The Glastonbury 2011 Review - Part Two
The Glastonbury madness continues as Ric Rawlins reviews Pulled Apart By Horses, Anna Calvi and more...
SATURDAY 19 JUNE
In the que for the water and toilets, there are millions of varieties of crushed, confused looking faces. Everyone holds onto their towels as if they're mittens or comfort rags - but there's only one thing that can save them now, and that is the ancient Chinese formula of cold water and wet wipes.
Every Glastonbury morning is spent queuing thirty minutes for the toilet, but once this surreal ritual has been achieved it's essential to lay into the festival again with the enthusiasm of a boxer in the second round. Pulled Apart By Horses then, offer a suitably powerful kick-start to the day, still punching lions in their throats.
Anna Calvi might look like a Romanian vampire, but she brings compassion to the John Peel stage before going off on a wig-out at the finale. Following her are the equally mysterious Warpaint, who get the inevitable wave of screaming for 'Undertow' but otherwise make for a serene underwater kind of experience.
A new stage this year is the Spirit of '71, upon which old hippies from the original festival return to reprise their mystical voodoo schtick. I've only ever seen Mick Farren from old photos, sporting a massive afro, leather trousers and a muscular street fighting body. Today, however, he inevitably looks like a wobbly old cottage dweller. Still, he's good fun even if his band are hilariously under-rehearsed, playing a song he wrote the day that Elvis died.
"How much of a secret was it?" asks Jarvis as Pulp take to the Park Stage. "Are there any disappointed Killers fans out there?" Certainly not in our quarters, as the atmosphere for the reformed Britpoppers couldn't get much better: a sunset is gradually peaking as they play their set, a combination of great old stuff ('Razzmatazz', 'Common People') and the odd tune from We Love Life.
Battles sound the party siren at the John Peel Stage with 'Ice Cream', which kicks into life like a mutant blues tune before tipping everybody over the edge into boogie madness. Once this is done, Glastonbury gets caught up in full-on chaos as drunkenness and superglue strength mud conspire to suck everybody's wellies off in the dark.
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