The view from Worthy Farm vs the view from the sofa: Can you really judge Glastonbury performances if you weren’t there?
It all starts about three weeks before Glastonbury, the inevitable coverage. You know the kind that I’m talking about?
A softly spoken DJ breathes down the mic, and the occasional words escape their lips: “You were just listening to [insert name here], who will be playing on the Other Stage at Glastonbury this year. And if you’re not going to Glastonbury, we’ll be bringing you all the coverage over the weekend so you won’t miss a thing.”
That’s when the coverage starts, then it shifts slightly during the week Glastonbury commences, and you tend to find at that point the audience splits into two camps. These are, predictably, those going to the festival and those who aren’t. Within these camps are two clear circles—one contains those who want to go to Glastonbury, and the other contains those who don’t. Now, if we’re looking at the Venn diagram where both these circles exist, the overlap is pretty large. There are those going who feel trepidatious about it, those not going who want to but couldn’t get tickets, and a range of other people with conflicting feelings.
If you listen to the radio, though, you only ever hear from the people who occupy the segments of the circle that contain no overlap. Messages are either “Just driving down to Glastonbury, absolutely ecstatic, keep the tunes coming!” Or, “I’ll be watching the coverage from home, it’s much better than being in the mud, and the drinks are a lot cheaper!”
The majority of writers here at Far Out occupy that grey area, as they can see the pros and cons of both going and watching from the sofa. Luckily, we have two people who have opposing views as to whether it is better to watch the festival from home or attend it in person.
Here, they will plead their case. See which side you agree with.
The view from Worthy Farm: Ben Forrest
Here’s my view: For me, the difference between watching at home and being here in the fields isn’t so much about sound quality as it is about the little insights into people’s lives that you get when you’re in the middle of a crowd. A reflection of the human connections which make live music so magical.
Watching John Fogerty on Saturday, I was standing next to a guy wearing a shirt that his grandad had originally bought when he saw Fogerty decades ago. At Neil Young, I saw couples embrace over the songs that have soundtracked their relationships. During Pulp, I video-called my girlfriend for ‘Something Changed’, and we both watched with tears streaming down our faces; it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. But you don’t see any of that on television.
Live music isn’t just about sound quality or whether the power of a performer translates properly onto camera; it’s about those human connections and experiences. There are people here this weekend who came here as total strangers and will leave bonded for life. That is the difference between being here and sitting on the settee.
The view from the sofa: Dale Maplethorpe
To quickly answer the question, “Can you really judge performances if you weren’t there?” yes, of course you can; otherwise, why did we spend so much time voting for our favourite performers on Pop Idol, X Factor, and [insert country here]’s Got Talent while we were growing up? The more interesting point is the added layer that seeing a performance live can give you over simply watching it through a screen.
Ben is absolutely right that when you go to a gig, you experience more than just the performance; you get all the little details that make a show great. This includes the unfathomable connection that exists between you and other fans of an artist, getting glimpses into people’s lives and experiencing your favourite songs with your favourite people. I would argue, however, that you experience these feelings at every gig you go to, and as such, it still remains preferable to watch Glastonbury from your sofa.
Why? The answer is simple: I can get those special experiences at every gig, and by not going to Glastonbury, I can avoid the kind of people who go to Glastonbury. You know who I’m talking about; it doesn’t apply to everyone there, but enough that I’ll steer clear of that field. Your weekend hippies, taking a breather from marketing to rage against a machine they are an internal cog of. The overnight activists whose politics are as plastic as the material they rage against. Those who wear a statement t-shirt and spend half of the day watching bands and the other half patting themselves on the back.
The sheer scale of Glastonbury is not daunting; it’s a huge inconvenience. I was talking to a friend who watched Elton John’s headline set about halfway back in the crowd, and they confessed it took them 90 minutes to merely leave the main stage area because of the huge congestion of people. With the upmost respect, that sounds shit. Spending the weekend as a drop in the ocean, where a large portion of that ocean is made up of annoying people…I’ll watch from the sofa, thanks.
