Glastonthursday, Worthy Farm

East 17

25 June, 2009

Knowing that I’m never going to be arriving in time for Maxïmo Park opening the festival, I start off at The Queen’s Head for Alessi’s Ark. When I dragged friends to her show at the Camden Crawl, they swiftly complained of “more bloody folk music” and disappeared off to eat a burger, leaving me apologising for the noise they had made. This time however they are sticking around longer than a minute and her short set is winning over a couple of people who were waiting in line for cheeseburgers that day. They’re impressed with the unexpected power of her full band on tracks like ‘Glendora’, and as much as I love the gentler moments like The Horse I agree with them.

Having already been there once only to be told they’d be on at half ten instead, we head up to the Dance Lounge for East 17. Even without Tony Mortimer, they are decidedly poor. They had people wanting to hear their biggest hits and like any band would they left ‘Stay Another Day’, ‘Alright’ and ‘If You Ever’ (I’d forgotten that this song isn’t all that bad) to the end. They’ve had a dozen top 10s to choose from yet they still plumped for songs so obscure that even those equipped with banners shrugged. Bizarre call-and-response and wisdom on the BNP gives the whole thing an air of a student’s union gig, frankly. The only really memorable thing about the set is that the story about Michael Jackson’s death birthed itself as an SMS and Twitter rumour, and by the time we get halfway back to our tents, it’s been confirmed.

A lot has been said about the effect Jackson’s death had on the festival; for most there’s a sense of being overcome with grief, yet many of those at the festival weren’t even born when he was releasing the brilliant, brilliant pop music that eclipses the tabloid freak-show of the past decade-and-a-half. It ‘s one of shock and ultimately, sadness. Like Elvis before him, not every reference years from now will be concentrated solely on his music. One thing everyone that night agreed on, though, was that were he playing on the Pyramid Stage at any point, we’d have been there. Likewise food vans, DJs and bars on site all stop playing La Roux’s ‘In for the Kill’ for five minutes to pay tribute. Thank them.

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