The 2009 Glastonbury Diaries - Dodgy: Day One
By: Mathew Priest age 39 and 2 months
Posted: July 3, 2009 – Pilton, United Kingdom
The first time any of us went to Glastonbury, in fact any music festival, was in 1992 when we were invited to play the, then, NME stage at a startling 11.30 on the Sunday morning. It immediately found it's own special place in the heart of the band, admittedly there was a lot happening to make us fall in love – Primal Scream headlining the Friday, being one of them.
We returned as Dodgy another 4 times throughout the ‘90s : '93 on the NME stage just before The Verve; '95 on the NME stage again (that was the "Staying Out For the Summer" year) and then '97 on the Pyramid stage just before Radiohead – honest, we were there, but the headliners were so good that day that we were kinda like Farrah Fawcett to Radiohead's Michael Jackson, if you know what I mean. We also returned to the New Band stage in '99 with a different singer, Dave Bassey.
Personally, I also returned several times through out the last nine years with different bands – Ian Mcnabb and Electric Soft Parade (and once as a roving BBC 6Music reporter) and they were all good experiences but nothing could match those first few times in the '90s. Dare I say it, Glastonbury was losing it's charm for me.
So thank the heavens for Glastonbury 2009, mainly for hardly opening the whole weekend (let's face facts, mud is shit!) and for making me fall hopelessly in love with the festival again.
Besides the weather there are several reasons why it was so good.
Dodgy were retuning to play on the Avalon Stage. We were back home. Also, it was a relatively sober experience as I took my family and we only live about 40 minutes away so I drove home every night, well apart from the Sunday when the missus drove a slightly tipsy drummer home.
And I got to see it all through my nine year old boy's eyes; it really was quite amazing.
"That's not really the true Glasto experience, if you didn't camp!" I hear some of you cry; to that I say bollocks.
I still experienced the hilarious insanity of some folk; still felt the amazing community that only 200,000 like minded, peaceful souls can provide; still truly believed that we are all inherently good people and still watched some of the planet's best performers, performing their socks off.
The Specials were fantastic – "this song's called Fuck The BNP" before launching into a sublime version of "Message to You Rudi" was my highlight. And yes, Neil Young was THAT good. He hardly said a word but he communicated so much. "Down By The River" was breathtaking.
What was interesting is that I didn't go backstage once, which was a first for a AAA rat like me. I was a punter and I loved it.
I promise I won't desert you again Glasto. xx
Read Day Two of Dodgy's Glastonbury Diary here.
Video: "Staying Out For The Summer" by Dodgy
