The biggest surprise of the day isn’t the weather, which is what you might call glorious, apart from a late afternoon cloudburst that at least gives me the excuse I’ve been looking for to hide under a table, perhaps the only sensible response to an appropriately thundery set by Ben Harper and the aptly-named Relentless7.
UNCUT GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL AWARDS 2009
THE WORST BEST KEPT SECRET
The KLAXONS’ surprise appearance on the Park Stage (Saturday). Superhero fancy dress and all.
SONG OF THE SUMMER
Florence & The Machine, ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up’. The perfect Pagan anthem for the sunkissed Children Of Avalon (John Peel Stage, Saturday).
BEST GLASTO DEBUT
‘Saucy Jack’, SPINAL TAP’s theme to their legendary musical about Jack the Ripper received its world premier on the Main Stage (Saturday), eclipsing even the wee fellers jigging about to ‘Stonehenge’ and guest turns by Jarvis Cocker (bass on ‘Big Bottom’) and Jamie Cullum (keys on the jam).
THE WORST BEST KEPT SECRET
The KLAXONS’ surprise appearance on the Park Stage (Saturday). Superhero fancy dress and all.
SONG OF THE SUMMER
Florence & The Machine, ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up’. The perfect Pagan anthem for the sunkissed Children Of Avalon (John Peel Stage, Saturday).
BEST GLASTO DEBUT
‘Saucy Jack’, SPINAL TAP’s theme to their legendary musical about Jack the Ripper received its world premier on the Main Stage (Saturday), eclipsing even the wee fellers jigging about to ‘Stonehenge’ and guest turns by Jarvis Cocker (bass on ‘Big Bottom’) and Jamie Cullum (keys on the jam).
REM are firing up “Orange Crush”, their veiled commentary on the plight of a promising young buck packed off to serve in Vietnam, and 40,000 people are on their feet, high-clapping for all they’re worth. Later, Michael Stipe will urge everyone to “put your hands up in the air” prior to a song about a dead comedian and lunar conspiracies. “Man On The Moon” kicks in, and everybody starts hugging each other. Hugging! This seems too weird. Since when did REM become everyone’s favourite feel-good stadium band?
One of my favourite pieces of music, especially on bright mornings like today, is “A Rainbow In Curved Air” by Terry Riley, a great fluttering organ-led salute to the sun that put a psychedelic spin on the new classical/electronic/minimalist music that came to the fore in the ‘60s.
Thanks for all your half-year Top Tens; some interesting choices there, as well as The Charlatans. Keep them coming, and I’ll do some kind of dark mathematics and rustle up a collective Wild Mercury Sound chart next week.
A busy day for new records yesterday, notable I guess for the arrival on a secure internet stream of the new, Eno-produced Coldplay album, plus a bunch of new tracks from Primal Scream, one of which is weirdly reminiscent of Pulp. In perhaps less headline-grabbing news, Black Taj are a couple of guys from Polvo (you can hear the awesome jam, “Fresh Air Traverse”, here), and the Wild Beasts album is lovely.
There's a moment during CSNY: Déjà Vu, Neil Young's document of the supergroup's 2006 Freedom Of Speech tour, when one furious ticket holder outside the Philips Arena, Atlanta spits: "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young can suck my fucking dick!"
A while back, someone at Uncut pointed out to me that one of the words I overused when writing about music was “feral”. He was right, too: I’d got into a habit of using the term whenever the psychedelia and crypto-primitive folk jams that I listen to so much got a little wilder and smellier, became a bit more instinctual, or at least convincingly pretended to be instinctual.
