I can’t help myself. Just when I find myself reluctantly agreeing with BBC 6 Music DJ Huw Stephens there “there is no such thing as bad music” that I find myself suggesting that actually there is such a thing. So much for my brand new ‘be kind’ mindset. Anyway, there really is no such thing as bad music. There’s just music you like, music you don’t like and maybe music that’s so antiseptically clean that it just passes you by on the other side of the road. Take Glastonbury, the festival that takes place some nine miles from Glastonbury, a small town where geographically challenged music fans turn up at by mistake.
I would say that I’ve got quite an eclectic taste in music. There’s barely a genre where I can’t find at least something I like and at Glastonbury that’s very much the case. The Pyramid stage usually holds little interest for me, as the behemoth acts crank out their greatest hits to people who know every word of every song. Foo Fighters know how to play festivals and, despite my misgivings about their generic, safety first set lists, it was quite clear to me that they should have been headliners last night and not Arctic Monkeys. I say that as someone who can barely tell one Foo Fighters song from another, too. I bow to no one in my admiration of Arctic Monkeys and own every record they have made and, unlike many people, I actually prefer their last two albums to the earlier rockier titles. Watching last night’s performance, I felt it was all a bit flat, a weirdly paced setlist that eventually led me to press record for the rest of the set and change channels to watch Hot Chip on another stage and they were simply magnificent. There is probably heresy, but maybe Arctics are not the big stadium band I thought they were? I certainly felt vindicated in not having gone to the Ashton Gate show.
If I was at Glastonbury today – and I thank my lucky stars I’m not – I’d walk a million miles to avoid the Pyramid stage, which tonight offers the leaden-tongued Lewis Capaldi, followed by Lizzo (who I quite like) and elderly rockers Guns N Roses, for whom Axl Rose will confirm again that his voice is shot and Saul ‘Slash’ Hudson will as usual wear an enormous hat to cover up something that happens to most men as we get older. It is entirely possible I may be tempted to watch the beginning of the set, as I would watch the opening laps of a Formula 1 race and then switch over once I confirm how dull it is, but more likely I’ll seek out the brilliance of Loyle Carner and Christine and the Queens on other stages. As ever – and I speak as someone who has never been – the best of Glastonbury is almost always away from the Pyramid.
Tomorrow looks like the best day of the festival to my tired ears and eyes. On various stages, I will be seeking out Cat Stevens, Queens of the Stone Age, Rudimental, Phoenix, Caroline Polachek, Thundercat, Alison Goldfrapp, Barry Can’t Swim and of course Will Young (just kidding on the last one). Oh and maybe Elton John’s farewell UK show where I expect him to unveil special guests like Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift. I first saw Elton at the Bristol Colston Hall over 50 years ago in the days when he had just two supporting musicians, bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, and he was brilliant. I’m not convinced by much of his work since then but given his work and fundraising for Good Causes, I might just watch his show.
I don’t know if this is a good Glastonbury or a bad one. If you look around the festival line-up, you will probably find something you like in any given year. And if you can’t, no one says you have to watch, do they? You can always listen to whatever you regard as good music.
