Stoned Women - My first Glastonbury with pix from 2003
Earth can mean only one
thing
to me. It’s the piece of
music
that blares out of my car
as I
enter the Glastonbury
Festival
site – well, it has been
for the
last few of my 12 visits to
the
greatest show on earth.
My first visit to the
musical
heaven that is Glastonbury
was
in 1990 following a call
from a
picture agency asking me if
I
would drive to Pilton,
devoid of
a ticket, blag my way past
the
guards and photograph
Sinead
O’Connor on the Pyramid
Stage for the Sunday
Times.
I was then to meet a
courier
parked in a local pub car
park
who would hightail it to
Bristol
for processing and wiring
to
the national picturedesk.
No
digital cameras and the
internet
then – this was old school.
Once through the gate I
still
had no idea where I was
going
but I drove all the way
through,
where the food halls are
today
and parked, yes parked, to
the
left-hand side of the old
Pyramid
Stage as you look at it.
From there I found one of
the
organisers who sorted me
with
a pass and within an hour I
found myself in the photog
raphers’ pit for the first
time.
I have never felt so at
home, it
is a wonderful place to be.
The crowd always get
excited
when they see the snappers,
not because we are
interesting
to look at but because they
know the band or in this
case
Sinead O’Connor was about
to
play.
The paper didn’t use the
picture
of Sinead, instead they
used one of the crowd going
crazy in the sunshine,
across
eight columns with my name
underneath it.
Over the years I have
photographed 100’s of singers, actors and the famous but it’s the people that
attend Glastonbury to the performers that make it the most wonderful festival
on earth.
This year I will only be
there
in spirit but I’m sure from
where I live I will still
be able to
hear it. So if you read
this before you go, why not download Stoned Woman and play it for me as you
drive in through the gates of worthy farm and maybe take some pictures as well.
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