glastoblog 2009

so the glastonbury festival of the contemporary performing arts for 2009 was really quite good- but contrast with previous years ,where headline acts were dull and obscure bands from nowhere were good, this time around, headliners were all pretty godo and some of the obscurities should stay so (imho - of course with 11 stages and other venues, and only seeing 1 at a time, i surely couldn't speak for the whole shebang)

some pix

what did I see (hear)?
In order
Mr Hudson & the librarians - excellent (fine sunger with very sharp lyrics)
John smith - awesome guitar player - version of Winter was staggering
Regina Spektor - pretending to be animals in NY zoo as a kid, was amazing! very Tori Amos
NERD - excellent , except when the plug got pulled due to them running over (coz of late start:(
Fleet Foxes - stand out performance - truly gladstock! and then they all hung at the back of
Fairport convention - superb cover of sandy denny song and some serious mad dancing!
Lily allen - even better than last time - her voice is really pretty good!
The specials - turned up drums and bass, and did that ghostown song justice rightously
neil young - what can i say - cinnamon girl and day in the life were just stellar

VV brown - suprtb
warsaw village band - scarily good poolish dervish folk
bombay bicycle club - disappointing (bad mix didnt help tho
spinal tap - did what it says on the box.
jamie cullum - cover of MJ song was very very well done
CSN - missed coz we were watchign Paulo Nutini who was sick (as in good)
maximo park (dont like kasabian:) were extreemly amusing and fun
baaba maal was beautiful - senegal came to south west england
The Boss- now I am not a springsteen fan, but this was some band - very strong...

woke up and it was sunday morning with the quo and tony christie - someone should put them out of their misery:-)

Amadou & Mariam - mali came to south west england - very charming!
Bon Iver - superb - very spooky too...
Imelda may - absolutely stonking set from a brill singer - had the roof blown away
i'd not have been surprised

madness - good (not quite up to the specials for me ) but everyone was skanking so must have hit the right buttons...

blur - graham coxson seemed to be crying but that was probably the other 200,000 people...simply awesome...

oh, a bunch of stuff in chai wallah's was really great (jamie woon, gentleman's dub club etc)....so I spose there was some good indie things

emily the great (in queen's head, not the other set) was ok...sharp * observant I guess...