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Yellow

Sorry man, you should be looking at this...

Work in progress from 09 July 2007...

Sunday night, a few hours after I saw her, I lay in the tent feeling it all slip away from me. I was stoned of course, and I saw that there was nothing left of it. It had been a slog of survival management. A defensive wall had enveloped me from the beginning, a tornado wind-wall if you like, and through it I could not hear the thanks, nor feel any regard, nor imagine that anyone had spared me a thought; least of all her. You see the blonde in blue and aviator shades looking at you. You shake the hand of the security chief and share an honest word, you shake the hand of every steward you can find and you leave the gate on your own to drink beer alone and conjure up a dream you cannot share; one that seems so predictable and familiar. You are sleeping close enough to people you can hear them turn in the night, but you are a million miles away from them; dope or no dope. In the morning I knew I would have to pack up and get down to Red Gate bus station. It was raining. There would be 25,000 people trying to get out, on any coach, at Red Gate. The site was trashed. It was the third bad year in a row. There was mud everywhere; on all my clothes, inside my boots. I could feel the airbed slowly going down. I wouldn't be taking it back with me.

On the plus side I was stoned, and would be for some time to come. I had enough malt whisky left to fuel my escape, two grand on a credit card and sufficient cash to get me back to London from anywhere in the West Country. My biggest worry was the walk to Red Gate. I was guessing it would take around 45 minutes and I was afraid of breaking an ankle or passing out en route. As I lay there listening to the rain batter the tent I regurgitated the snapshots of her body; the teeth, the breasts, the calves, her fingers running over the scar tissue below her knee. Each picture began to fade. All this is nothing, I told myself. I was too exhausted to review the usual details: Her as a woman, me as a gimp; she beautiful and resourceful, me ugly and helpless. It was pointless, that old routine. I decided to get on with it: Give myself over to the sadness and drink a nice cup of shut the fuck up.

...

I had arrived just after midday on Monday, driven down Blue Route and dropped near Ped Gate Bravo. It took less than an hour to register and set the tent up. By mid-afternoon I was sitting inside a big frame tent nearby drinking tea with the host and smoking the grass I had just bought with a third of my money. It was dry, fine and powdery, small crystals with a scattering of anemic looking buds. It was my first smoke in many months. The tea tasted good. Getting back to crew camping was a somewhat testing.

Everything was going my way. I could hardly believe it. The shift pattern was Thursday 2-10pm, Friday 10-6am and Sunday 6-2pm. I figured that to be lucky, for many reasons which I won't bore you with.

Nuts were catering in the marquee again this year - the best food and drink on the whole site. One bank of the flushing toilets was open. The sun was shining. I smoked another joint outside my tent and chatted to a passing scouser who looked a lot like an Irishman I once knew - similar mannerisms too. I took photos and later that evening sallied down the main drag to the Stone Circle.

All the crews were out in force. Mostly youngsters eager to make the best of it. Some newcomers seemed shocked at how crazy it was already going. These are the best days, the early days, with the playpen ours alone and a common bond and knowledge. I stopped at one of the tree branch benches outside The Tiny Tea Tent for a rest. A middle-aged woman with dyed-blonde hair was sitting at the end of the seat, near the serving area. She was dressed like an actress who had hit her heyday in low-budget 70s movies, although I had trouble making her out against the backdrop of candlelight.

