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| TV,
Jerry Carpenter,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F3
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Glastonburied – is it better at the quiet end of the satellite signal?
Ten years ago I went to Glastonbury in a car full of students and the intention of catching a few bands, drinking the local paint stripper, ogling some girls in tie-die and DMs, and generally farting around in the countryside ‘away from home’. Mission accomplished. A decade later I’m watching it at home slumped on my bed with a G and T. The girls aren’t wearing tie-die any more (and look better for it), and what I’m drinking this time probably won’t blind me. Weighing it up, which is the superior leisure experience?
Look at it from a relaxation point of view. Out there, sitting in a tent in the countryside should be a pretty idyllic set-up. But not when the 100,000 other tents surrounding you all playing Fat Boy Slim on their stereos, and drunk hippies falling/pissing into your tent, and dodgy blokes selling dodgy gear sticking their heads through the tent flap just as you’re think of having a ‘wank’. Factor in the recent addition of an East-Berlin style perimeter wall and the infamous deadly chemical toilets, and the atmosphere drops a notch below Butlins.
Watching it at home is as relaxing as your chair/sofa/bed is, and the toilets are that stroke more convenient.
Let’s look at it from a convenience point of view. Three of four days in the countryside amongst all this usually sees you lowering your standards in food and drink and the ‘other’. You’ll end up queuing to scoff salmonella sauced burgers, re-fried doughnuts, or under cooked ‘ethnic’ slop on a paper plate. You’ll buy what some saucer-eyed crusty tells you are ‘powerful hits, man’, and they will be Solpedine (not even Solpedine Max). And your mates will get drunk and sick up on your stuff when you’re outside pissing on someone else’s tent.
Watching it at home you’re only limit is the size limit of your fridge. And your credit card limit for ordering in pizzas/curries/and ‘the other’. And your best mates are Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemass, and they’re GREAT.
Look at it from the music point of view. Standing in a crowd of your sweaty peers, watching stick figures (as most members of indie bands were) in the over-cast drizzle. Whatever ‘cathedrals of sonic attack’ these guys/red-haired girls were conjuring up with their effects pedals was always lost in the open air, blown away by the breeze. A few stadium proficient bands can pull this stuff off, but your average modern four piece are always better suited to pokey venues in Camden. As an aside, one thing that’s changed is the majority of the bands playing this year are all such ‘nice’ people, playing what sounds like suspiciously MOR music. Even the crowd don’t look as miserable like they used to. David Gray? Macy Gray? Travis? – such nice chaps, but soooo boring.
Watching it at home, the sound and visual quality are only dependant on one thing – the quality of your TV. Easy.
There you go kids – actual experience, nil – TV experience, 3. I just saved you seventy pounds. Please send cheques through to the webmaster.
BBC2 Last Weekend
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