Glastonbury - just another commodity

It’s “Festival Season”. It’s the big one this weekend. Glastonbury - now the most recognisable among the plague of festivals taking place all over the country. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is headlining one of them! I think he's going to start with some wild foraged mushrooms and save his 27 bird roast for an encore. But he really is headlining and there are other chefs on! There are Classical chefs, Rock Chefs, Dubstep Chefs- all the genres of Chef. In the spirit of all current festivals there will be special appearances from old re-formed Chefs you thought were dead. So two fat ladies are back, the Gallopping Gourmet and of course Fanny Craddock.  You thought they were dead didn't you. Oh no - just meticulously planning the revival tour.    

It was very different in my day. *Rocking Chair creaks rhythmically*

I first went to Glastonbury in 1986. It had already been going for years, since the early 70’s, on and off. But it did have the feel of something anarchic, and counter cultural.

Today’s Glastonbury strikes me as being a corporate, theme-park, media event based on the memory of what used to be a brilliant festival. It has been, unfortunately, the victim of its own success. Like so much art is. 

      

And this year they’re having U2.

It’s been building to this over the years. It’s been heading in this direction. Bonio gets to inflict his personality - if it can be, if only on a technicality, described as such - on the Glastonbury revellers. Isn’t that what they are now? Glastonbury revellers. Revelling away in some fields in Somerset. They used to be Glastonbury Hippies, and Glastonbury travellers, lefties, anarchists and ban the bomb weirdo’s. Now they’re “revellers”. “Tourists” maybe? Serial festival goers?

They’ve had Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and a host of other old artists. In fact most years now it seems to be predominantly old or revival acts with a few modern pop stars thrown in. I know that on the smaller stages there are still good acts but they are more of a fringe thing now as the event becomes more mainstream, less radical, more corporate, less exciting - and attracts “revellers”.

It's all been absorbed. It's all been contained, sanitised and re positioned in the market; a subtley altered brand like so many other commodities. The festivals, the bands, the revellers - all commodities.   

The Dead Kennedy’s, way back in the eighties, wrote a song called Halloween. The lyrics are written below but with the word ‘Glastonbury’ substituting for the word Halloween. It’ a kind of heavy, punky song - if you don’t know it - like we used to have in the eighties, when it was proper Glastonbury, with proper young people like we used to have when we were young people. It's different now.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-jnzlYNyM

*Rocking Chair continues to rock rhythmically to the song*

Glastonbury

Whatcha gonna be
Babe, you better know
And you better plan
Better plan all day

Better plan all week
Better plan all month
Better plan all year

You're dressed up like a clown
Putting on your act
It's the only time all year
You'll ever admit that

I can see your eyes
I can see your brain
Baby, nothing's changed
(repeat)

You're still hiding in a mask
You take your fun seriously
No, don't blow this year's chance
Tomorrow your mold goes back on

After Glastonbury

You go to work today
You'll go to work tomorrow
Shitfaced tonight
You'll brag about it for months

Remember what I did
Remember what I was
Back at Glastonbury

But what's in between
Where are your ideas
You sit around and dream
For next Glastonbury

Why not everyday
Are you so afraid
What will people say
(repeat)

After Glastonbury

Because your role is planned for you
There's nothing you can do
But stop and think it through
But what will the boss say to you

And what will your girlfriend say to you
And the people out on the street they might glare at you
And whadya know you're pretty self-conscious too

So you run back and stuff yourselves in rigid business costumes
Only at night to score is your leather uniform exhumed
Why don't you take your social regulations
And shove 'em up your ass
Why don't you take your social regulations
And shove 'em up your ass
Why don't you take your social regulations
And shove 'em up your ass