Glastonbury, New York, and Some Poker Part I

Writing is much like exercise. Once you start doing it, you enjoy it – but if you haven’t been doing it lots recently, it’s hard to get back into, even if you know you’ll have fun and be a better person for it. Right now I’m not writing any [poker] strategy, and though I love the idea, I haven’t written any fiction for years – I just don’t have the confidence. Thus, my writing skills wither like a dead flower, and my writing muscles waste away like a coma victim. See, my metaphors are all over the place.

There’s a lot to write about, too. Since I last blogged, I’ve been to Glastonbury (the biggest music festival in the world), experienced a huge upswing (91 buyins in ~11k hands), and spent a week in New York, which was the best holiday of my life. It’s been a great summer, and a great year, by far and away the best of my life. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the story.

We start with Glasto. One hundred and eighty thousand people pay for entry, and something like 10,000 to 15,000 more staff (police, musicians, performers, sound engineers, bar staff, etc…) attend (almost) every year. The festival officially opens on a Wednesday morning in June; the music doesn’t start until Friday midday, continuing well past midnight on more than 50 stages until Sunday night.

A good friend of mine opened the Cubehenge stage in Dance Village on the Friday morning with some drum ‘n’ bass and dubstep – unfortunately she was beset by technical problems, namely the decks being crap, but the staff replaced them after ten minutes, and it all went smoothly after that. Opening a stage must be a difficult task. Everyone is still battle-weary from the night before, and crowds congregate slowly, but she played good music, mixed well, judging the audience perfectly and getting them pumped for the rest of the day – really exciting to watch!

There were lots of huge bands this year, but Coldplay, U2, and Beyonce just don’t interest me, even if they’re good live acts. I was there for DJ Shadow, who I actually saw again last Wednesday night in London – he has the ‘shadowsphere’ (hint: look it up on youtube), and the best live act I could ever hope to see in my life, by a long way – as well as Laura Marling, Queens of the Stone Age, Orbital, Radiohead (!!!!!) were announced on the Friday as special guests, Mumford & Sons, Chemical Brothers, Cold War Kids, The Go! Team, and Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd tribute act.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see all of the above, due to clashes and my friends/girlfriend having ridiculous musical tastes and wanting to see other bands – pffffffft – but wow, what a great time we all had. Radiohead were pretty disappointing, though, especially because seeing them meant missing out on what was apparently an incredible Mumford & Sons gig, but oh well, that’s probably being a little results-oriented.

Other than the music, highlights include being witnesses for an impromptu (but not real, unfortunately) lesbian wedding, and discovering nitrous oxide – laughing gas – as a legal, recreational drug. Not to mention spending five days with an incredible group of people! The first four days were muddy as hell, and it rained a hell of a lot, which kinda killed our buzz, but the Sunday was the best day for both the music and sunshine, so we certainly ended the festival on a high.

The absolute best thing about Glasto, though, was Derek, the giant mechanical fire-breathing spider hanging over the crowd at the outdoor club Arcadia, where we saw Orbital. Oh, my, gosh. OH, MY, GOOSSSSSSSSH! No clubbing experience will ever come close, and New York pushed that. The DJ has a button that activates the fire, and can control how hard it comes out; every time it happens, everyone in the crowd lets out a synchronized combination of ‘WOOOOOW’ and ‘OOOOOOH’ and ‘WHOOOOAAAAAH’ and so on. Just….. incredible, being in a crowd that happy and buzzing and feeling the heat of the flames on our faces while getting wowed by the music.