The sun beat down (but gently) through a mix of cloudy and clear skies onto a relatively dust-free Glastonbury Festival site as the gates opened for 2025 and tens of thousands of guests poured into the site to get prime camping pitches and begin the acclimatization process required to shift from life outside the fence to life inside.
None of the big stages and tents were open on day one, but around the festival performances were taking place in tiny spaces, giving the chance for some special ‘intimate’ moments without the challenge of clashes with headline bands.
We always advise emerging acts to try and get a Wednesday slot somewhere as with a bit of social media plugging it’s not hard to drum up a decent crowd.
An opening gig on the ‘Hill of Death’
Our old festival friends ‘Internet Sensation Richard Wiseman’ and FMI Clatters took this a step further with their Tuesday night acoustic set on the top of the hill of death, where they played to an estimated crowd of well over 500 people who had arrived early to pitch up in the blue campervan fields.
The first programmed act: Oakley Starr
Oakley Starr are a female duo who are re-imagining all the classic country and Americana rock classics with a powerhouse harmony performance. There’s no band (just yet) – bu the pair deliver top quality vocals and have a theatrical edge that borders on goth. Is goth-country a thing? It is now…
The pair secured their place through the ETC emerging talent route and are playing a few other gigs over the weekend.
Chris T-T – was he really banned from the Left Field?
An old friend of ours, Chris T-T was also playing nearby today on the Laboratory Stage, just a minute or so away in the green futures field.
Reading poems and performing tracks from his ‘9 Red Songs ‘ LP on its 20th anniversary, Chis has been a stalwart of the festival circuit since … well forever really, and he is unashamedly political as well as being a consummate performer (even if he does forget the words sometimes).
One track he plays comes with a story about being banned from the Left Field for its lyrics upsetting Billy Bragg. This may be an exaggeration, but it adds a hint of spice to the track and isn’t maybe as far from the truth as all that.
It always was risky putting a song at the end of a protest album saying how protest songs don’t change the world…or anything much really.
Drunk and Disorderly behavior on the bandstand…
If you ever see the words ‘Duncan Disorderly and The Scalliwags‘ on a festival line-up you know you are in for a good time… and that’s just what we found back over at Croissant Neuf.
This is pure fun. A no holds barred, exuberant expression of joy.
We’ve seen them more times than we can remember and always come back for more.
If you haven’t yet, do soon.
You can catch them later in the weekend on the Small World Stage at 01:45 on Saturday night.
Other than the bands who soak up these early slots there is plenty more going on around the site, from indoor and outdoor theater and circus to…well, pretty much anything else you can imagine might be going on at Glastonbury. Just on a smaller scale than from Friday onwards.
Here’s a look at the day in pictures (courtesy of www.sarabowreyphotos.com)
