Back in 1990, seasoned Stock Aitken Waterman-watchers wondered how, indeed, Big Fun could go on with nothing to live on but a handful of promises. Well, as history has shown, they actually couldn't go on for more than a year after that, so we trust you've got rather more in your lives than the Fun boy three had, cos we left you last time round with just the one promise and, as it turns out, we couldn't even manage that. Nearly did, mind - 317 bands this time, we assured you, and if we hadn't hit that pesky "7" key, we'd've been telling the truth. 31 bands in 14 days, then? Okily-dokily... takes deep breath and dons fashionably-lengthed running shorts
And first up, the night before we hit the long and wandery trail to Pilton, we head to the more familiar climes of the Barfly where, after many a month of saying we'd do so, we finally cross paths with Preston's impressive Fi-Lo Radio, who, rather than being as easily lumped in with fellow Lancastrians Nylon Pylon and Superstring as it might've once appeared, are among the more teasingly crunchy alt-rock propositions on offer these days, recalling a goodly number of bands over the course of their convincing half-hour but mainly noisy Ash. Frontman Jon Lee may have one of the more oversubscribed names in bands but he's also got the voice of 'Siamese Dream'-era Billy Corgan, and Amazonian bassist Jude Pratt is the finest candidate we've seen yet to fill the stylish shoes of Hilary Woods in many an indie boy's broken heart.
In fact, 'twould seem to be ladies' night all round, since up next on the bill is the lovely Carina Round, who remains invitingly self-effacing even though she's actually got very little to efface these days. As is now the case with La Round, it's a terrifically violent set, still encouraging those oft-to-be-repeated Polly Harvey comparisons but with something of the obtuseness of Kate Bush at her best, which, naturally, is great stuff, if possible a twinkle on the abrasive for international megastardom at this point in time. Hold on a minute... did somebody say "international megastars"? Yes, we nearly did. Which brings us neatly down the road to Kelly Osbourne at the Electric Ballroom. Yay!
Now, we don't mind telling you, dear readers, that we went along to that for something of the novelty value, but, frankly, more fool us. For Ms Osbourne is in fact everything we love in modern music, all rolled into one utterly adorable package. Her RAWK! professionalism goes far beyond being merely hereditary, but she brings something cutely amateurish with her, swearing like, ooh, an Alphabet and forgetting which songs she's supposed to be doing. Moreover, with her ace new blondeness she looks like a cross between her own mother (even moreso when Sharon actually comes on stage - sweet!) and Madonna circa, but of course, 'Papa Don't Preach', and her backing band look similarly striking, even if the drummer's hair reminds us of the tree in a production of Waiting For Godot that we saw in our teens... Hell, even the music, all too regularly chug by numbers on the stereo, sounds bloody heeeeeyowge, especially the brilliant cover of 'Sunglasses At Night' (which even keeps the bits Tiga & Zyntherius left out! Hurrah!), and all that's really missing is some free packets of Doritos on the door. Aw, go on Kel, we're sure you can afford it and, besides, we could have eaten them in your honour at...
GLASTONBREEEEEEEEEEEE! Were you there as well then? Best one ever, a lot of people are saying, and we're not going to argue with them. Particularly when it started, for us and for a good deal more punters besides, with the awesome majesty and glory of The Darkness, who really shouldn't have been able to get that size of crowd at - yikes! - quarter past ten on the Friday morning but damn near stole the festival anyway. Quite simply, that band were born for this; the songs, as you must be well aware by now (and if you're not, well, 'Permission To Land' is in the shops now so you've got no excuse), are, without exception, masterpieces, especially 'Growing On Me' and a still-singalong 'Love On The Rocks (With No Ice)', and everyone's saying Queen because everyone's right. Justin Hawkins is Frontman Of The Decade these days, and hey! he even fits a costume change into a main stage set! Why, even the Sugababes didn't manage that. A were-you-there classic, truth be told. And would we lie to you, folks?
Not that things get any saner in the wake of the fantastic four's rockeretta rumpus. Not with Har Mar Superstar showing up next on the Other Stage, complete with his now-obligatory bevy of laydee accompanists and spraying of funky sauce. "I am the fucking best!" sayeth the little if not exactly meagre-proportioned sleaze'n'strip bunny, as he always does, and, from a sheer entertainment point of view, the man has a point. Monumental songs as well, though, with the naughty grind of 'Power Lunch' proving gleefully enduring in its "Love Me! I Am Single Of The Year!" quest (it's not, like, but it's not far off) and 'EZ Pass' sounding significantly more thrilling than we recall. Ah, remixes, eh? Doesn't quite make up for the absence of Prince, natch, but about 63 Christmasses worth of fun anyway.