"Do you know how much a herbal tea costs?" she asked. I noticed that she was drinking from a mug.
"I think it's about one-fifty/two pounds."
"Not here; I mean generally."
"Oh, outside? I'm not sure. I suppose Starbucks would charge more. Maybe two pounds. Most places in London would charge that."
"It's about right here then."
"I suppose so."
I gathered myself up.
"What is it that you do here - do you mind me asking?"
"No, not at all. I work backstage at Jazz World. It's an admin role you could say. I help people; help the bands. I also look out for problems."
"Have you been doing that for long?"
"Many years now. I live in the Canary Islands and come over once a year for Glastonbury and to see family. What do you do?"
"I'll be working one of the pedestrian gates. I've been doing it for a while. I love it. I love the people and the work. I find that every year gets better for me. It's an important part of my life now. A major part of my life."
She leaned forward, said softly: "Look, there's a sky lantern..."
I looked up and saw an orange smudge high in the night sky drifting North.
"They're beautiful aren't they?" she said.
"Yes."
We sat in silence for some time. I took a slug of water from the bottle and a rollie from the tin.
"What is it...that you do...in the real world?"
"I'm a writer. I write for travel magazines - for people coming to the Canary Islands."
"I do a bit of writing myself. For about 20 years now. I've never been published."
"What I do for a living is not serious. It's quite superficial really."
Silence again. We watched the passers-by. I stubbed the cigarette out in my portable ashtray and stood up.
"Well, I'd better get on. I hope you have a good festival. Take care of yourself."
"You too."

The Greenfields were pitch dark, but I left my torch in the butt pack. About 50 people were gathered around a fire at the Stone Circle. Music was coming from somewhere; drums; and the circle of bodies hummed with drunken, high conversation; all of them bathed in an orange glow - orange faces, orange bodies, one or two people moving with the music; outsiders like me standing in a ring with the stones. To one side a few people were lighting a sky lantern. I observed the faces around the fire for a while as outsiders do - looking for an opening but not really wanting one. I gazed on the aspect to learn and give witness. You travel through time in this way. And as it was, a better place to die than any I can think of.

...

Tuesday morning I showered and brushed my teeth. I walked down the marquee for a meal and made a bee line for the Nuts end - heading for the outside café that served salads, vegetarian breakfasts and the best filter coffee on site. It was pretty much the same rig-up as 2005. They had tables at the front of the wagon covered with open-sided canvas and camouflage netting. It was a good place to smoke, relax, meet people and, as I mentioned before, the food was superb.

The main marquee was impressively big. You could seat maybe two, three, four hundred people in the there. There was a rip-off joint at one end, swarming with flies and selling shite, and the main Nuts at the other. Nuts interior served hot dinners - good ones too - and they had a small bar dealing draft beer and shorts for reasonable prices. The shit joint was stocking tiny cans of Stella for £2.00. Nuts were knocking out big pint skiffs of lager and cider for £2.50 a pop. Their Gin and Tonic was excellent - ice, fresh lemon (probably organic, unwaxed) and good Gin for £2.00. I gave their people every courtesy, praising the food and service frequently. Apart from one pie from the Square Pie Company down the hill I ate at Nuts exclusively. I felt great and lost half a stone in seven days.

I can't remember, exactly, when I started to look for her face. Maybe it was from the beginning, unconsciously, when I walked in to registration at Bravo. I found that when I walked into the marquee I was scanning, scanning. I did have an excuse: I could have been looking for all sorts of people - people I have worked with over the last six years - but I was also looking for her. Not all of the time, but at many key moments. I thought she would be at that evening's briefings. I figured that if I was going to lay my eyes on her it would most likely be then. Monday was a probably write-off. Knowing her as I did I calculated she would get here today, Tuesday, or even Wednesday. But she would be a Supervisor or more likely a Team Leader, so I expected to see her that evening at seven. I had no plans to talk to her you understand. It would be enough, for me, just to see her. It was as much as I could hope for.

As I walked into the marquee, it must have been about 9am, my eyes fell on another woman I had met at The Green Man Festival in 2006. She recognised me too.

