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Great Glastonbury getaway after mammoth music mudbath
2007-06-25
Bedraggled, soaked and muddy from head to toe, the 177,500 revellers who partied at the giant three-day Glastonbury Festival began their slow slog through the bog to get home Monday. The event, held on the 320 hectare (800-acre) Worthy Farm in the rolling Somerset countryside is the world's largest greenfield music and performing arts festival. But greenfield was something of a misnomer as drenched campers trudged to their cars or to queue for a bus to the nearest rural railway station. The dairy farm turned into a giant mudbath thanks to persistent downpours, the worst of which started during the final performances Sunday and showed no sign of relenting as people started heading home Monday. In places the thick mud was shin-deep, making every step an effort as music-lovers made the slow crawl between the concert stages to see the likes of headliners Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and The Who. Many gave up early on trying to stay clean and the majority will feel hot running water and face a toilet that does not require an act of bravery for the first time since Thursday when they eventually make it home. "This is my seventh Glastonbury," Reefer, 31, a festival goer from Kent in southeast England who declined to give his full name, told AFP. "As for the toilets, your mind shuts it out and tells you you don't need to go. I haven't been once so I think I'm going to implode by the time I get home," he said. "And if you haven't got wellies then you really are in trouble." The event was vast in size and scope. More than 700 acts played on a multitude of stages, covering a whole variety of musical styles, and ranging from world-famous performers to up-and-coming unsigned bands. More distant fields contain tents and stages hosting comedy, circus acts, theatre, political discussion, poetry, alternative health treatments, an "intergalactic red-light district" calls Trash City, and the "inordinate mayhem" of Lost Vagueness. Michael Eavis, 71, the farmer-cum-festival supremo, said he already had next year's top headline act booked -- though it won't be Muse, and certainly won't be U2. "I don't want them to be offended ...The truth is we don't actually need U2. We've got lots of fantastic headliners," he told reporters Saturday. Eavis now faces the mammoth task of clearing up the site. The tent city covering his farm was slowly being dismantled Monday. One straggler described the scene as "like after war zone." "It's been absolutely brilliant, I've had a really good time wandering around the different stages," Kate Kynvin told AFP. "The mud's been a bit rubbish but it just brings out a different spirit in people. The whole atmosphere changes, people are a lot more friendly. It's absolute bedlam getting out of here." Friday's line-up included The Coral, Arcade Fire, The Fratellis, Kasabian, Bjork and the Arctic Monkeys, whose blistering performance defied critics who said they did not have enough songs to headline Glastonbury. On Saturday, Paul Weller, The Kooks and The Killers played on the main Pyramid Stage. The Killers gave a dazzling performance in a blaze of smoke, lights and fireworks, though the sound system left some of those at the back of the 100,000-odd crowd struggling to hear. On the second Other Stage, after Maximo Park and Editors, Iggy and the Stooges created mayhem as punk pioneer Iggy Pop invited the crowd onto the stage to dance with him. Sunday's concerts included Chemical Brothers, 70-year-old diva Shirley Bassey, Manic Street Preachers and Kaiser Chiefs who played before rock veterans The Who closed the event as lasers filled the rainy sky. Someone had clearly sorted out the sound as they blasted the audience with 90 minutes of relentless hard rocking on their Glastonbury debut. There was more high drama to come for for Bassey, who in trademark glamourous style flew home in a helicopter. However, the pilot was forced to land in a school field due to bad weather. The gates were locked and the grand dame had to wait for the caretaker to come and let her go. But few among the ragged Glastonbury stragglers would not swap her journey home for theirs.
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