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Friday, June 29, 2007

Glastonbury [ DayThree ] And it came to pass we did a gigeth, and it was a Joyous day for all to behold (Hmmm!)

I could've taken much better pics apart from the fact my camera refuses to take picture in focus in the dark and the damn thing kept steaming up due to the rain.

What can you do eh?

Sooo: I awoke at around 12am to the sound of various bands starting to sound check. I felt pretty OK to be honest considering the previous nights total madness.

I get me wellies on ( again) and strolled out for some breakfast. Hog roast, not sure if that's good first thing in the morning; but it did the trick.

I go and watch a couple of bands play ( can't remember who really ) and then kinda just potter around for a bit before going to meet JB ( the bassist/band producer ) at Chai Wallers again. They'd just won an award for best Green stall 2007 Glastonbury, so we'll done lads, good on you...have a medal!

OK we watched a few bands/beat poets/mad bird singing mad songs, I bought myself a new hat and then it was back down to the Backstage area and a painfully slow rainy day afternoon waiting for our gig slot at around 9pm.

The rest of the band turned up in various states of disarray during the afternoon, ranging from 'Just driven down so completely sober' to ' Been here since last Wednesday can't really string a sentence together, giz a cuddle!!' to ' Just flown in from Poland had no sleep but.. I'm a trooper let me at it!' to ' Fukin ell what the fuck is going on going on going on going on going on!!!'

Hmmm!

A guess at least we all made it to the same place, at the same time?

Sooo , the sound check went without a hitch really apart from the ( seeing it more and more but not fukin liking it one fukin bit ) FOH digital desk...Again????

Where the fuck do these cunts get off thinking they can get away with Digital desks for Touring Engineers coming in to a gig with like 30 mins to sound check??

It sucks, big time.

Digital desks explained ( in layman's terms ) : Right, imagine you've been driving for years, you do it as a job, you have to make urgent medical deliveries ( you deliver hearts to heart transplant patients ) , on time, no fuss, no buts! Sooo you can drive any car or van without a hitch, no problem. Easy peezy. Then one day you get the call to drive an urgent heart for a little girl ( extreme example...but hey!!) who's about to snuff it if you don't get there on time. You arrive at work to do the job and.... Some fukin cunt has parked the Starship fukin enterprize in the car park and chucked you the keys, but... to even open the door, you have to find the right combination ninety button sequence and then press a million other buttons just to get the thing in gear...without the manual? " There you go mate..get on with it!" All the basics are there, but finding them is like learning Alien algebra 10 mins before the exam. This is the Digital Desk Dilema. The DDD. Of course you rise to the challenge cos you have to but... it's not that good really.

It gets easier as you learn the various digital mixing desks, but...then some twat ( who's never mixed a live show in his/her life invents an entirely new model/environment with an entirely new set of features that YOU DON'T FUKIN NEED!!!!

It's not just me either; every live engineer conversation I have with my peers eventually returns to the subject of hatred for the DDD.

I digress...

So the sound check goes fine. We all do our thing and the gig turns out pretty damn good.

Start of gig = Empty tent

End of gig = Full tent. Full of bouncing punters having fun (despite the mud.)

All good, bit of a compressor on the main gig (which I hate) means that the more I turn the band up, the more I lose the vocals. Plus the rig engineer kept messing with the bass end.

But... pretty good gig all round really.

We get off stage and all go for a wander backstage of the Pyramid (main) stage.

This... pissed me off no end ( oh dear, here we go again!)

Here's why: Right... three days of mud, rain, shitty toilets, no fukin showers, river through the middle of my fukin tent etc. etc. etc. Backstage of the Pyramid (main) stage and it's like; No mud, pristine toilets ( with toilet roll and no shit on the roof...I kid you not), matting on the floor, beautiful (working) hot water shower blocks, clean punters (mainly from the BBC) etc. etc. etc???????

I mean like, OK so these are the top bands doing the best gig in the house, but... You gotta remember who's actually paying for this? Yep your average Jo punter who's suffering 100m down the fukin road in the Festival equivalent of an Army training camp for The Mud People of Mudville, Mudland, Mudbury, Summer(mud)set, BA6 Your Having A Fukin Laugh Ain't you.

I wasn't impressed with this at all.

So we went and Watched the Who.

Who were shit! ( See the pun there.. ha ha!!)

Who were... Oh forget it!

Announced as 'One of thee biggest bands of all time?"

I think not!

Me and couple of others went back to the Dance Village Backstage area, had a munch and then I retired to my Five Star, no expense spared, Costa del mud, luxury, pissy wet three man (and a pair of wellies ) tent.

Good day.

Hmmm!!

Day Four ( The escape and evasion ) coming soon.

Laters

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How funny.. that's my friend in the camo two-piece walking through the picture.

10:38 am  
Blogger london cokehead said...

Well I never!!

3:10 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yours is the first account of Glasto I've read that's given me a twinge of envy. :-)

9:13 pm  
Blogger london cokehead said...

Hmm, you think?

2:24 am  

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