The festival season is about to kick in with the dance-fest of Creamfields, the rather big Witness two-day event, another day out in Slane (Bryan Adams? I can't wait) and an encore for Homelands in Mosney. Across the water, there's a Reading and a Leeds, a few Virgin 2000's, the odd T in the Park and more all-nighters than you can shake a bottle of over-priced mineral water at.
In this week's special, cut-out-and-keep commemorative guide to this year's festivals, we offer the following in-depth analysis: ignore them all and go to Glastonbury. Still the best music festival in the world, not only is Glasto the best value for money, but also all profits raised go to charities (OK, a few of them are hippy-dippy but a few are pretty darn crucial). Also, no matter what field, arena or tent you find yourself in over the next few months, you'll have all that in-your-face advertising and here's-a-message-from-our-sponsors stuff. You don't get that down Worthy Farm way (turn left at Bristol and follow the crowds) because Glasto remains a corporate sponsorship-free zone and if you're looking for a VIP area, you're bringing the wrong vibes, man.
At the very first Glastonbury Fayre back in the mid-1970s, the local farmer and now event organiser, Michael Eavis, spent the whole weekend milking his cows in order to dispense free milk to the whole crowd; Marc Bolan turned up in a velvet-trimmed car (far out) and nobody really bothered to pay in - money and tickets being such a head-wreck and all of that.
Not much has changed since those flowing kaftan and free love days, and Glasto is still as old skool as they come. The line-up is, in many ways, incidental, but if you're going to be an anorak about it, the main artists this year are: The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Moloko, Travis, The Pet Shop Boys, Leftfield, Asian Dub Foundation, David Bowie and Burt Bacharach. Invariably, more fun is to be had running across fields to obscure areas of the farm to catch the sort of acts that simply aren't programmed at the mainstream festivals.
This year's try-to-put-the-scrumpy-down-for-a-second must-sees include the reggae king and the voice of Massive Attack, Horace Andy; the leading light of the new Asian Underground, Nitin Sawhney; the oddly moving a cappella gymnastics of Ladysmith Black Mambazo (no Paul Simon songs please, I'm allergic to him); the blissed out acoustica of John Martyn; the bouncycastle French disco pop of St Etienne and the legend that is Willie Nelson.
The great thing about acts doing Glastonbury is that they're certainly not going through their paces for the dosh. While Oasis, Blur and the Manic Street Preachers can demand, and get, one million squids to headline one of the sponsored festivals (hence the enlarged cost of your ticket price), bands doing Glasto do it for the free cider and the sheer good fun of it all.
A few new additions this year are well worth poking around: The Glade is a natural amphitheatre surrounded by trees which will be lit up all night long for the 24-hour music sessions (Paul McCartney is widely tipped for the Saturday night), there's also the new Nana Obscuries stage, which will need investigating, as will the Croissant Neuf Big Top. And of course there's always The Sacred Space and its new twin this year, something intriguingly titled The Tunnel. And in the middle of all that, there's going to be a good, old-fashioned Bandstand. Hurrah for that.
A three-day ticket to this year's Glasto, which runs from June 23rd to June 25th, costs £87 and they're available from: 00 44 115 9129129. The information line is on tel: 00 44 90607 808080 and the website is at www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk. See you in the Healing Fields.
