The Ned Wood Archive

Perfect picture card scene, changing all that has been

Kula Shaker, 1996

Joe

This is what everyone does. Soon as they’ve settled their camp site, sprung a few beers, got their energy back, got their bearings back, they head up to the sign. It’s like bragging rights. The sooner you get up there, the better. It says “I got in before you. I got pitched before you. I’m here, you’re not.” Everyone does it. It starts getting crowded up there from about 11 am onwards.

Except that Joe and Tom did their walkabout around the markets and Carhenge first. That was on the way out to get the trolley and the rest of their stuff. Soon as most of the gang had arrived and Tom was happy with the layout of their site. Soon as they’d changed out of what they’d been wearing and put on some decent festival gear. Festival gear for Joe, that is. Ordinary T-shirt and shorts for Tom. Soon as they’d settled on what they were doing that night, then the two of them left the others to sit around and enjoy their cans and headed off back to the car. They meandered over, taking in the various sites of the new festival. What’s still in the same place from last year (and no doubt, the year before). What’s moved. What’s new.

And only then, after scoping out the rest of the festival, after fetching the rest of the gear, then they went up to the sign. Middle of the afternoon already. And not just Tom and Joe. All of the crew.

Walking through the Park always reminds Joe of his first ever Glastonbury. On that first Friday, the first day of the festival proper, him and Tom spent the day at the Park. Most of the day. They went to Joe Lean then Vampire Weekend at the Other Stage first. Joe vaguely remembers that. Mostly he remembers going up to the Park and Duke Spirit and Sons & Daughters and John Cale and Edwyn Collins and Franz Ferdinand.

Franz Ferdinand was a secret set. Joe used to think that Tom knew everything. One of the everythings Tom knew was secret sets. Tom was the master of secret sets. At least, that’s how it seemed to Joe. Nowadays everyone knows who’s doing the secret sets. It’s all on your phone. Back when he first started going, it seemed to Joe like they were a mystery that only Tom could unlock. Maybe it really was that way.

When Joe first started coming, Tom insisted they went everywhere together. They mostly shared musical tastes, so it wasn’t that much of a hardship. Tom would give in to what Joe wanted to see sometimes like for Kings of Leon, but it seemed like Joe never enjoyed those performances as much as he thought he would. Now he thinks about it, he wondered whether Tom deliberately stood in a dodgy place, like way way back from the Pyramid stage for Kings of Leon, so that Joe wouldn’t enjoy it. Now he thinks about it some more, he wouldn’t have gone to see KoL himself had he known then what he knows now. He’ll only admit that to himself though. He won’t tell Tom.

First gig he ever saw at Glastonbury was awful, though. The Thursday of his first time. The day before Franz Ferdinand. It was tipping it. Absolutely cats and. They went to the tent at Williams Green – that’s where they used to have the first bands on. It was the Levellers and it was packed. They could just about get near to the entrance to the tent. No chance of getting inside. So they stood there in the rain, seeing nothing, just listening, just on the edge of the tent. Cascades of water were flowing off the tent and making vast waterfalls at each entrance. The crush behind them pushing them right under the waterfalls. Joe getting soaked. He wanted to go home. Tom was fed up too, so they left and went back to their own tent.

Things got better after that. Vampire Weekend on the Friday, the sun coming out when they played Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa Then the Franz Ferdinand secret set at the Park. Then Tom took him to see Last Shadow Puppets with Jack White on the Saturday – another secret gig. Apparently Alex Turner had to teach Jack White the chords when they did that old Billy Fury number. At least, that’s what Tom said.

Then there was the Dead Weather gig the following year – Tom had told him they were going to play before the festival. That was so good – they got there early, so got a good spot. They knew it was going to be something special when they saw the roadies all wearing suits. Then they brought out the matching white guitars. That Jack White’s certainly got a lot of style.

The one he enjoyed the most was when Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead did the Park. It’s always worth going up to the Park for any special guest spot. Thom Yorke was having so much fun. They did Karma Police and it went on for hours. Everyone was singing it, so Thom carried on. Then they played Street Spirit but the crowd kept singing Karma Police for ever and ever after the gig had ended and they walked back to the road unchained.

Then when Pulp played at the Park, it seemed like it was fairly well known. Still, they got near the front and had Jarvis Cocker throw them some sweets. And, of course, when the Killers played in 2017, at the Peel Stage, it wasn’t a secret gig. They got there for King Gizzard and it was already packed. They stayed through Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes who were wonderful, and helpfully cleared some space in the tent for moshing, but still they couldn’t get that near the front for when the Killers came on.

And now it seems that all of the secret sets are announced beforehand. Like Lorde and Haim and even CMAT at BBC last year. But that doesn’t stop the rumours, it just makes them more interesting. Like when Lady Gaga played Shangri La early one morning.

Now Joe knows that there are so many secret sets, you can’t track them all. Whether you can believe them all is another question.