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Glastonbury Review
From 22nd July 2010
HIGHLIGHTS
Gorillaz
Gorillaz are just about my favourite band around at the moment. Their latest offering Plastic Beach is a triumphant album of truly forward-thinking, genre-defying music, and so I was really excited to see it, along with their earlier material live. They certainly didn't disappoint my expectations, and the set definitely confirmed that Damon Albarn is pretty much the best human ever. A multimedia spectacle of beautifully played orchestral music, backed by vibrant animations. Impressively, the last-minute headliners managed to build up an array of special guests (on top of already recruiting Mick Jones and Paul Simonon into the band!), including De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Mark E. Smith, Little Dragon (she's really flippin' cool, check her out on the album), and Shaun Ryder. Most excitingly, Lou Reed came on for Some Kind Of Nature, the appearance of whom resulted in my friend having to repeatedly check I was okay because I was that darn excited. Highlights of the set included the exciting opening of Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach featuring visuals and vocals from Snoop Dogg, Clint Eastwood featuring actual live Snoop Dogg, the wonderfully atmospheric Empire Ants and a touching tribute to Dennis Hopper during Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head, which of course featured his vocals. A really exciting headline set.
SNOOP DOGG
When the line up for this year's Glastonbury was announced, I almost surprised myself with just how excited how I was about seeing this man. In fact, my friend and I could not have been more hyped about seeing the ridiculous hair and lyrics in action. Nor could, it seemed the rest of the (predominately white middle-class) crowd that gathered to see him. He wasted no time getting stuck into the hits and kept a beaming smile on my face with The Next Episode, What's My Name, Beautiful, Drop It Like It's Hot, and Gin & Juice. A brilliant showman who dedicated almost the entirety of his set to the laydeeeez, in particular Sensual Seduction- which was as hilarious as I'd hoped for it to be.
Micro-Rave
My favourite non-performance moment of the festival happened on the Thursday afternoon in Shangri-La. What we witnessed I think, was a one-off moment of pure magic, that we luckily happened to stumble into at the right time. A small shack called the 'Micro-Rave' playing computer game music to which we couldn't help but pull some serious shapes. Not quite as serious as those being pulled by the participants in the dance-off, narrated from the DJ booth. My favourite dancers by far, were the two girls dressed all in glitter and sparkle, who had some of the best moves I have ever seen (mostly insane thrusting). We had to vote for who we wanted to win by dancing with them (obviously the glitter girls) who screamed that they loved us when we chose them. Their prize for winning was the chance to defeat the robot who was going to invade us. An actual robot (well, a man in a tin-foil and cardboard type costume) did indeed invade, and was beaten to the ground by the dancers. Everyone cheered. I nearly laughed my internal organs out. Believe me, this was better than it sounds, and admit it, it sounds pretty amazing doesn't it?
Devendra Banhart
I'd seen Devendra a few years back, but I absolutely adore his music and so I didn't hesitate in seeing him again. He played on the West Holts (formerly Jazz World) stage in the sunshine, which was just the perfect setting. He gathered a relatively intimate crowd, which was lovely but it did make me suspect that he's been hugely underrated. But then I realised that Florence & The Machine was playing at the same time, and so it all made sense. The last time I saw him he was cool, calm, almost shy, and long-haired & bearded. This year, I hardly recognised him, looking hip-hot in a MC Hammer T-shirt, skinny jeans, Ray Bans, short hair and sans beard. This time around he also seemed to have consumed a large amount of sweets and was jolting around the stage like a hyperactive child with some fairly brilliant dance moves. Like a completely different person, but still with the same wonderful music, putting everyone in a ruddy good mood with tunes such as I Feel Just Like A Child and Baby. An absolute joy to watch, with the possible highlight of the set being an unlikely cover of 1980s pop classic Tell It To My Heart by Taylor Dane, which he dedicated to his 'mom'. Aww.
Shakira
One of the most fun moments of Glastonbury this year, Shakira had the entire crowd swooning throughout her set. Whenever Wherever and She Wolf singalongs were the highlights, as was the surprise cover of the xx's Islands.
