It’s 40 years since my one and only visit to Glastonbury Festival in 1982, travelling from Lambeth Walk in Rob’s yellow VW Transporter.
I remember enjoying performances from Jackson Browne, Judy Tzuke, The Chieftains all from close to the stage, while only taking Van Morrison in from a distance as I’d been put off by one of his grumpy TV broadcasts. A stunning set from Richie Havens (see Note below) to close out Sunday, not an artist I’d really come across before, where he was literally steaming at the end.
Certainly a damp weekend with the Friday recording “the highest rainfall for a single day in 45 years”. Tacking from side to side was about the only way to get up the shopping street for a while. And of course I remember the infamous toilets and the long queue to arrive on to the site which, wasprobably why Aswad had almost finished playing (I think) by the time we were sorted.
A great experience, a crowd of ‘only’ 25,000 apparently, but it was quite busy enough! A similar festival vibe (but with better loos) didn’t come round for me until Womad in 1993, in the somewhat less rural setting of Reading.
Note
A Glastonbury history film shown fairly recently had some clips from this performance – I had forgotten that there were some camera crew on stage.