"Light 'em up!" - Glastonbury 2009 moments

The Boss
Has to be top of the list. A 3 hour set! (He went over the agreed curfew but Michael Eavis is apparently happy to pay the £3,000 fine from his own pocket, so much did he enjoy it).

Boss: "Hey Stevie - if it's not curfew time, what time is it?"
Little Stevie: "It's Boss time!"

Lots of people whinged about the fact that they didn't play Born in the USA. Um, so? They played Thunder Road. They played Glory Days. They played Born to Run. They played No Surrender. They played Dancing in the Dark. They played The Ghost of Tom Joad. They played Working on a Dream. They played Radio Nowhere. They played Hard Times. They played Because the Night. They played Badlands. They played The Rising. (I cried). And loads more. The set was a set for fans, and the whingers were clearly not fans; when the band struck up Glory Days, some mudwig next to me shouted "Come on, give us something we know." If you're not even fan enough to know Glory Days, what are you doing taking up space at the very front of the audience?

Bruce was off the stage (down in the crowd) as much as he was on it. He gathered up all the fans' song request signs and held them up to show which song the band was about to play. It was touching how genuinely excited he was to be at "Glaston-berry". He kept shouting to the stage crew to "light 'em up!" i.e. put on the big old lights so he could see the audience better. And he can still rock it like he's back in 1970s Asbury Park. Legend.

Rod Laver
From the sublime to the ridiculous. I rounded up all my Geoffs down in Cabaret on Saturday afternoon; I convinced them all it was worth the effort to see the excellent Welsh comedian Rod Laver. We got there only to find his spot had been rescheduled for an hour later. Never mind; we set up camp in the humidity and heat, and then settled ourselves down in the auditorium and waited for him to come out. It was at that moment I realised the excellent Welsh comedian is called Rod .. something else. Rod Laver is - I shit you not - a man who juggles ping pong balls with his mouth. It was quite a long way from what we were expecting. But actually, it was bloody good. The old Big G fates at it again.

Geoffing hell
In an effort to put something back this year, seven of us wore capes with a single character on the back of each one, spelling "G E O F F ' S". Geoff's capes. Geddit? Lots of people did, although not the young 'uns. (The future of our country is in the hands of people who've never heard of Geoff Capes!) On the first night, with great excitement, we wore our capes out to the Park. Sitting around drinking tea, a man approached us. "Are you Santa's elves or what?" he asked. No, we said, we're Geoff. Geoff Capes. We showed him our appliqued letters. "Oh-ho!" he said. "My name's Jeff!" and proceed to turn around to show that (freakish Glastonbury coincidence) - he had "J E F F" appliqued on to *his* back. Seriously - 90,000 people on site already, and within 5 minutes we've found someone else with J E F F appliqued on his back. So much for originality. And it got weirder - during the hilarity that ensued another two Geoffs turned up. We only found about 5 Geoffs all weekend - but so many in the first 10 minutes.

He wears a red bandana...
Lovely Paolo Nutini did a lovely set in lovely Croissant Neuf on Friday afternoon. We got to lie in the sun eating Fayre's Fare cakes and listening to his beautiful bluesy crooning. And he did a fab cover of "Down in Mexico". Niiice. And at the other end of the spectrum, we done ourselves a bit of a Quo - got to do my 'Rocking all over the world' dance all over again (having done it with John Fogerty in 2007). I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I li-li-li-like it ...

Sightings
Didn't do too bad on the celebrity front this year: Beth Rowley queuing for the Ribbon Tower. Marcus Brigstocke making his way into the thick of it for Bruce Springsteen (he went right past me but I did not have the presence of mind to compliment him on his actually-quite-impressive beatboxing with Shlomo and his Mouth Orchestra!) The bloke who played Thomas Tallis in the Tudors stuck his tongue out at me at JazzWorld. And I think Lil Chris walked past me in Greenpeace. Pete thinks Naomi Campbell was just behind him during the E-Street Band .....

On the non-celeb front, I love all the street performers or just other amateur dress-up punters - Glastonbury is just one big magical spectacle. This year I think my favourite was the imaginary bowls players. Genuinely middle-aged people all dressed up in bowls whites and bowling imaginary balls. And shouting warnings to people - "Mind that [imaginary] ball!" - much befuddlement ensued; brilliant. Also liked the two County Show commentators who just sat in a corner of the Circus field and commentated on whatever went past. God bless you all.

Everything else
will follow when I've recovered some additional memories. Expect stories of late night rainpours, one way systems, lightning, good food, bad food, various types of cider, socks, bandstands, toilets, posh teenagers and maybe the one about the magic tape.