Glastonbury



Looking to see interesting rock performances on film, and curious about its reputation as the best of the English rock festivals, I rented a DVD regarding the Glastonbury Music Festival. What an interesting and colorful experiment in organized chaos Glastonbury is!

The Bath Festival and Woodstock served as examples to the founders, who taught themselves how to run music festivals. Among the founders, Methodist farmer, left-wing acolyte, and music lover Michael Eavis began hosting the festival on his own land in 1981:

...in 1969 Eavis and his second wife Jean Hayball visited the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970. Inspired by seeing the performance of Led Zeppelin, they hosted a free festival the following year. This developed into the Glastonbury Festival as it is known today. Jean died in 1999, since then his daughter Emily has taken a more active role in running the event. In common with his third wife and mother, Eavis remains a committed Methodist chapel-goer.

Because Eavis was able to retain sufficient control of the festival (on his own land) and because of his remarkably tolerant and eccentric vision, he and his colleagues were able to do the impossible; basically, to institutionalize unconformity. Thus, today, hippies in full counterculture glory live and thrive peaceably with others who think much differently - punksters and the glam crowd - but are united in a spirit of musical creation.

In addition, Glastonbury never went corporate - never had to and didn't want to! - and thus the ethic guiding its development has been unique.

We need more of these kinds of festivals in the world.....