Glasto Day 2: Greenpeace showers, Askew’s heartwarming performance, and the Peequal Revolution!

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Published on Friday, 28 July 2023 11:05

Last Updated on 22 July 2023

Madeleine

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Glasto Day 2, I woke up early with the heat and light for we were blessed with good weather. No mud-baths thank goodness. Nonetheless I felt sticky and, having heard of the legendary Greenpeace showers, thought I would attempt my own Mission Impossible. 

Shower procedure 

Dear readers, behold one of THE most precious commodities in Glasto, barring the ticket obvs. It’s a shower docket. Ideally you start queuing at 7:30. I was late, 7:45, and queued maybe 30 mins, just for the docket. I got my shower after midday. Greenpeace has 6 showers and they process 60 bodies p/h. Here in this Rivendell for music revellers, irritation doesn’t exist, we just submit joyfully to every inconvenience caused by the compacting of 250k people into a little Glostesha valley. Which translates into, find something nice to do and come back later.  I just chilled in the Greenpeace area, I got a cuppa and did some raunchy LOL yoga with ‘Power Ballad Yoga’ on the Greenpeace stage. Her assistant she introduced as ‘he doesn’t say much but he performs beautifully’. I buddied up with a cheery neighbor for the Tina Turner number ‘You’re simply the best’, which we danced out with crotch shakras and passionate lunges. ‘Thrust your way to the spiritual’. Buddy was working in the children’s field on the air-dry clay table, run by a lady for 20 years. All the employees are so cheerful.

 

Greenpeace call out

I was propositioned by 4 Greenpeace supporters who wanted me to sign up. 

They are deep into preventing sea mining for rare metals such as Cobalt nodules.  

What’s worse, in 15 years, technology will have evolved sufficiently that the metals won’t be needed. Meanwhile we will have destroyed a part of the earth we know very little about and inflict 10s of thousands of years  worth of damage. 

Greenpeace link 

‘Do you think this festival is an ecological disaster ?’ I asked. ‘It’s not perfect , but we are not the enemy of the good’ said one, and ‘They recycle well’ said another. 51 years ago, this was called the Greenpeace Festival’. ‘Do you approve of how the festival has evolved?’ I asked the 4th. It’s gone West London yuppie. ‘The artists are brought in by helicopter, but overall it’s a force for good.’  There are many nods to ecology in the decorations and scarce water outlets. But I wondered how many tons of rubbish are created over these 4 days, how much electricity used, particulates released. But the questions seemed harsh, an unwelcome shadow from Morrrdorrr. 

I did get my shower eventually and want to immortalize Evie the shower mother, who managed the latent frustration with such dignity and good will. 

 

That was my morning. My afternoon was spent chilling at ‘The Dog n Duck’ as the crew prepared to party. 

 

 

Askew call-out

And a most heart-warming thing ever was happening at the Rabbit Hole. 3 old friends from my daughter  Emily’s primary school in Acton formed a boy band called Askew, (said ASkew, as in Mr., not asKEW as in skew-whiff). Not to be confused with the US band of the same name. They’re in the papers because the lead singer suffers from Duchenne  and had a dream to play at Glasto. Powerful people heard about him and his wish was granted. They played a mix of ballad and rock very well, and the audience was on cloud 9. Proud mums, dads – Krishnan Guru-Murthy among them – and friends came out in force and the bbc cameras were recording. We’ve known them since they were 4! 

Duchenne 

Askew 

    

Captions: Askew the Band, Jay Guru-Murthy guitar, Freddie Wormleighton drums, Eli Crossley lead singer, Alfie Lewis guitar and Will Pond guitar. 

 

Peequal call-out

Glasto is non-stop surprises, not just musical.  I encountered my first ever women’s urinals, set up by a lady called Hazel, who came to Glasto and wondered why only the men had a pee-only option! She set up the company, then pitched it to the Powers that Be. It was a strange experience, watching the users chatting over the Lego-village parapets one second, then sinking out of sight the next. The business end is like a Japanese squat loo, but enclosed and most importantly, no queue! 

Peequal

 

As we walked from set to set, a new word occurred to my son and I. Kalophony already has a meaning, but we would like to add another because English really needs this: when you enter a zone of competing sound systems which all sound attractive. Opposite: cacophony

 

Royal Blood and Arctic Monkeys were on The Pyramid stage and the crowds were densely packed. During the wait, we bonded with Emma and her friends, shared vapes and water bladders and defended our pile of bags with arm-locks. Neither singer made contact with the crowd much, rattling through their sets. RB lead singer Mike Kerr had been given a massive dressing down by his record label recently for walking off at a music festival because the crowds weren’t exuberant enough, so he was just keeping schtum.

 

This is insider info from a member of our camping group who works there. But I thought rock stars were supposed to be rebels no? The Monkeys lead Alex Turner came across as just as arrogant, but was way more popular. There were too many ballads though, ballads are best kept for the die-hard fans. 

After, there was Peeing everywhere, men and women, despite the signs. When you  get a good spot, there’s no popping off to the loo. The crowds moved too slowly and the loos were cluster-fucked. I couldn’t squat with people watching, I just couldn’t, so Nicholas frog-marched me back to the tent and I went in a zip-lock food bag. Well, what would you have done? Sweet relief….

After, the dulcet drub of Karl Cox Hybrid Set at Glade stage called me and I got some crazy dancing in on my own. 

 

Our flagpole gives a whole new significance to ‘flagging it up’; without that flag, I would have had to crash in some strangers tent, or die of hypothermia on a pathway probably just meters away from my own tent because at 2am, after a Thermos-full of G&T, it’s very hard to remember details such as do I turn right at the big white yurt. OR left. 

 

 

 

 

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