I had camped near her at The Green Man, and later worked with her at the Folkey Dokey stage. She was a strange bird - not the sort for festivals you would think - insofar as you can say that about anyone. She seemed a little cold and uptight to me from the off - and her husband struck me as a snarky one too. My seminal moment, as far as she was concerned in my view, came late one night when she had loudly told a young couple to stop talking in their tent - it was bothering her sleep. I was stoned and enjoying the conversation, and I half thought to jump out of the tent and tell her to shut up. Later, on shift, we talked. It was never far from my mind that she regarded me as a weasel of some kind, tent stinking of skunk as it did, but I gave her every break and regard. After all, maybe it was all a hallucination. We had got talking about Glastonbury and I had gone off on one - the usual thing. She slowed, stopped, and looked at me sincerely...

"Is it really that important to you?"
"It's everything to me."

Now here she was; her first Glastonbury. I breezily asked in passing what she thought. For a moment she looked like a little girl - so embarrassed she averted her gaze...

"It's so big." And her voice broke on the word big.

...

I spent the day wandering around, for hours, taking photos, talking to people occasionally. I got back to the tent to prepare for the evening. Preparation consisted mostly of getting stoned and rolling as many joints as I could before boredom overcame me. My initial plan was to roll a round dozen, but I soon I realised that some finesse was called for.

I rolled six normal joints with the grass I had scored the previous day and put them in a 99-pence plastic beaker I had bought from Woolworth's to initially hold whisky. I had two reefer tubes - plastic tubes with lids essentially - that I had bought in Amsterdam. These I reserved for what I thought would be two strong joints - to be produced at strategic moments in the evening. I then calculated that the proper thing to do would be to roll one very big and possibly powerful joint. I had some supersize papers with me and I deployed three of them for this final act. It wasn't easy. I put two cigarettes in and lost track of how much grass, but by this time I was thinking 'fuck it' - and said so aloud in the tent. Getting the rocket together was problematic and it required extensive repairs. It just fit, at an angle, in the beaker.

Then I went down the hill to visit the three amigos and see what else I could do for that night's party. Not a lot, as it turned out.

I had known these guys, tenuously, for about two years. They didn't work many festivals, but when they did they did it in amazing style. There seemed to be about a dozen people camped at the Alamo - in a big ring of tents. At the back was the main residence. This was truly impressive; it had bedrooms, a huge lounge and a chill-out area. There was a kitchen with a range, a big table, three fridges and god knows what else. The courtyard was reached via a gatehouse which they had built from 4-inch wooden poles. In the center of the courtyard was a fire with a jury-rigged sofa - again made of wood. Opposite was a simple but elegant three-sided tipi in pale taupe held up with painted wooden poles, with one side open, facing the fire. Scattered around were a dozen or so folding chairs. They had shipped all this stuff down and had set it up Saturday night. There was the chief amigo, the quiet amigo, and the smart amigo. As I say, there were various other people camped there - 3 boys, a daughter in her 30s and several guests. Collectively, some resident guests included, I think we had all been smoking dope for at least 200 years.

The Chief Amigo handed me an ice-cold Stella. Then there was the usual hiatus that smokers endure: A sort of 'what do we do now factor' of steady anticipation. But as always, with the amigos, things eventually got started: Through the wind and despite the haze. The Chief began coordinating. He had a deadpan and deliberate Midlands intonation, difficult for me to place and laden with something unfamiliar. I had never heard him laugh, although I had seen him smile a lot.

I put a couple of tables together and filled bottles with water. I assembled the barbeques and ran a few chores. There were big paella pans for the curries - big enough for the kids to use as sledges in the winter - and boxes of food ready for chopping, slicing and blending. More people arrived and got wrapped up in the work: Curries, chaat, naan, samozas - for 50.

Just before 7 I went back to crew camping for the Team Leader briefing. I got to the marquee directly from the Alamo. She wasn't there. I hunkered down near the edge of the central tables and greeted a Geordie I had known since last year - since Womad and The Green Man. He was running at a rate of about 9 or 10 festivals a year, maybe more...

He smiled as he sat next to me. "Sit here and try to look interested I suppose."

Two veteran supervisors were looking over at me and laughing at the sunburn on my neck.

