GLASTONBURY BLOG ROUND-UP

Interestingly, even after the site had disappeared under a large swathe of water, the international press' main perspective on the festival was still lifted from the press releases: it was all about the silent disco. Last night, the Guardian's Sean Clarke finally went to hear the music in his head. An hour to get in; another thirty minute wait while they tried to fix a bug in the system (so far, so silent):

The experience is undeniably odd, not least because the headsets have two channels, and there are two competing DJs at the front of the tent. This means that you can be shuffling around to the fade-out of the song you're dancing to, and find that the person next to you is jumping up and down and punching the air as his tune reaches its climax.

The parade of guest bloggers parading through the Culture Vulture blog doesn't let up - indeed, now it's stopped pissing down in Somerset, they seem to be careering through in greater numbers. Here's The Libertines' Gary Powell (Me, Carl, and Anthony from the band, we were possibly going to do something impromptu, kind of guerilla style - after all, we started the whole guerilla thing anyway, but Karl's had to go back to London because his girlfriend's ill.); and here's Charlie and Bryan from the Dead 60s ("This is first time at Glastonbury, for both of us, but because of weather we haven't really made it out of the main stages area. But we want to go to the stone circle and the teepee field. We need a bit of chanting.")

Glastoblog went to see Chas and Dave - they blew the roof off, apparently - and, also, heard that people had made it in over the fence on Friday night. Glastonbury rumour - or a sign that no fence can keep determind people out?



On Friday, the Guardian Review was shaking its head over the poor quality of Chris Martin's songwriting; the BBC glastonbury blog stayed up late to type up the full text of his introduction to one song:

"This is for Johnny Cash," he began solemnly. "And my dad also. And for Gay Dad, who played here some years ago. And for My Two Dads - remember My Two Dads?"

Yes, Greg Evigan and the one from Mad About You. We remember My Two Dads, and we can picture the face the Judge would be making if you tried to get stuff like this past her. There's a fine line between surreal genius and meanignless babbling, and Chris Martin is not even anywhere near that fine line. Indeed, he would have to hire a taxi to even get him anywhere near it.

More importantly, Ian Youngs has spotted further creeping evidence that Glastonbury isn't what it was. Chairs.

As well as the Cath Kidston tents, the other must-have accessory for this year's discerning festival-goer appears to be a folding camping chair. There are ranks of them on the Pyramid field. It reminds me of seaside towns where ageing folk sit in rows of deckchairs in front of a bandstand.

Now, when I was young and happy to squelch in mud, you'd get the odd joker with a deckchair hanging about, but it was considered very bad manners indeed to put a chair down in front of a stage - after all, it's meant to be a massing throng of bodies and it's hard to cram people in and mosh if there's someone sat in the middle of a field with a shooting stick, a full picnic basket and a travel blanket, rooting about in their belongings to find the travel Scrabble and their Anne Tyler novel. It's the festival equivalent of getting on the tube with a backpack on. If you want a nice sit down, try Glyndebourne.

Largehearted Boy records the speed with which the Elvis Costello set was made available in DVD quality bittorrent - very fast, indeed.

Back in the South West, Soundgenerator stood in the drizzle to watch Keane play:

The proverbial 'couples' band play a hits laden set in overcast conditions, and there's a certain degree of emotion that follows the three-piece around. Much seems to rub off on tonight's 50,000 or so. 'You're amazing, you really are' says a clearly overwhelmed Tom Chaplin.

Want to see a huge pantomime horse? RobertPrice has been hooking his Nokia up to a blogging tool and snapping the site's sights left and right.

As you might expect, the Oxfam generation Y blog is a little bit more worthy with its spotting:



Joss Stone in Make Poverty History pants; Avid Merrion wearing MPH wristbands; that sort of thing. That'll get the four horsemen of the Apocalypse nervous.

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