The name Glastonbury conjures up all sorts of images for people, depending on where you're from, and whether you truly love music. Now I wouldn't dream of slagging off one of British music's most beloved institutions, but I'm going to, because this piece of bollocks that's been dressed up as a documentary doesn't know what it wants to be? Originally released back in 1996 by directors? William Beaton, Robin Mahoney, and Matthew Salkeld, their take on the important aspects of the 1993 festival, that they filmed over the course of the events at Worthy Farm, are THEIR idea of what is essential to enjoying the Eavis' now legendary music festival. First of all, what was so special about 1993's festival? Well, fuck all, from what these fucknuggets put on film. Apparently when they re-released this on Blu Ray and on Dvd Boxset in 2012 it had 13 hours of footage and nearly 24 hours of audio? I'd like to know what the criteria was for editing it down to this 96 minute borefest? It didn't even ask the most important question, why do people go to Glastonbury? Yeah sure it's an experience, but the music has got to come first, or why bother booking bands in the first place. If they'd wanted to do a deep dive into the festival's origins, I might have expected to see hippies shitting in the fields and other stoned mothers breastfeeding to the sounds of T-Rex in 1970, but this was 1993 when "travelers" were meant to be a little more civilized? WTF, I've heard and read people tell me that the Glastonbury Festival is all about the festival-goers? Well I wouldn't pay £265 to spend five days with the unwashed who'd spend their time telling me my aura was purple, or that I should become a vegan for the sake of the planet. Glastonbury for me is about music, although some of the bands that the Eavis' have booked would suggest otherwise, and if the festival was to claim one undoubted prize it would be for diversity, because this is probably the only place you'd see Metallica, a drum and bass ensemble from Mali, and a guy who blows up balloons with his arse on the same bill! Glastonbury 1993 had some great bands playing, and the ticket price was £58. The Black Crowes headlined the Pyramid Stage on Friday, which also featured Robert Plant, and on Saturday we had The Kinks, Lenny Kravitz, and The Hothouse Flowers, a band I've seen more than once, and they are fucking brilliant live, and on Sunday they had only Van Morrison that I'd even heard of? So what music did the directors give us between doped-up hippies and breastfeeding teenagers? Well they decided that the revelers were more important than the music, so we got Ozric Tentacles, The Lemonheads, and Porno for Pyros, talk about fucking spoiling us? And that was just one of my gripes with this, the music snippets were obscure and dull, and if I had to see one more sunset over the stage with a toddler in a nappy dancing around his pissed-up parents, then I'd have screamed. This of course was before Eavis and his daughter decided that to really galvanize the amount of money they could rake in for different charities would mean running the festival properly. Attempt to cut down the drug-taking, have toilets that didn't look like the Battle of the Somme, and security that could stop travelers helping themselves to ravers belongings when they were listening to the Chemical Brothers! In 1993 they raised £250000 pounds for Greenpeace and other charities, in 2019 they gave £2.1 million pounds to good causes, that ain't bad for a festival headlined by Stormzy, The Killers and The Cure. In the UK there are three types of people, people who've been to Glastonbury, people who haven't been to Glastonbury, and some like myself, who've fucked the phone up the wall after being cut off by the ticketline for the 17th time. As much as I take the piss, I'd still like to go, at least once, but alas I've probably attempted to get tickets about a dozen times over the different years and been unsuccessful every time. My taste in rock makes the Download Festival at Donington Park a more appealing festival for me too, it's only an hour up the motorway, but seeing one of my favourite bands at Glasto would still be great. I still watch it every year on the BBC, but those classic nights when R.E.M, Bowie, Metallica, Springsteen, and The Cure strutted their stuff seem to be a long time ago, and knowing my luck if I ever did get tickets for Glasto, I'd be saddled with that cunt Ed Sheeran or future president Kanye!
