Having proven the excellence of our spot yesterday, we made base camp with the others in front of the main stage. However, I left them to John Mayer because I was desperate to see Newton Faulkner.
This proved a great idea, and the highlight of my festival.
I knew very little about him before the Festival, but the crowds of people willing to sit in the dirty margins of the pyramid field to hear him play attested to his briliance. There was quite a lot of competition for space, and I had to breach some fairly standard crowd etiquitte to get a decent view, even if only of the video screen:
As soon as he appeared on stage, I liked him. Newton's first words were of his gratitude for being back to Glasto for just his second time, and how amazing it felt to be on one of the two key stages.
From there, he just got into his zany, folky guitar sounds and it was a pleasure to be there. I was surprised to see that he uses his guitar as a drum as well as the usual way; showing lots of talent. But also, in between songs he told great, humble stories about what has changed since he debuted at Glasto last year. He was very funny. And, in the most humble gesture of all, his finale wasn't one of his songs, but a guitar version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Brilliant!
His performance sent me happily off back to the main stage, where John Mayer was just finishing (man, is he talented but boring!) and there was time for a decent chat and further reading of yesterday's paper before Neil Diamond came out.
Even though he's been around for a long time, I didn't actually know that many of the songs. But, one could see from the screen that the audience knew all the words, and Neil was enjoying himself:
So, for me it was more about sitting in the glorious sun, in a field full of happy people, listening to someone sing pleasant songs really well. It was a moment of true happiness.
After Neil, Goldfrapp gave an entirely weird performance that was forgetable to the point that I don't have anything to write about...
Fortunately, Leonard Cohen turned up just as the sun was setting. Lucy and I charged up as close to see his smooth moves:
We were surrounded by ardent fans, and one guy next to Lucy had tears streaming down his face. The others were a little too stoned for that, but it felt special to be in a thick crowd of people whilst singing Hallelujah with the man all others imitate.
I didn't think it could get any better than that, but our next stop was the Acoustic tent for Joan Baez (even arriving early enough to hear Suzanne Vega finish her set with Tom's Diner and Luca.)
Joan was the perfect ending for my festival, as I think she's glorious and have always admired her poltics. She has outlasted many of her contemporaries and looks and sounds amazing for 67:
She sang a mixture of soul, gospel and folk, and many of her songs began with anecdotes from her time as an activist. She thrilled me with an a capella version of Swing Low Sweet Chariot, especially after she told us it was a song she always remembered singing to Martin Luther King as he napped at a campaign stop one month before his assasination.
Joan also sang many of her own hits, and the crowd loved it. My camera managed to take a great video of the crowd's reaction to a particularly political song:
She was also lighthearted - using Diamonds and Rust to take a swipe at her ex-lover Bob Dylan. I knew the song was about him, and had heard it before, but this time she perfectly parodied his nasal singing voice to tell the story of a woman reminiscing about a lover making false promises. It was simultanously melancholy and hilarious.
After four (FOUR!) encores, Joan left the stage just in time to catch the helicopter performers use to rejoin civilisation elsewhere.
As for us, leaving was somewhat trickier. We'd actually been planning to leave early the next day, but the walk back to our tent gave us enough time to think about how long our options might take - and to decide to pack up straightaway and try to beat the crowds.
Luckily for me, I still had some leftover museli and yoghurt to keep me going in the strange half-light of a festival morning:
Our return journey looked like this:
12am - end of Joan Baez's performance
1am - finish packing tent, walk to queue for shuttles
3am - board shuttle (we were on the third one to leave)
3.30am - arrive Castle Cary station and queue for train
5am - train arrives
7am - arrive Paddington Station
8am - arrive Lewisham Station
9am - have something quick to eat and then head to bed.
It's no wonder it took the rest of the week to recover!
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