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Ah, arriving home. As I slipped into a bath - a hot, hot bath - on the radio, Kate Aldridge was giving birth in the Green Field. Luckily, someone caught Phoebe before she disappeared under the Somerset mud forever.
Concluding the romp through Glastonbury ten years ago, then, here's Underworld's Born Slippy. In two parts, because of the YouTube ten minute rule:
[Part of Glastonbury 1998 videos]
Yes, I'd fled by Sunday lunchtime, figuring that there was no point in staying on a site where you couldn't get from stage to stage without an hour of cautious shuffling, spending the day being miserable and wet and not being able to see the bands you wanted to - the new bands tent was constantly full of people who were just hiding from the rain.
The trains out of Castle Carey were full, too - the railway company had hopefully provided everybody with those little blue overshoes you get in model homes to protect the trains, seemingly oblivious that the large numbers of passengers clambering onboard were covered in mud from nose to toenail. And have you ever tried to pull an overshoe on a Doc Martin boot anyway?
To my dying day I will recall the toilets at Temple Meads, and the sweet joy of being able to come out with less mud on you than you came in with. I'm telling myself it was mud. Mud. Yes.
So, in tribute to Bristol, and the people of Bristol, and the sweet, sweet railway toilets of Bristol, here's Portishead doing Western Eyes.
[WARNING: quite stobe-filled]
[Part of Glastobury 1998]
A brief glimpse of a smiling John Peel, and then we're in to a slice of Placebo's 1998 Glastonbury set that, clearly, has been lifted from someone's Brian Molko VHS stash - though it how survived from the endless freeze-framing, we'll never know.
[Part of Glastonbury 1998]
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]
It's a tradition (= we did it last year and so will do it again this year) for us to remind ourselves of a gentler, happier Glastonbury ten years ago through the medium of video while the new event is pouring out of Somerset.
Except, of course, ten years ago wasn't happy. It was bloody miserable; we know, because - while Blur were doing this set - we were stood watching them. Except, we weren't standing. We were treading water, to try and stop the top of our boots disappearing under the churning mud. It looks so much better from here:
More videos - and embittered reminiscence, no doubt - as the weekend continues
Lightning Seeds - The Life Of Riley
Catatonia - Road Rage
Placebo - Lady Of The Flowers
Portishead - Western Eyes
Underworld - Born Slippy
Rob DaBank has paused to brush a nostalgic tear from his eye and recall the good old days of Glastonbury - all of ten years ago:
