The Ned Wood Archive

Joe

“She’s a star, isn’t she?” says Joe. “She ruled that stage.”

“She certainly is. She certainly did. I’m glad we stayed,” replies Ellie.

After Mysterines, they decided to hang around up at the Park. To be honest, Joe decided and Ellie agreed. Joe had been looking forward to seeing Sharon van Etten and the Attachment Theory for a while. He tells himself that he would have gone somewhere else if Ellie had insisted. Fortunately he hadn’t been put to the test.

Joe’s thinking that maybe Sharon van Etten has found the perfect band to get the most out of her music. She’d started the gig with stuff from the new album and then done more of her older stuff in the second half. Sun Comes Up. Seventeen. Serpents. Our Love, of course. Some of the new stuff is haunting, ethereal, and dreamy like her old songs. Trouble for instance. Some of the new stuff is really different. Funky like Can’t Imagine. Motorik Neu on Idiot Box. Groovy on Somethin’ Ain’t Right. Rock n Roll on Indio. And hauntingly beautiful on what she said was an old folk song – just her singing and the bass player on an eerie slippery double bass.

And she’s more confident. Really did rule the stage. Comes on all dressed in black. Her black hair piled up on her head in some weird gothic beehive. Eyes black with banshee liner. Chatting with the audience. Dancing around. Jumping with the rhythm.

They remained, staring at the stage, as the band walked off. That’s what you do when you’ve seen and heard a great show. You try to keep it going by gazing at the emptying stage. Picking up the echoes of the music as they bounce around, evaporating too soon. Eventually drifting away with the rest of the enchanted audience. Coming out of the trance, Joe noticed they were moving towards the Ribbon Tower and suggested they go up. You always do it each year. Once in the day, once in the dark. So they queued up along with, it seemed, everyone else from that magical gig, discussing what they’d seen to keep the magic going for a little longer.

Finally it’s their turn to climb. At the summit, they look out across the town, see the dim outlines of tents and venues spread out across the farm. They see the lights shining out from the top of the Other Stage, the beacon on the Pyramid. And the whole of the festival covered by delicate strands from a giant spider’s web, each dotted with regular dew drops of light. The strings of peals illuminating each of the paths. Floating up from the fields in front of them is the faint whispered hum and intense electrical excitement from thousands and thousands of awe-filled festival-goers.

“Bright sunny days
Dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world”

When Ellie looks at Joe, he realises he’s been singing (or trying to sing) out loud.

“Joey Ramone,” he says. “Wonderful World. This place is such an inspired creation. Imagine being the person that made all of this. If it were necessary to create a god, then we’d create someone like Michael Eavis. OK, this place was beautiful before he arrived. But to make something as magical as this festival that takes real talent. He’s not built everything himself, though. He just points folk in the right direction and sits back and lets them get on with it. But it still has this amazing, unified, positive vibe. Everything’s different, but everything is recognisably Glastonbury. Imagine being able to look at this and think ‘I did that!’”

They look out in silence for a moment. After a few minutes, they hear the sound of an orchestra rise up. Oscillating strings. A simple four note wind motif. It builds louder and more complex. It’s coming from the Park Stage. They go down to explore.