More straightforward thrills come next, inevitably, with the often-overlooked Nada Surf ending up surprisingly good to listen to in the appalling rain by virtue of their little-known Big Coat Debt and rather-more-measured-than-Slipknot autumnal nihilism, only to be followed in a weirdly reversing-the-seasons fashion by the so-summery-they-should-be-made-of-ice-cream Athlete, who deliver a heroic, defiant set that reminds this correspondent at least of just how magical they can be, breathing new life into an alarming number of moments that stumbled somewhat on 'Vehicles & Animals'. They should play nothing but outdoor gigs for the rest of their lives, and then they'd be bigger than, say, Stuart Cable's hair, which could only make the world a better place. (Oh, and before you say anything, yes, we know Pete Yorn was on between the two, but you can't've expected us to see everything, could you? Besides, Yorn by name etc...)
Onwards, then, to the sliding-ever-further-down-the-hill New Bands Tent, which would eventually be playing host to that S Club 8-auditioning whippersnapper John Cale but which, on our first sojourn there, was in fact occupied by newbies proper in the lanky form of Mew, who become the third band in a row we'd forgotten we liked quite as much. As mentioned elsewhere, we strongly approve of the fact that they did a Christmas song (we trust someone connected to The Fall was watching, 'cos we've been waiting nine years now for them to fish out their mercurial version of 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' at a gig) but we approve even more of the sheer epic quality of their nifty scapery, which gets a healthier response here than it seems to be doing in the real world. So far, anyway. Shame, really, cos they sound like the band we had hoped Leaves were going to blossom into.
And so to The Cooper Temple Clause. They're getting the hang of this malarkey again, i'n't they? We remember seeing them trying desperately to follow Elbow at Reading a couple of years ago and being profoundly not up to the task in hand, but, even tucked away on the Other Stage, they still - eventually - play a blinder, matching the silliness of the morning with 'Murder Song' and reminding us time and time again that hidden under those too-considered barnets are still the top songwriting hats that inspired 'Let's Kill Music' and 'Film Maker' and lots of songs that mention no form of the entertainment industry whatsoever. Thus far, we've only been able to be optimistic about the Coopers in oddly-numbered years, but if they can prolong this current hot streak of theirs a shade longer they might just be able to give that particular albatross a slap...
No such uncertainty where Idlewild are concerned, mind. This might be - actually, it is - the festival debut for the new line-up, but the 'Wild haven't earned their One Of The Bestest Live Bands You'll Ever See tag lightly and they're not about to abandon it now that they've got a nearing-triple-figures number of genius songs up their skinny sleeves. Besides, the 2003 Rod is one of the most acely animated figures up the top end of the increasingly Christ-I'm-cool indie circuit, and Roddy's spurt from frontboy to frontman has been a delight at every turn. And really, if we wanted to convey the lush, snappy joy of proceedings there, all we'd have to do is quote you the setlist. Nowt from 'Captain', alas, but you can be sure they'll be snarling through 'Annihilate Now!' in twenty years when they're headlining. Which they will.
Royksopp, thinking about it, probably won't, but that's not to say they dropped the day's standards at all. We've seen 'em livelier on stage in the past - why no real live cowbell during 'Poor Leno', eh? - but this was this year's equivalent of the traditional Orbital synapse-snapper, and it measured up well. Our Mr Allen may have dismissed it with a cry of "Wake up and smell the coffee table!" (we're paraphrasing here, but you get the gist), but at least one PlayLouderer was gibbering like gibbons at it, and not of the Beth variety either. 'Remind Me', even deprived of the mighty Erlend, was just supoib, and, although they steered close to Pink Floyd at one point and Whigfield's 'Saturday Night' at another (recklessly, we mentioned this to one of this site's co-owners at the time. Luckily, he conceded we had a point, but a few more ill-placed dance moves and we might well have been shown the red card...), this was still a trawl through big fish little fish nirvana. Sorted!
