Glastonbury 2019

It’s getting increasingly difficult to find aspirations in the music industry. Back in the day, the ambition was to play a gig and have someone that you weren’t related to show up. Once you’d been in a recording studio to hurriedly record a demo(about £1000 a day in 1996) and you’d seen your bandname on a tape and then a CD, you wanted to get your track played on local radio(Westsound FM for the win). Then you played King tuts on a ticket split. Your non-muso friends and family didn’t know the significance, so you needed to explain it, which always takes the shine off a boast.

The ultimate dream was to play T in the park or the Barrowlands; friends and family had heard of them; but it seemed like a far away dream. There wasn’t really a lot in between. Your knowledge of what else was possible was stymied by your complete lack of knowledge as to how the music industry worked. It was just an assumption that if you got good enough someone would chap your door with a ring binder which explained it all to you. We trundled along blindly; confident that this was the case.

Fast forward 20 years and the structure of the music industry is relatively transparent. There’s commercial music degrees which bring that ring binder to your door. Public funding structures are easy for anyone too find. Progress is now merely stymied by your lack of talent or(not and!) effort rather than a lack of knowledge. The result is that if you want to tick things off your bucket list, then you just have to work at them. You can’t always do everything all at once quickly or easily, but at least you know how to get there.

So I found myself approaching 40 and I was genuinely struggling to make that list. At SXSW 2018 I was chewing over jumping ship. I wasn’t enjoying that project any more and it was certainly costing me more than I was earning. My parting words were going to be “good luck. I’m done. Give me a shout if you play Glastonbury or get a stadium support” they were literally the only two things I could think of that were worth sticking around for.

I jumped shipped and questioned what there was left to get out of music. Telly. Done. Radio. Done. Big Gigs. Done. Festivals. Done. Showcases. Done. After that it’s just really a case of creating content you are proud of and hoping you can convince someone to give you a decent wage for it. So when Anton said to me “Do you fancy playing Glastonbury??” I jumped at the chance. That rare chance to tick another thing off the bucket list. Plus - Who doesn’t like a road trip? :)

Now when I say Glastonbury……..

Anton had been sent an offer to play Lovefields. It’s kind of a “posh tent” bit associated with Glastonbury. It’s got a stage, a bar, restaurants and spa facilities - Wigwams, caravan parking and camping where your kids aren’t going to get involved in a drug party. It’s the size of a small festival itself. It’s basically Glastonbury’s posh neighbour/cool uncle. For people that want to go to Glastonbury, but don’t want to abandon all home comforts.

There’s a security gate from this bit to actual Glastonbury. You need an actual Glastonbury ticket to get through it though. Glastonbury tickets have sold out long before Anton gets the offer to play. We could have investigated the possibility of begging, borrowing, and stealing to get into real Glastonbury, but given that it was a 16 hour round trip, between the four of us, it was already costing us quite a lot in cancelled paid gigs to attend, we decided we’d use it as a recce for doing something better planned in the future.

So with a few weeks to spare, Anton put together a four piece band with another two people that were daft enough to travel 16 hours to spend 12 hours at ‘sort of’ Glastonbury. Andy and Jack from The Hoojamamas.

I’ve played bass and trumpet for various live gigs with Anton over the years. I also have a vague memory of playing lead guitar on a stones song in a bar in Barcelona, but for this gig I was on drums. We hashed out a set in a few studios in Glasgow before the day came when we were bundling ourselves into a car for an early start from Govan. Five minutes into the trip, we stopped for a bacon roll and an Irn Bru to fuel the trip. We prayed that the torn faced woman behind the counter would ask “where are you off to today boys?” but sadly she didn't.

England is a pretty boring place to drive. If you drove north for that long you’d be in a Tolkien-esque wonderland. Europe would change what country you were in. The first 6 hours is just multiple coffee stops and “oh look, there’s a sign for Manchester/Birmingham/Cardiff”. Costa. Pee. Costa Pee. Costa. Pee. It doesn't really get interesting until the last hour when you are winding your way through little England and it’s kind of picturesque model railway Miss Marple murder village kind of vibe

The density of hi vis volunteers eventually reached critical mass and we got our coveted wristbands(another one to add to the memories box). We drove right round to the venue and dropped off the stuff. There’s a lounge bar been built on the top of a hill that overlooks the festival site. There’s associated food wagons and a full dining area attached. The stage is a repurposed shipping container with one long wall removed. It looks onto a sea of beanbags and booths. These booths have got various bodies abandoned in them. It’s 3pm and Lovefields is the perfect place to be hungover or on comedown between stints into the main arena.

With the 8 hour drive behind us there’s a chill and euphoria that’s getting enhanced by the glorious weather. We sit and celebrate with some cold pints and overlook the main festival. Once there’s a bit of a crowd to match our dutch courage, we start an impromptu jam to ease their festival-ed minds. It’s super chilled and people are swapping instruments and taking requests from the audience. Eventually we decide that it’s an hour till the show and we should probably go and pitch a tent and get a shower.

When we get back for the evening shift the stage has been setup for a more pro gig and there’s punters in the audience who are more awake. The other bands are starting to mingle an it feels more like a proper gig. We’re all getting merry on cold beer and telling people that we have indeed driven all the way down from Glasgow as if it’s some kind of achievement to hold in a pee between service stations for 8 hours.

The gig goes great. We’re all really into it and relaxing into all the 70’s feels of Anton’s particular brand of folk-rock Americans. I’d been pretty apprehensive about my drumming skills, but the only glaring error is when Anton gets a bit to into it and raises his guitar net vertically. This is the Alex Cowan sign for the end of the song, so I ended it after the first chorus without thinking. Anton’s songs are big narrations of stories. This one was a novella for the evening.

After about a three encores based on requests from the audience, the next band are starting to look impatient, so we move towards the “bask in the glory” part of the night. Too often gigs are followed by unpacking equipment and long drives home, but we’re a short stagger to our tents and there are few better places to bask. There’s a camp fire to sit at which looks over the main Glastonbury site. Me and Anton sit with a whisky, a freshly made pizza, banter and perfection.

I can the drinking early for the drive home and watch the rest of them get slowly merry and do Scotland proud. There’s a wonderful moment when Andy jumps from a Balcony on top of Keith Allen, just cos he could. It seemed to make sense at the time.

The next day it was back in the car for more Costa and Peeing next to people with varying accents. There was time constraints in that I was playing a wedding in Dumfrieshire on the way back home. There was a great feeling of two worlds colliding as I changed from muddy shorts into fancy suit. Drums down trumpet up :)

I got home in the early hours and presented Rachel with a Lovefields hoodie which still brings a smile to my face when I see her wear it to this day.

Glastonbury would require some amount of effort to do properly, and I’m not convinced I wouldn’t rather spend the time and money on a big holiday instead, but if I ever do get a chance to do it properly there could be few better base camps than Lovefields.

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