Another June, another Glastonbury :-) This year, however, it didn’t rain! The weather was amazing. The festival was amazing! I do think that it gets better and better with every year. Well, I am surely enjoying it more. I’ve been going since 2004 and, still, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.

This year I managed to arrive on Thursday, with the sun still shinning (i.e. I didn’t need to search for a camp spot and then set up my tent at 2am like last year). On the way, and while waiting at the Bristol bus station, I met this charming gentleman who is in his 80s, full of energy, and with so many great stories (especially about ladies since his wife passed away few years ago… >50 years of marriage). He travels around and enjoys life even though 10 years ago he was completely parallelized because of a rare virus. He fought back and made quite the comeback!!! I tried to persuade him to come to Glastonbury but he was on his way to Cambridge. Perhaps next year.

Glastonbury is such an amazing site! Art, lights, random ad-hoc shows, all types of large and small stages, ethnic food, shops, tents with shows, workshops, poetry, theater, circus, discussions, dance music. Hippies, rockers, ravers, lefties, environmentalists, music lovers, families, singles… just name it; Glastonbury has it all. 180,000 people! It even has its own newspaper for the duration of the festival :-) All these years, I’ve been walking around for 15-16 hours every day and I still don’t think that I’ve visited everything that Glastonbury has to offer. It’s truly a different type of city that comes alive only for a long weekend each year, while acting as a farm for the rest of the time.

And then, there are the bands on the ~20 main stages (not to mention the various music/dance tents). How can you possible choose from all the great bands playing at the same time? It’s really overwhelming for a music lover. One really just needs to accept the fact that it’s not possible to see all the bands, to do everything there is to do.

I started exploring on Thursday, after setting up my tent. The site and the tents were already buzzing with life even though the stages were quite (no big bands on Thursday).

           

On Friday, I started at 11am and went to bed at 5.30am the following day :-) Poetry, humor, a lot of walking around, small shows, workshops, and of course Gorillaz :-)

       

I had to eat a baked potato since I promised Mary :-)

It was great seeing and spending some time with Carole and David, as always :-) I love you guys! :-)

    

Gorillaz were great. The show was not as good as the one at Coachella because it felt a bit random. They didn’t follow their show’s usual storyline but that was because of the many guests they had. For me, the highlight was the appearance of Lou Reed.

       

From the bands that I saw on Friday, I really enjoyed: Vampire Weekend, Willie Nelson (well… I only enjoyed him a bit before going to other stages), Florence and the Machine (just for a couple of songs), Dizzee Rascal (had to see him because I wanted to be right in front of the stage for Gorillaz but he was ok), Phoenix, and others!

In the early hours from Friday to Saturday, a small tend was full of random shows... juggling, comedy, fun stuff. Then, I made my way to my tent (30-40mins walk through the site) while the sun was coming out :-)

   

 

Saturday was as long as the first day. A lot of walking around and enjoying the colors and ambience.

    

Muse was the highlight of course. It was the fourth time I was seeing them since December and it was by far their best performance. They were absolutely awesome! The big surprise was The Edge’s (of U2) appearance to play with Muse a U2 song. WOW!

  

The first day I missed Hot Chip but guess what... while walking around the various fields, I saw them playing at a tent afterhours, just like that... for fun!

Bands that I saw on Saturday: Scissor Sisters (how fun!!!), Shakira (had to see her while waiting for Scissor Sisters and Muse), The National, and other random bands the names of which completely escape me at the moment.

 

Sunday’s highlight for me was Slash and his band. They played Guns ‘n’ Roses songs and they were awesome! What a vibe. Even though they were playing in the middle of the afternoon and at the same time as the England-Germany football game (with many people opting to go to the football field to watch the game on a large screen), the Pyramid stage was packed and the vibe was amazing!

   

More random shows!

   

Faithless were a LOT of fun! They absolutely had everyone going. I opted to skip Stevie Wonder (not really my style), who closed the Pyramid stage, and opted for Orbital and We Are Scientists. I stayed a lot at the Cabaret stage for the closing stand up comedy, with Ed Byrne really enjoying it despite clashing with Stevie. Then weird comedy, shows, partying, dancing!

     

 

Glastonbury celebrated 40 years. Here’s to another 40!!!

 

Is it June 2011 yet?

It’s been two months since my last travel/music post. I am in a hotel in Athens waiting for the hours to go by before my return flights to Seattle tomorrow so I thought of recording some of my activities/travel/festival highlights over the last couple of months.

There was that May dual sport ride and a night out with my fantastic team (including the Shanghai part who were visiting at the time).

 

There was that hiking day with friends… Rattlesnake hike. Maria was visiting from Baltimore. It was great seeing her. Together with Tini and Mia we had a great day. The landscape was gorgeous :-)

    

Then, Mary took me to the Sounders – Boca Juniors game, in style… food and drinks from a suite. Sonja and John joined us for drinks before the game.

 

After Coachella and some concerts in between, Mary and I went to the Sasquatch festival. There we found Lee and Sheldon. We all had an amazing time! It was a great festival! The Gorge is definitely one of the best concert venous in the world.

             

Music-wise, I found that the following bands were great...

• LCD Soundsystem (they were awesome)
• Massive Attack
• Passion Pit
• The Temper Trap
• Tegan and Sara (second time that I thought they were good)
• The National

Any Sasquatch weekend has to be followed by a weekend in New York City :-) Cris came from Washington DC for a day. There was a lot of walking, some jazz, good food, stand up comedy, random encounters at the Central Park, brunch at a restaurant overlooking Central Park from far high up, theater (“La Cage Aux Folles” starring Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge was awesome), and more! Oh… we are going to be sooooo frequent over there.

       

 

And finally… there was Glastonbury two weeks ago, which deserves its own blog post of course :-)

 

This summer is going to be great music- and travel-wise. I am soooo looking forward to it :-)))