The day before the festival even begins, I am already bored with Glastonbury 2025. My radio dial is usually set to BBC 6 Music – I may have mentioned this before, at least once – and they celebrate Glasto, as many trendy folk seem to call it, to the extent that it dominates the entire network. The problem is not Glastonbury: it’s me.
Going to Glastonbury is not, and never has been, an option for me. I hate big crowds, which probably explains why I am a (lapsed) Bristol Rovers supporter, I do not like sleeping in tents and, most importantly of all at my age, I need to know where my nearest toilet is. On TV, it’s a far better option because, by and large, I can tune in to the bits I want to see and use the iPlayer to catch-up on the bits that happen when I am doing something else. My radio station of choice is, frankly, beginning to do my head in.
Not that there is anything wrong with the DJs or the music. As I write, a vintage David Bowie set is in progress on Craig Charles’ show and it’s great. But being this geriatric ADHD ‘sufferer’, I like things to always be the same, I like familiarity, I like routine; I hate change. And I know that for at least a week and maybe longer – don’t forget we will get ‘highlights’ long into the future – my radio routine, the soundtrack of my daily routine – will be in bits.
I should love Glastonbury as a thing because musically it’s just fantastic. I used to just look at the main stages like the Pyramid and would judge how good I thought the festival was on the basis of who was performing. Digging deeper, much of the best stuff, maybe even most of it, is tucked away on smaller stages. It certainly is this year. I could almost imagine myself walking quietly between the smaller venues, while quaffing a pint of local cider. But then I’d need to use the bathroom, as our American cousins call it, and all my pleasure would be over.
I do have various other dislikes, but they are not confined to Glastonbury. It’s when a large crowd joins in a song and all but drowns out the artist. They did it last year with LCD Soundsystem and I fucking hated it. Why, I wondered, didn’t they just stay at home and play the record and allow the rest of us to enjoy the band? And “Hello Glastonbury!” is every bit as tiresome as a band at a minor venue in our fair city shouting “Hello Bristol!” to the 200 or so people present. But yes, as I said before, it’s just me. Normality will be back soon enough, at least until 6 Music has its Oasis day next month. Now that clichéd shit really will be too much to bear.
