Not at this year’s Glastonbury Festival? No biggie – Clash can bring you a flavour of the weekender-with-more via these excerpts from a new book on the event.
Penned by Glasto veteran Marc Leverton, Glastonbury Festival: Myths And Legends is available now through Tangent Books (you can buy it here).
Each extract relates to the appropriately numbered photograph in the above gallery.
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Extract 1: Lost Property
‘Tracey’s hygiene crew’ is the lucky bunch tasked with clearing up the bogs. All the ‘waste’ is taken up to ‘the lagoon’, where it is sifted before going to the sewage works. They’ve found false teeth, presumably thrown up by merry festival-goers who’ve consumed one too many shandies and, of course, many mobile phones are dropped into the sea of smelly effluence. However, their greatest find to date is a false leg, which they have optimistically held on to, but is yet to be claimed.
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Extract 2: Singing “Lager, Lager, Lager”
A puzzled crowd gathered to watch a man diving into a deep brown pool of muddy water. Assuming that he would resurface with camping essentials such as his sleeping bag, tent or boots, a huge cheer erupted as he triumphantly emerged with his weekend supply of lager. During that same year the Street Sub Aqua Club (pictured) were called in to check that the submerged tents didn’t have anyone in them. Thankfully they didn’t.
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Extract 3: The Ring Of Steel
The Ring Of Steel is the pet name given to the toughest temporary fence in the world. (Glastonbury founder Michael) Eavis got busy after persistent fence jumpers threatened the future of the festival. Legend has it that the fence can be seen from space. Unfortunately, Bono didn’t take the opportunity to confirm this when he spoke with an astronaut from the Pyramid stage during U2’s set in 2011.
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Extract 4: Rage Against The Washing Machines
Many people suggest that the festival isn’t what it used to be, and the clientele are no longer the ‘great unwashed’ of days gone by. Perhaps the clearest illustration of this is the rumour that Michael Eavis is to install washing machines at the site, to satisfy today’s more demanding fans.
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Extract 5: This Charming Clan
Journalists from the press tent hurried off to the main stage to see the Wu-Tang Clan’s set on the strength of a rumour that they were about to perform with Morrissey. Unfortunately, this was indeed a rumour, and the world will never hear ‘Irish Blood, Gangsta Heart’.
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Words: Marc Leverton
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