Oh, and our decision on the great REM-or-Primal-Scream dilemma? We've kind of given it away with the red writing, haven't we? GOD, but they were great. Bet everyone's told you that by now, haven't they? Honestly, ninety minutes in the company of Stipe and chums was never going to be nearly enough and, sure enough, we could nominate ten songs we'd've liked to hear them do without even really having to think; nonetheless, it was still an avalanche of old ('Finest Worksong'! SCREAM!) and, wisely, not-as-old ('The Great Beyond'! 'Imitation Of Life'! Yes, you know they're classic, even if they don't bring out the hushed-tones brigade the way 'Gardening At Night' (missed out here) or 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It' (played!) do) favourites, lovingly reinvigorated under a suddenly otherdimensional darkness. Amazing. And that was only the first day. Wah!
Off to South, then, to kick off Saturday's proceedings, and their indie-dance revivalism remains a potent brew, if not perhaps as potent a draw as it was when we last watched them at ULU a couple of years hence. The songwriting's holding up, but that all-important x factor that even Dr "Not A Doctor" "Not A Fox" Fox can see the usefulness of feels like it's off on holiday at the minute. Valiant showing, though. And we'd just like to apologise for referring to their new single on the Glastonbury website as being called 'Loosen Your Hole'. The third word there should in fact be "Hold", and we'd quite like to throw ourselves at the mercy of the South chaps - some days, our mind just takes us places it's not always appropriate to go...
Better than The Polyphonic Spree, though. Damn you, The Polyphonic Spree! We love you like our hmm-we-probably-ought-to-think-about-contraception-soon children, and then you go and do this to us! No passion. No conviction. Nearly no tunes. They should've been custom built for the late afternoon on the main stage, but, instead, it didn't work. Mr DeLaughter'n'chums, we're prepared to forgive you, but you're on a warning... Good thing we had Radio 4 to look forward to in the New Bands tent afterwards. Again, we've seen them often enough that their crunka-punka-funka agit-swingery's no longer anything new (and damn! is it getting ubiquitous now. Result!) but even minus the revelatory high it's still a life-affirming, hip-dislocating swagger, and percussion icon PJ climbs ever higher in our list of Great Popstars That Aren't All That Famous Yet.
And with our feet having hit shuffle-and-then-some mode, why don't we stroll into the Dance Tent? Why not indeed, for the seminal 2 Many DJs are in full flight, and it's a first-class transcontinental flight with cheeky stewards at that. Cheers again to Evan on the messageboard for pointing out that it was Vitalic's 'La Rock 01' that bridged '7 Nation Army' and 'Lithium' (Nirvana! In the Dance Tent! What would Dave Pearce have to say about that? Hahahahahahaha!), and cheers to all of you for not going onto the board to point out that, rather than it being Peaches that got mixed into 'She Sells Sanctuary' it was in fact the wonderful Andrea Doria's 'Bucci Bag'. Gah! melts down Master Of the Mystery Jukebox trophy We love those brothers. They could've mixed the Fast Food Rockers with Richard Marx and it would've sounded like the best idea EVAH. Yeeee!
Keeping things in the family way, here come the Kings Of Leon, described elsewhere (i.e.not by any of our lot) as the highlight of the weekend. Er, what? True, the New Bands Tent was unaccountably heaving, and, yes, plenty of those present appeared to genuinely love it. However, it was doing what we'll politely call diddly squat for this correspondent, probably because, ooh, man, it was so reeeeal and hey! that guitar! And they look like the bloody Allman Brothers. And if you're old enough to remember who the hell they are you'll know that this kind of meat, potatoes, and extra potatoes dingy pub boogie was done considerably better and somewhat more relevantly before punk came to wring its bloated neck. Also, they are out-moustached by Frankie The Darkness, and their one and only truly fine song 'Jean' isn't even on the album. Fools! We give them 'til Christmas 2004 at the very best.
They'll certainly never last the way The Flaming Lips have, will they? Not that Coyne and co. are too interested in playing much of their back catalogue, but that's fair enough; after all, when you've got 'The Soft Bulletin' and 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots' to cherry-pick from, how much more do you need? Especially at Glasto, where their wide-eyed psych-lunacy and fun with suns and nuns goes down magnificently as dusk strolls in. It's nothing they haven't done before, inevitably, but it takes on qualities here that it wouldn't anywhere else. Ooh, get us, coming over all hippieish! Arguably, they couldn't be much further from Radiohead, but both bands are united by a widescreen agenda, and, oddly, this performance sees the grand old duke York and his men being none too awkward, rattling through a greatest hits set (that, infuriatingly given that they're on the Pyramid Stage, doesn't include 'Pyramid Song') with impeccable panache and even proving again that 'Kid A' works far better live than many would've guessed at the time, especially 'The National Anthem'. Highlight? 'Paranoid Android', and that's something we never expected to say. Remarkable.