BBC Introducing
The BBC Introducing tent is probably the best place at Glastonbury to check out new music and upcoming talent. Jesca Hoop and Broadcast 2000 both played lovely little sets here, and prompted me to check them out further on return. Jesca Hoop gave us gorgeous vocals, sweet songs and charming banter, and Broadcast 2000 gave us a perfect antidote to the simultaneous football game, and quickly became my new favourite band. Check them out. Laura Marling also played a couple of songs for the Live Lounge in here, which was delightful, as was her beautiful set at The Park on Saturday night.
Stevie Wonder
Undoubtedly the big highlight of the festival was seeing this Motown legend. Amazingly, we managed to get our whole group together with minimal mobile phone usage and so created a nice dancing round handbags type circle for Stevie's set. Nicely merry as the sun went down, I watched and wooped as he played all my favourite hits including If You Really Love Me and Superstition. There was also a emotional tribute to Michael Jackson with a cover of Human Nature. A fantastically joyful set from beginning to end, ending with Happy Birthday featuring special guest Michael Eavis! A perfect end to a wonderful weekend. Happy Birthday Glastonbury!
Sunrise
For the first time I actually managed to catch the sunrise at Stone Circle, which absolutely beautiful.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
The crowd for Gorillaz
I've been a little bemused by the negative reviews of the Gorillaz headline slot, what more do you want from a set?! Although I do have to say that the crowd was massively disappointing. I was, for the first half, sandwiched between a couple who'd rather selfishly decided that sitting in their chairs in a massive crowd of people would be a good idea, only to fall asleep in the set anyway; and a group of annoyingly gobby screaming glowstick types who decided that their inane conversation was more important that the set. It seemed not many of the crowd had actually heard the new album, and were just lingering around in the hope of catching a glimpse of Shaun Ryder. Or maybe they were all angry U2 fans.
The Drums
I'd heard a mixed bag of live reviews of The Drums ranging from awful to brilliant, so I was really intrigued to check them out myself. I have to say that they were neither of these two extremes, but just disappointingly average. I love their debut album, and they are one of my favourite bands of the year, but this didn't translate too well in their live show. The lead singer did have some kind of charisma, but half of the band looked bored throughout the set and they certainly sound better on record.
Kelis
The biggest disappointment of the festival. We were all pretty excited about seeing Kelis, only to end up waiting half an hour for her to turn up late, and to perform a set with a severe lack of effort or passion. Milkshake was quickly touched upon over a backing of Madonna's Holiday, and the rest of the set was sadly, very boring, and, just to make it worse, the levels were all wrong and it was a struggle to even hear her vocals.
The weather
I feel it's tradition to complain about the weather at Glastonbury. Not a drop of rain, which was really unusual, setting up a dusty and humid weekend, with the sun sweltering hot and nowhere to hide. It was nice to have sunshine and no mud but it was a little too much of a good thing which was energy draining and mostly unbearable.
Coming home
I always hate leaving Glastonbury, it's the place I feel most at home and it always seems to go by so fast. I'm still suffering a fairly serious case of the post-festival blues. Until next year Glastonbury, it was wonderful this year!
By Yaz Saeidi taken from the
Beret Bird Says Blog.
Yaz Top 40!
From 2nd February 2010
Wednesday 20th January 2010 3-5pm
'BEST OF THE DECADE, NUMBERS 40-21'
40- The Walkmen- The Rat
39- LCD Soundsystem- Losing My Edge
38- Midlake- Roscoe
37- Amerie- 1 Thing
36- Daft Punk- Aerodynamic
35- Kings of Leon- Molly's Chambers
34- The Killers- All These Things That I've Done
33- Bon Iver- Skinny Love
32- Outkast- Ms. Jackson
31- Lily Allen- The Fear
30- Queens Of The Stone Age- No-one Knows
29- Radiohead- 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)
28- Spiller- Groovejet
27- The Coral- Dreaming Of You
26- Take That- Greatest Day
25- Mystery Jets- Zootime
24- The Avalanches- Frontier Psychiatrist
23- Camera Obscura- If Looks Could Kill
22- The Long Blondes- Fulwood Babylon
21- Girls Aloud- The Promise
