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Day two for Glastonbury. Day four for musicOMH. It bucketed down horribly from
the first signs of daylight. It was a rotten feeling. Negotiating a very
dangerous mud slope towards the Other Stage, I found several hundred early
birds out in force for hotly tipped outfit The Duke Spirit. They
fared well, and wryly beckoned punters from their tents. They did make a
loud enough racket, which was complimentarily blown about like a kite by
merciless gusts.
What's left of Sister Sledge (Joni and Debbie) is nothing short of
brilliant. While musicOMH lifted a snotty journalist's nose and nodded our head
tentatively, everybody else was shaking it to the likes of He's The Greatest
Dancer and Good Times, proving you can wear a poncho and wellies and still
be groovy. One of the performances of the weekend, and that isn't including
their dance tent headline slot later in the day.
"Glastonbuuuury!" hollers Ana Matronic two hours later. Scissor Sisters have drawn the first sizeable crowd and lifted everyone's
spirits immediately with Take Your Mama Out. Matronic reassures us the sun
will come out, even if they have to heave it out of Jake Shears' ass. Which
looks to be happening, as the frontman's eyes bulge like a speed freak and
body contorts in his halfway tap/go-go dance routine. Ironically however,
the worst shower of the weekend proceeds.
Lord this has to be taking the
piss? The Scissor Sisters don't care, and neither does anybody else as
Filthy Gorgeous and Tits On The Radio send thousands bouncing. The Sisters
do remarkably well to keep such momentum going, chucking in some bsides
before blasting us back with Laura, Comfortably Numb and a conquering Music
Is The Victim. By the end Shears and Matronic are as wet as we are, and
loving it too.
It's mid afternoon and everybody seems content to see Keane. On
our way to Jazzworld, we catch the perennial soppers at their most
depressing, which seems to depress whatever god is above so much, that he
puts his schlong away and lets out the sun.
We're at Jazzworld for two reasons. First, Amp Fiddler is up soon.
Second, this is the only place onsite we know of to buy a delightful pint of
Pear Apple Cider. With the latter going down a treat, we find another in
the form of Asere. With the sun out, the Cuban seven-pieces' deluge
of beats would have you almost mistaken to be in Havana, with a sizeable
group at the front lapping up the atmosphere. The compere then drops a
bombshell: Amp Fiddler is still stuck on the M4. To the bar it is!
Back at the Pyramid Stage, morale hits a new low with
Lostprophets. They blew their trumpets as the heaviest thing of the
weekend (have you been to the Glade boys?) and that they were fuckin rocking
(wait for McCartney lads). I wonder who booked 'em. Couldn't they could have
at least gotten the real thing and asked Incubus to play?
Several hours later the rain is threatening again. By now OMH is happily
lean and joins the exodus across a marsh to the New Tent for The Killers. The interest is staggering. We're standing about twenty deep
outside the tent. The benefits of twenty-twenty vision and six-feet come
into play. Looking to the back, the interest must be about a further 150
deeper. The Killers should've been on the main stage. But only to make
things easier. I can't understand what all this fuss was all about.
The Black Eyed Peas have enjoyed incredible success from their ace
Elephunk album. Although many were getting a good spot for Sir Paul, few
would have expected how rousing BEPs would be. Aside from the singles and
some hippie talk, fantastic break dancing and a superb freestyle cover of
Seven Nation Army made this an astonishingly set. If anyone had pigeonholed
BEP as the traditional pop act at Glasto, they better think again. They were
the real thing.
I recently slated McCartney in a review. I hold up my hands. Sir Paul is
no fogey and was unbelievably brilliant tonight. He may act like a drunken
uncle at a wedding, and talk like a geordie Rocky Balboa, but, unlike
Bob Dylan last week, McCartney carried the songs by the coach load:
The Long And Winding Road, We Can Work It Out, Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane,
Get Back, Back in the USSR, Let it Be, Hey Jude, Helter Skelter; need I could
go on? No one has a repertoire like that. And he played em. He played them
all. Including a blistering rendition of Live And Let Die, complete with
pyros, so loud and so visually stunning, even the deoxidised craniums being
drilled by Squarepusher over at The Glade would've looked up. A
five-song encore extended a terrific set into the early hours, which left
the na-na-na-na-na na's of Hey Jude joining the 5,6,7,8's Woo Hoo as
the anthem for the evening. It didn't stop the Rooney chants though.
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