'
yeah ....


I remember a mad army truck crossed with an elephant towing a whale crossed with a pirate ship on wheels followed by a tractor with skull festooned bull-bar crossed with a 2c - all full of dancing women and menacing blokes.

I remember PJ Harvey's fuck-off flourescent shoes!



I remember being incandescent with rage at just how fatuous and irritating Jamie fucking Cullem was as I went past the Jazz World stage on the way to a cancelled Aphex Twin followed later by some delicious nachos deluxe (thanks Mike) whilst watching a dissapointing Toots and the Maytals then, inevitably, ending up in Lost Vagueness where I wandered between the Chapel and the Ballroom and the Diner until my legs screamed for mercy and I headed tipi-ward.

I remember Goldie Looking Chain sounding fantastic, but I get the feeling even a chorus of sadistic school teachers running finger nails down a blackboard would have sounded fantastic at this point, and finally getting back stage at the dance tent and then a comparatively early retreat from the dance tent bar as Shirl was truly tired and emotional.

We seemed to take a particularly long route back to tipi heaven which involved several rolls in the mud.

After packing up and saying a temporary farewell to our temporary home we sat in a jam in the car park for nearly 3 hours before trying our luck at escaping via the track that runs along the outside of the fence.

This was fine until we came across an articulated lorry jack knifed in the mud blocking the track.



We watched as people bought ice creams from an adjacent van seemingly oblivious to the truck sliding slowly towards them, until a security guy eventually convinced them to move. We then watched and listened to the innevitable bloke who knew exactly how the truck driver should have been doing it.

And then a bunch of people trying to push the truck free � at one point there was a lone woman pushing at the back of the truck, she didn't seem to have much effect.

Finally a big fork lift truck arrived and half pushed, half rammed the lorry free and we were on our way.