By Sunday, as you won't be too surprised to hear, we're wilting a bit, so we start the day at the faintly leisurely hour of 11:45, when PlayGlasto co-champion Pete Ingo takes nervously to the New Bands Tent stage to thrill with his one-man lolloping vignettes. He's quite the one-off, and he's still heftily conscious of the fact, but he grows more confident with each show these days, and there's no doubt that he's got the songs now, with 'Wake Up Rub' leaving a lovely glow in its wake. Album early next year, we believe, so something to look forward to in 2004 already. And it's barely July. Whoop!
Big old laze next - look, it needed doing, and we couldn't be tempted by the Waterboys or Jesse Malin. Alright by you? - before the weekend's Big Pop Double Whammy; namely, Siobhan Donaghy, followed (with an overlap that really wasn't supposed to be there) by her erstwhile colleagues the Sugababes. Scrap! And victory for ver 'Babes, wethinks. Siobhan may have been wearing a The Darkness T-shirt (bonus points there!) and she may indeed have the inaccurately-titled 'Overrated' in her arsenal, but her tremendous voice can't do enough to drown out the muso lumpery of her backing band, whereas - shock tweedly-weedly opening to the fabulous 'Round Round' notwithstanding - the amazing three just get on with the job of being sound in a slightly untouchable way, looking incongruously glam, and bludgeoning all before them with their bona fide classy canon. And you can never hear 'Freak Like Me' too many times. Or 'Overload'. Rah! Still, we wish Shuv all the best, cos moving from Smash Hits to Glasto isn't the picnic it was in the Britpop era and she may yet be as stunning as she can be. We shall see.
Mind you, we're loads more excited about The Rapture, whose forthcoming album seems to be getting a frightening number of people's colours on the sweat-stained side, and little wonder. Jings, but they're spectacular. Twistier than those kids' necks in the CBBC ads and no mistaking, and blessed with almighty sax appeal, this is very much The Sound Of Now, but, since we're much loving now, that makes us a happy little nipper indeed. And Bez comes on and dances to 'House Of Jealous Lovers'! Bez! He's looking more tanned than us, too, which is something of a worry, but this more than makes up for the last time we saw the monarch of maracas in this field (Happy Mondays. Glasto 2000. They killed this scribbler's childhood. Swine!). And then it's a further trip down memory lane with an also-highly-healthy Dave Gahan, making a concerted stab at something like Michael Hutchencedom and endeavouring to stir up interest in his enjoyable solo work before a crowd that goes into hyperdrive at the merest whiff of Depeche. And mmm, what whiffs! We love 'Personal Jesus', and we want to take 'Never Let Me Down Again' home and stick it in a small and well-tended shrine. Dirrty!
Look! The end's in sight! And it's heralded by the genuinely adorable Moby, astutely playing not much at all from '18' and giving us loads of reasons to go, "See! We always said 'Play' was a corking thing!" and fling ourselves around at angles that we wouldn't honestly recommend at that stage of the weekend. Bizarre choices of covers, too, although finishing the festival on him doing 'Creep' is a cute touch. You can find slightly fuller reviews of a lot of these appearances at glastonbury.playlouder.com, but do bear in mind they were written on site, so they might be a bit more frantic than this... And can we just take this opportunity to get on our soapbox for a second? Ta. Oi! Haterz! If the music industry's in such a crisis (which it must be, right? Radio Two says so, the papers agree, industry messageboards have spent the last two years going "We'll never find the new Led Zeppelin at this rate!" etc), how come the three Glastonbury headliners are all downright weird and yet have sold kasquillions of records in the last ten years? Come to think of it, if we are going to hell in a handcart, how come you can look at the top 40 from any week this year and find at least ten completely worship-worthy singles? Why, this week alone includes British Sea Power, Beyonce, 50 Cent, The Darkness (just how many times can we mention them today?), Mis-Teeq, Justin Timberlake, Evanescence, Wayne Wonder and the S Clubs, and we'd bet at least Moby and Stipe, if not some of the 'Head, could find plenty to like in most of those and a damn sight more. Everybody! Stop going "whiny whiny KaZaA whinge whinge Pop Idol" and GET OVER YOURSELVES! It's the industry that's got the problems, not the music. Enjoy! Ahem. Rant over.
