The Ned Wood Archive

Sam

Sam’s trying to decide.  Does he get some kip or does he go up to the Park?  It’s after 10.  Billy Bragg has just finished.  He’s sat at the tea bus, trying to decide how to end the evening.  The concert at the Park goes on till way past midnight.  It’ll be one o’clock before he gets back to the tent.  That doesn’t leave enough time before he has to get up for his shift.  Not enough time for someone of his age.

Then someone asks whether she can share the table he’s sat at.  Sam wonders what would happen if he ever said no to a request like that.  But, of course, he doesn’t.  That’s one of the pleasures of Glastonbury.  Sitting and chatting to someone you’ve never met before.  Finding out what they’ve been listening to, who they’re seeing next.  Hearing about their experiences which are always different.  

This woman is a doctor.  She volunteers up at the medical centre.  At the top of Pyramid Field, before you get to the exit for his camp ground.  They chat for a bit about the differences in their shift patterns and their volunteering experiences.  Sam thinks he’s got the better option.  Regular shifts beat random ones.  And, though he’d like to help people out, he discovers that some of the rubbish things people do to their bodies can be just as bad as some of the rubbish things they throw away. Probably worse in fact.  

David Bowie comes up.  Sam’s remembered that it’s ten years since he died and they were going to do some sort of repeat of the Heroes concert up at the Park.  He tells her about the Glastonbowie event that some lass organised, on the Thursday he thinks, back in 2016.  That was a sing-along of old Bowie numbers on one of the accessibility platforms on Pyramid Field.  Somewhere he’s still got a wristband from it.  Then he met a couple of youths afterwards at this tea bus and they were Bowie fans.  And then (was it on the Friday that year?) there was a performance of Philip Glass’s Heroes Symphony, up at the Park.  The complete symphony played by a complete orchestra.  And he went up to listen and he bumped into those youths he’d met at the tea bus and you could tell they were bored cos they were just talking throughout and he had to suggest they paid a bit more attention during some of the subtle quiet bits.  

He’d thought that was an excellent idea and that they should do it again.  But they hadn’t until this year.  And it was the same guy coming back to do it again.  Not the whole Heroes symphony though, something similar.  

Anyway, his chatting about it settled things.  Sam goes up to the Park for the concert. He suggests that the doctor goes with him, but she says she’s got to rest up ahead of her shifts. She’s more sensible than he is. Then, you’d have to be more sensible if you were going to be a doctor, wouldn’t you?

Well turns out she’s missed a good gig. It’s well worth it, I guess, if you like that sort of thing.  They start with some of the Heroes Symphony like from before.  The V2 Schneider bit.  Where the wind instruments play the V2 Schneider chorus.  Then they play some standard classics.  Romeo & Juliet, the 1812, Jupiter from the Planets, that sort of stuff.  All stuff that Sam’s heard before.  But there is no substitute for hearing it live. Same with any music, but a full orchestra sounds magnificent. The scratching of the strings. The rasping of the brass. It’s so much more present. More vibrant. It fills the air and captures you. There’s a reasonable crowd at the Park.  That’s the best place for it. A concert like this. It’d be the sort of thing you’d get at Latitude. And the Park is the most Latitude place at Glastonbury. Or is it that Latitude is the most Park like other festival? Which came first? He’ll have to find out. Anyway, the evening has worked so well, he hopes that means they will do it again soon.  Classical stuff that is.  Then they finish with more from Heroes.  When he finally gets back to his tent, that’s what Sam can hear playing over and over in his head before he falls asleep.