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The Holy Grail of rock 'n' roll

By Ho Yi
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Sep 21, 2007, Page 17

Glastonbury is an exciting tale of the real experiences of ordinary festival-goers as well as top-tier stars. PHOTO: COURTESY OF TA LAI FILM

A small town in Somerset, England, Glastonbury is a mythical site wrapped in mythologies and legends of Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, King Arthur and the birth of Christianity in the British Isles. In 1970, a local farmer named Michael Eavis started a small hippie gathering and a different kind of pilgrimage was formed, taking die-hard music fans and hedonists to what is now one of the world's largest and best-known music festivals. It takes place one weekend of June nearly every year.

In 2002, Julien Temple (director of the Sex Pistol Documentaries, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury) began working on Glastonbury by issuing a plea for amateur videos taken by punters at the festivals. Nine hundred-odd hours of footage poured in: a mind-boggling range of material spanning four decades. It was whittled down to a 128-minute long documentary chronicling the inspiring and sometimes turbulent history of the Glastonbury Festival.

A mosaic combining bits and pieces of home movies and video shots, BBC coverage of legendary performances and newer footage shot by Temple's crew from 2002 to 2005, the epic film offers plenty of iconic performances featuring the likes of Bjork, David Bowie, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds , the EMO Orchestra, Coldplay, Morrissey, Babyshambles, Levellers, Radiohead, Faithless, the Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Pulp, Primal Scream and Velvet Underground to name just a few. Yet the film's true stars are the ordinary festival-goers: travelers, revelers, entertainers and intoxicated lads and lasses who constitute the authentic Glastonbury experience.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF TA LAI FILM

PHOTO: COURTESY OF TA LAI FILM

In this movie, one can watch the Mutoid Waste Company recreate Stonehenge with cars, naked hippies frolicking in the grass, children shambling around in a maze of yurts and the toilets no one dares to come near. A fire-juggler sets himself on fire. An old-time hippie spouts wise words and a confused man asks, "Is that music out there or in my head?" The amateur footage captures the chaos, euphoria and the real essence of the massive event. The film's apparent haphazardness suits the fantastic chaos of the festival well by presenting a continuum of experiences that have occurred at the muddy Worthy Farm.

Eavis himself is featured prominently in the film. There is footage of him from the very first event, his battles against the local council, his commentary on the turbulent days of the 1980s when travelers took refuge at the festival and his view on the growing commercialization of the festival. The festival's liberal political heritage is also derived from the flower power era.

Disparate images of the festival further reveal the uneasy relationship between Eavis and the peace convoy, the traveling army of bus-dwelling, authority-defying hippie-punks whose settlement at the site of the festival led to violence and rioting in 1990. The presence of police patrols and the sound of gunshots lay bare the uncomfortable side of the festival that has evolved to become the present-day event attended by 150,000 people.

Monolithic security fences are erected, cash machines are installed and happy consumers quaff down bottles of vodka in the Smirnoff bar. The film makes an honest portrait of the festival changing with time, becoming part of the nation's culture and history in the making. And the best part is, it's a wonderfully done piece that takes the audience straight to the festival, no matter where they are or whether they have ever been to it.

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