There are three types of music obsessed people in the world. The first one is the festival goer, the one lucky enough to get time off work and who scored even luckier by getting tickets to Glastonbury. The second type of person is the jealous but content person who dances in front of the TV and truly indulges in the live broadcasts that BBC provide throughout the weekend. The third person, and the type of person I can relate to most, is the bitter, green-with-envy stubborn mess who refuses to watch any performances and tries their best to steer away from any kind of Glasto goss. All in all, we all wish we were there. If you were there, you’ve been home a day and have already got major festival blues and crying in a deck chair out your garden with Florence playing is your only plans for today.
For those mourning yet another year of not attending Glastonbury, I’ve put together a few pointers on why you shouldn’t be so glum.
1. You haven’t got trench foot.
Glastonbury is the biggest festival in the UK and even without rain, your feet after endless walking and trying not to dance like your parents means you probably have deformed feet. I like to call them troll feet. Glastonbury makes your feet sweat in ways it shouldn’t and makes you ache as if you’ve never, ever sat down.
2. You’re not hungover/delirious.
Well, you might be hungover, but not ‘festival hungover’. After a weekend of hard drinking and possibly narcotics, the return home from a festival is truly grim. Bed and a really flavorsome nonalcoholic beverage are the only things you need. In regards to point number one, drinking away the pain of aching feet is often what causes the return to home to be so terrible. If your feet didn’t hurt during the festival thanks to the help of drink and drugs, they definitely do now.
3. Your personal relationship with your bed was not disturbed.
You slept for many lovely nights on a horizontal, non smelly, cushioned, lovely bed! As opposed to using your a rock as a pillow whilst sliding down to the bottom of your tent in the sleeping bag you’ve had since you were 16, because your friend made you camp on a hill in case of a flash flood. Ahh, memory foam..
4. So many bands so little time.
My experience of Glastonbury (2013) was strategically planning my day so that I got to see as many bands as I could. Why stress when you have a red button in the palm of your hand?! The BBC coverage means you could catch almost every act without running the minute Jake Bugg takes the last stroke of his guitar, to a stage where Novelist is ready with his whole crew to blow up the Sonic stage.
5. Queues
The biggest queue you were in this weekend was your local Tesco/Asda when you knew you were going at the busiest time of the day but lived fearlessly and went anyway. But you weren’t in the queue in the blazing sun of this random heatwave for five hours, with a big rucksack and a holdall full of alcohol. The queue to get into a festival is the most dreaded bit, and this is before you have to hike to an agreed on spot to claim as yours for the weekend.
Feel better? Nah, me neither.
The standing, sweating and spewing is all part of the whole festival experience. Memories overcome everything and memories are worth the pain. Kind of like pregnancy…. So I’ve heard.
Ok, so you didn’t get to roll in mud with your friends, paint your face in glitter and sing along to an artist who you’re pretty sure just looked into your camera. So what if you didn’t see Alexa Chung and her friends marching in their wellies, you weren’t given the chance to pee secretly in the silent disco, you didn’t take a picture at Stonehenge circle and you didn’t fall over every fuuuucking tent rope, as you tried to drunkenly make it back into your tent at 5 in the morning. But its ok. There’s always next year..
Article by Abby Weaver
