Glastonbury Festival
26th-28th June 2004, Shepton Mallet, UK.

I was invited to play Glastonbury by the Glade Stage this year...it turned out to be a very different experience from the one that I'd expected to be honest. Maybe I'm getting older, but it did seem to me that there were a hell of a lot of youngsters there. Michael Eavis himself did admit that they were going for the 'younger punter' this year...

I arrived on the Thursday morning about 5am and then waited in a queue for about three hours, during which time Stuart and I managed to get rather twatted on RedStripe and spliff. The biggest buzz was being able to drive across the site to the Glade, where we had designated parking. We were in a secure backstage compound, which lessened the worry of leaving stuff in your vehicle, but it was bloody noisy!

We were camped next to George Evelyn (Nightmares on Wax)... I was told when I arrived on site by Biff (Glade organiser) that the stage was still in the process of being erected, so all entertainment for the Thursday day and night was being moved into the Glade Cafe, a massive marquee with a 10K rig in it. He also asked me if I was up for playing from 3-8am instead of my original allocated 1.30-4am slot. Of course I said "OK" - I don't know why, but I thought that the Glade was a pretty low-key thing. How wrong I was!

When I turned up to play, the act before me (A Man called Adam) were ripping it up to an audience of about 4000 people - there wasn't anything else going on on-site, so everyone there wanted a bloody good knees-up. To be honest, I was really fucking nervous.. After all, the majority of tunes that I'd brought along was either very mellow or ambient, as I'd been told that I would be playing a mellow set. However, I had a fantastic collection of deep-house stuff on my external USB HD, so keeping the audience interested wouldn't have been a problem. I agreed to let Sally and Steve play on an extra hour, seeing as a) they were playing a great set, and b) that they'd got on an hour late themselves.

Anyway, the time came for me to plug in and play, which I duly did, but just as I was about to play my first tune, this guy comes up to me and says "sorry about this, but we've got to close the venue". I laughed and said "yeah; right!", but he repeated himself and explained that due to the main Glade stage not being finished, they had to get all the ravers out so that they could get plant vehicles and machinery onto site to hit the deadline. I was gutted and relieved at the same time - it was only the morning after that disappointment reared its head. I could have had the audience in my hand very easily - had a cracking selection of tunes to play... shite.

Glastonbury is just WAY too big - I think that I've become spoilt going to festies like the BC etc where there's more of a vibe happening.

Weather was mixed - the friday was a right scorcher - even got sunburn!!! However, Saturday was a mudfest. Best performances for me were : My Morning Jacket, Damien Rice, Longview, Squarepusher, Oasis (bits of it anyway), NatureBoy and that's about it.

Low point was trying to get off-site on the monday and getting stuck in the mud, and then once nearly out of the site, with the exit in sight getting a flat tyre! Couldn't believe it!

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