Ticketless for Glastonbury. It never used to be a problem, for the ticketless fan, a £20 note in the pocket used to be as good as a ticket in the eyes of an underpaid security guard, that was until 2002 when the superfence was installed. It seems, that since then, festivals have gone from strength to strength; Or has the music scene just improved ten-fold.Watching Glastonbury on Friday using the BBC‘s coverage on Freeview and online has reminded me how much music I have missed since being away.
Even though the only acts that get on TV are the BIG acts, there were still some that I don’t know. Even though he shared headline status with Doves and Bloc Party, it was left to Neil Young to pave the way for the rest of the festival.What a performance, not everyone’s cup of tea but credit where credit’s due, he performed the kind of set that hardcore Neil Young fans would like without alienating music fans that were just ‘checking him out’. Call me biased but I have some Neil Young lyrics tattooed around my arm, and to open with that song was inspiring for me.
His penultimate song was a 12 minute rendition of ‘Rockin In The Free World’, before finishing with a cover of The Beatles ‘A Day In The Life’. Some may say that the 4 endings of ‘Rockin…’ went a bit too far but it also showed that at the age of retirement, he still has a few more years left in him.He left Glastonbury with big shoes for the Boss to fill in order to continue the ‘greatest Glastonbury lineup of all time?’