"Where did you get that from?!"
"I've got a special marker pen." I hadn't realised how cooked I was.

At first we couldn't hear much. There were a couple of hundred other people around us and a lot of them were gabbing. A few of us heckled the speakers and we broke up into small groups outside. It had already been raining - hard - but not now.

There would be 13 different types of ticket this year. Holograms as usual, but with photos on them for the first time. Many types of wristbands. Gates were set to open tomorrow at 10am - and people arriving en masse. With more rain the site would start to get chewed up. It had the potential to be quite bad; but at least I had plenty of Blow and Whisky. If something nasty happened I wouldn't need to face it directly. I had all day tomorrow to kick back and watch the influx; all day to fix a slot to recce the gate. Pedestrian Gate Delta. Ped Gate D. Forty-five Stewards and 5 Gate Organisers. I would be the man with the radio. Why not? Try not to think about it. Move on. Many hours between now and Thursday 2pm.

I loaded up on essentials and headed back down to the Alamo.

I reflect now and I can sense I was on autopilot. Exit that track through the hedge, not stewarded yet, and down past the first check point with blue-suited security; past the trickle of people coming through Bravo; then hook left at at the junction and head into Family Camping. Easy walk: All downhill and a good view of the site: A view I know so well now, although it's never in my dreams. Clear skies, absence of sweat, of discomfort. I execute the maneuver. Check pockets for card wallet and wads of cash. All in good order. At no stage do I stop and wonder about being there. Not once do I cast for a memory, many mad ones too, of this place. It was as if it didn't exist; as if there was no connection or continuity between the years. I knew only secretly, as I now know openly, that the time here would be a flat path through a brown year. The crucial symptom would be the lack of any severe intoxication. Given that I hadn't had a smoke in a long time it was obvious that there would be a bit of wanking going on. But on the other hand I couldn't anticipate any mind-blowing episodes - not like the two long walks; not another hair-raising spacecake from catering or the girl who danced up to me in the dark as I had almost made it back and sang The Wrong Kind Of Man in my face and was dragged away by a bloke who could see I was wasted - even in pitch night - and then me wondering if it had actually happened...and then wondering if I had in fact met some friends from West London and they had tried to talk to me - and I had hallucinated the singing girl. Nothing like that. The grass wasn't that strong. I could drink only so much Whisky. There was just a slim chance of being able to cover enough ground over the next few days to connect with some serious gear - mushrooms ideally. Seven or eight hash truffles might make the nut. A fair whack of dough but it could work. Timing would be crucial. The shift pattern ran the usual 3x9-hour sessions with 24 hours off in between each one. Of course, I felt that right now would be the best time to go for it, but knew my only chance of obtaining the raw materials would be from Wednesday and Thursday onwards - when the hawkers appeared. The Stone Circle, on the other side of the site, would be an interesting and reliable market situation, but only if the weather held - and there was no fucking hope of that.

I got down to the fortress, saw a few of Pink's people, serious looking crusties, lounging around next door. A big set-up they had, but the Alamo beat them on every angle. I met the Chief Amigo and asked him how they had coped with the heavy burst of rain that had struck when I had been at the briefing.

"Oh, we just went inside." And then; "Have you got any joints already rolled?"
"Yeah."
"Shall we get one going then?"

We had a smoke. There must have been about 15 people gathered in the courtyard at this stage; around 8. All the meat and vegetables had been prepared: Everything was ready. Dareios, a principal guest and Early Shift Team Leader, was mixing drinks - Brown Fists (in honour of Brown Friday in 2005 when much of the site flooded). The main ingredient was a big dose of Vodka. I think we had a gallon or two, maybe more. A fair-sized skiff got passed my way and Dareios handed me a straw with tiny chocolate pellets inside. The Chief Amigo was busy but spared the time to say; "The secret of the evening will be pacing yourself."

And the night unraveled.

Copyright Chris Light 2007