Back to business as usual in Lahndahn Town then, which takes us after a short break to the Buffalo Bars, which we must admit we haven't been to since the heady summer of '99 when it was still called Po Na Na and was housing the dandy double bill of Rothko and Kyoto. Ah, the heyday of post-rock... happy days! Anyway, we run into Pete Ingo again, but we've talked about him already, so let's instead fill you in on last-minute headliners Chikinki, the latest in a lenghty line of bands who've passed through the paws of Fierce Panda on their way to majordom. And Chikinki do feel, in their own minor way, like a major proposition. They're hardly a chart-seducing concern as yet, although their melodic rampancy reminds us of the Inspirals in their pomp to a fair extent, and there's a lot of excellent coiffuring going on, which can regularly be to be applauded, but at the moment they feel more suited to name-stencilling culthood. No bad place to be, and they wear it well too.
However, if you're talking culthood, let's go, as we do the following night, for a double whammy of the Lonesome Organist and Bob Log III. Mr Organist, as some of you might have experienced at All Tomorrow's Parties last year, is indeed a Wurlitzer-happy boy. With drums. And a guitar. And one of those snake-charmery mini-keyboard thingies. Oh, and, at the Barfly, he speaks like a pilot. The Log man, on the other hand, is rocking the Evil Knievel and, though he claims he can't see through his motorcycle helmet, he still gets upset over the audience's refusal to put a cold boobie in his warm scotch (his words, obviously) yet manages to play guitar and drums with a woman sat on each knee, which you don't see every night, do you. They both got the blues real bad, but in a deliciously ungrumpy way, and while, in the words of that great first episode of Ren & Stimpy, everyone loves a Log, it's the Lonesome boy that we leave pining for. In fact, we're so taken with the Barfly at the minute (and as those of you that knows us'll be well aware, that minute's now into seven years and counting...) that we end up there the following night for a quick dip into the Alkaline Trio, who do a fine job of cementing their place on the list of post-Limp Bizkit breakthrough bands that we don't actually want to just be somehow stopped. Not that they're all that Dursty - not at all, in fact - but they're scooping up the nu rock kidz at a rate yet to be reflected in their sales. Shame! Still, they'll turn it 'round, and you'll be able to see a complete review of said night in a few days, so keep 'em peeled, peeps.
To Monday, then, which takes us to the Water Rats. "Is everyone listening?" wonders a voice on the stage, "'cos this is the real thing". Er, no it's not. If it was, you'd be going "Woo! Woo! Woo-hoo! Can you feel the force?". (Sorry. Dreadful disco reference. Ask your glittery auntie.) As it turns out, though, we really can feel the force with the reconvened Phonotype, which is partly down to the truly abysmal sound, and partly a result of their sudden rockist robustness. Still, we sing hallelujah to their re-emergence for a number of reasons. 1) They've gone back to their proper name after a worrying spell as The Types. Yuk! 2) They're refusing to stray from the altar of the non-Cool Britannia-fixated elements of Britpop (OK, the Longpigs-Suede-Mansun trinity), which such certainly about-to bands as Keane and The Boxer Rebellion'll attest is a very good idea indeed. 3) Singerbloke Ben now has something of the Russell Crowe about him. And 4) In 'If You Love Music', they still have the best unreleased song we've heard this decade. Somebody put this right now!
And how better to end all this than with a quick Fandango, or at least the much-loved club of said handle at the Dublin Castle? 'Twas the Boom Boom Satellites' night this time around, and they drove us to lots of swearing with their unimpeachable steaming hugeness. Yeah! Although we must admit we were so overbanded by this stage that we were convinced we saw curious art critic Brian Sewell there, which can't be right, so can we call a halt to this now and give you the full fantastic skinny at the weekend, boys'n'girls? Aw, cheers luvs! And now we're off for a loooooooong lie down...
Iain Moffat
COMING UP: Will we have enough room to swoon uncontrollably at the joyous return of Elbow? Will Motor Ace actually be, er, ace? And will Mark Owen hold his voice well? There'll be tears. We can tell. All these questions and more may well be answered next time in... IT'S THE MOFFAT SHOWS! YEEEEEEEAH!
