Glastonbury 1998: The Life Of Riley

The Lightning Seeds 98 set marked another piece of Glastonbury's legendary piss-poor planning. On the first night, England were due to play Colombia in World Cup Match, upon which hung the chances of the team's progression to be crushingly defeated in the middle stages of the contest. Perhaps hoping that the various attractions of the festival might keep people away from the prospect of Jimmy Hill in his lucky St Georges bow tie - on a big screen, mother - the decision was taken to show the match only in the cinema field.

It might have just about worked, too, had the start of World Cup Grandstand (as it still was then, correctly) not dovetailed with the Lightning Seeds finishing their set on the Pyramid Stage with a rousing Three Lions. Stood in the cinema field, you could hear thousands of voices raised insisting there'd be no more years of hurt before the Seeds went off the stage and their audience turned to traipse towards the cinema stage. Up some narrow, already muddy lanes.

Luckily, realising they had unleashed a health and safety nightmare, the organisers suddenly decided to patch the match through to the screens at the side of the stage.

Then it started pissing down anyway, so all but the strongest gave up before the half-time business.

In order to avoid health and safety nightmares here, and because live Three Lions was so ropey it doesn't seem to have made it onto YouTube, here's them doing The Life Of Riley instead:



[Part of Glastonbury 1998]