Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2009, Qupperneq 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2009
Love and hate. Looks like it’s going to
rain again. Torrentially. That’s nothing
new, seeing that it usually rains at
Glastonbury. Still people go there in ever
increasing numbers.
I was mildly exited when I
heard Emiliana Torrini was playing
Glastonbury this June, since this meant
that I would be gracing that oldest and
biggest of English summer festivals
with my presence for the first time. I
am her drummer for the summer, so to
speak.
Our festival run started in June and
will take us to the end of the summer,
zigzagging Europe like mad, jumping
trains and planes with a bunch of guitars
and musical trinkets.
Now, truth be told, I can’t stand
ruddy muddy festivals. I don’t like the
thought of being wet and miserable in a
tent with thousands of other miserables
and sharing the sodden condition is
very little consolation to me. Sod the
whole thing. It’s hit and run for me, even
though its Glastonbury, the granddad of
all festivals in England.
Even though I am leaving early
Saturday morning, I can’t skip the
chance of seeing a few cool things
since I will be there for the Friday
night. Jumping the boat early Saturday
morning come hell or high water.
The rest of the band are staying until
Monday to revel in peace and love, mud
and beer and God knows what else but
me, no sir, I won’t have any of this peace
love shit, sex drugs and mud or whatever
you call it.
Those days are over for me.
Pilton Pop
The Glastonbury Festival was founded
by Michael Eavis at his Worthy farm
near Glastonbury in 1970. It was
originally called the Pilton Pop festival
and only 1500 people turned up to pay
the admission fee of one pound, but by
the following year it had turned into the
Glastonbury Fayre and featured the likes
of David Bowie, Traffic and Fairport
Convention.
Yet while Glastonbury still resonates
with historical associations of Druidic
rituals and free love, these days it has
morphed into a smart operation, still
donating all the profits to charities.
Indeed, it has had to in order to thrive in
an increasingly sophisticated and global
live music industry, where juggernaut
multinational promoters such as Live
Nation and AEG Live battle for market
share. Glastonbury’s size, scope and
history make it the bellweather event for
the British festival season.
This year we have the North
Americans storming the festival, with
Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen
headlining the Pyramid stage on Friday
and Saturday. Brit pop’s resurrected
messiahs, Blur, are headlining Sunday.
I will be well away by then.

The sweet smell of death
We arrive on Friday morning from
Leeds on our bus and my first notion of
the place is that I hear voices through my
slumber in my bunk and figure that we
are pulling into the festival grounds. If
you sleep on a bus for a while, you can
detect when you are on a gravel road
through your slumber. Then the smell
hits. I’m thinking this place smells like
shit and in reality, we are parked next to
the staff toilets behind the Park Stage
on the south side of the Glastonbury
site. The fumes are filtering into the
bus aircon system and gracing my
sensitive, half slumbering nose with
their presence. I get the feeling I am in a
coffin; this place smells like death.
I peek out of my bunk and growl,
"are we here?" only to hear someone say,
"yeah! and it’s raining." I fall back with a
sarcastic giggle, I already hate the place.
I get up and fetch my pass and
laminate and stuff and God knows all
sorts of trinkets and yes, it is raining
and muddy everywhere. I go see Lay Low
open up the park stage at 11 and there
are actually people there apart from
us. Somehow, I find that weird, but I
shouldn’t. She is wonderful as usual,
and I’m starting to warm to this, no more
toilet smells; I am looking over the city of
tents and towers that is Glastonbury and
it is actually pretty impressive.
I meet Emiliana and the boys at
two to go and play at the BBC enclave
down by the Pyramid stage. We are to
do a stripped down version of Jungle
Drum, which has now reached no. 1 in
Germany and is poised to do damage
to charts elsewhere, though God knows
whether the Brits will ever get exited
about it. They really do have their own
agenda when it comes to pop music,
and are not going to let the Germans
tell them what is cool. Oh no. On the
way down in the Land Rover through
the mud encrusted paths, word reaches
our tour manager that Emiliana is being
bumped up to headline status at some
of the German festivals we are doing in
July and she looks worried.
Not all musicians want to be pop
stars. Funnily enough.
Paging Dr. Freud
The BBC stage where they do interviews
and the odd musical performance is a
TV studio on site, complete with outdoor
and indoor stages and lots of wooden
mushrooms (paging Dr. Freud), all very
psychedelic and grrrrooovy. We play
outside since the sun just decided to
honour our presence and came out from
behind the clouds to bathe us in its glow.
It’s actually steaming hot now, and all
the rain is evaporating.
Then it’s back to the Park Stage
to get down to some setting up and
soundchecking, which we shake back in
the Land Rover to do. It is funny to watch
a little sunshine making a big difference
in the way a crowd looks as we drive
through the grounds. The drummer
and singer from Supergrass are playing
before us on the Park Stage with a friend
of theirs on bass doing cover versions of
80 ś pop stuff. They are having fun but
I’m finding it rather sad. I’m not big on
80 ś nostalgia; I was there and like to
remember it like it was.
There is a changeover while our stuff
is rolled onstage and plugged in and I’m
trying to talk to the monitor engineer
who says a lot of yes, but I have this
hollow feeling he is really not listening
to what I’m saying. Poor man must have
a lot to do or so it seems.
It’s now just past five and we are going
on stage at 5.15.
The monitors take a while getting
ready, but finally we are on stage and the
crowd gathers to hear; the bowl in front
of the stage fills up with people. The
set starts off pretty easy but soon picks
up and ends with a bang and it’s over...
we’re off stage and it’s all over with.
Much like teen sex, I’m told.
No hate in my heart
Now is the hard part – packing up after
festival – because behind the curtains
are risers with drums and keyboards
that have to be stripped post haste for
next band. This operation is still a one-
roadie thing, so I am packing drums
while sweating like a pig after the show.
No wailing groupies waiting backstage
with drugs and debauchery. Now that
would be hard work. This is easy.
They do have a charming backstage
bar at the Park Stage where they serve
up some good local ale, so I am feeling
rather perky when we trek on down the
muddy path all the way to the Pyramid
Stage to see Neil Young at 10 o’clock.
For some odd reason it is way past
ten when we get there and Neil has
been playing for a while. Good thing
he got warmed up for our critical ears...
Not quite, we hang on to every word
he says and are singing along to most
of his tunes except of course the ten
minute guitar solos in 11 time. Well, I
do remember singing along to that as
well. You see, by this time my resolve
towards the damn festival ghost had
all but dissolved and I was, dare I
say, having a blast and when Neil did
Heart of Gold for his encore, it was an
unexplainable phenomena to be part of
that sea of people on a very communal
high. At that moment I really felt that I
GOT the festival vibe, and some. No hate
anywhere in my heart.
Virtually cured of my sarcasm, I
made quite a few new friends that night
after the Neil Young show. I don’t hate
this place at all.
I actually managed to catch my cab
at 6 in the morning, the train back to
London and the plane back to Iceland,
which was, I’m not sorry to say, close to a
miracle.
Tales From The Tour | Sigtryggur Baldursson
Glastonburied With Emiliana Torrini
Iceland's most literate drummer's notes from the road
Tel +354 577 60 50
www.sixt.is
Sigtryggur Baldursson is a legendary Icelandic drummer. He's beaten
skins for The Sugarcubes, Þeyr, KUKL and several other awesome bands.
He also performs as sarcastic dandy Bogomil Font.
SiGTRyGGUR BALdURSSON