Glastonbury 25

[PaulWarning]

just listened to John Fogerty on the iPlayer, the sound was so much better than when I listened to him live, the bass was up in the mix, and we got the full set, wish he hadn't done quite so much talking though, he might have had time to do Bad Moon Rising then

Edited July 1 by PaulWarning

[BigRedX]

On 30/06/2025 at 02:02, Linus27 said:

 

So an update on these questions. It's too early to say and I'm not in a position to say because I only joined the band a few months ago. The main person in the band, Andrew who's band it is and named after, spotted me at a gig and basically said he needs me in his band, approached me and here I am. However, I am just his bassist and no more. Andrew has however played Glastonbury for about the last 13-15 years and has supported Marrilion, released albums and written music for TV and adverts. That is as much as I know. So financially I can't say but from what I know artists do have to pay for tickets (I didn't) and Andrew did but I'm not sure if he gets any for free or reduced rates. I don't know if every artist has to or if it's just the smaller artists. Maybe the big named artists do as well but I really don't know what their arrangement is with the organisers and getting to play. We did however get treated very well as an artist and get ferried about, fed with our own facilities. In regards to playing 4 shows, we were offered these slots but possibly due to Andrew's contacts. Next time in 2027 if we play, we are aiming for the Greenpeace stage. We sold a few vinyl records but to be honest, nobody wants to carry a vinyl record around with them all day, plus we saw no band, small or large selling any merchandise, it was only the official Glastonbury T-shirts that were for sale.

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

Due to the sheer scale of the event and numbers who attend, are you guaranteed an audience or do some bands end up playing to virtually no-one on a stage tucked away in an unpopular corner of the site? Has anyone who has attended as a punter witnessed this?

 

I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of festivals in general, but the more I hear about the festival the less impressed I am from a band's PoV. Like so much in the current musical climate the artists who appear to be able to make it work are those who already have some success and a following.

[borntohang]

10 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

Due to the sheer scale of the event and numbers who attend, are you guaranteed an audience or do some bands end up playing to virtually no-one on a stage tucked away in an unpopular corner of the site? Has anyone who has attended as a punter witnessed this?

 

I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of festivals in general, but the more I hear about the festival the less impressed I am from a band's PoV. Like so much in the current musical climate the artists who appear to be able to make it work are those who already have some success and a following.

Oh yeah, I've been to shows at Glastonbury with five people at them. There are just so many artists, so many small stages, and not enough time in the day.

 

On my second visit I was still discovering entire areas of the festival site with multiple stages I'd never even seen listed on a timetable. Lots of them were just vendors or art groups throwing up a riser in the corner of their location or similar. It's not your standard "main stage and two big tops" festival setup. 

 

That works both ways though: there are punters who go to hang about Strummerville/Arcadia/Shangri-La for the entire weekend and will never even be within earshot of Pyramid, so there are built in crowds for some of the more niche stages. 

Edited July 1 by borntohang

[SteveXFR]

What was this bass Georgia South is playing here? 

 

 

[Woodinblack]

19 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

What was this bass Georgia South is playing here? 

 

 

 

A custom Prohaszka Guitars build

 

if you have facebook it is here (actually, it is here whether you have facebook or not).

 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1774320443359970

 

[BassTool]

7 hours ago, Buzzy said:

My fave Glasto moment, old friends reunited

@Buzzy

 

Absolutely genius Sir 🤣🤣🤣 I nearly choked on my Werther's Original! 🤭

[Stub Mandrel]

8 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

 

 *titter*

 

He was, genuinely, a gynaecologist.

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

hardcore

 

When people start discussing any music with 'core' at the end of its name, expect fireworks...

[Leonard Smalls]

4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

He was, genuinely, a gynaecologist

Indeed!

And the only time I've enjoyed Country and Western is when Hank W. did it.

 

[Buddster]

7 hours ago, gjones said:

It doesn't help that the sound, from the BBC, always sounds weak. I assume it's because they're just taking the live feed from the desk. I have noticed that the sound of many of the videos does get 'tweaked' and remixed at a later date. Which can restore stuff, like the missing bass and bring down the ridiculously prominent bass drum.

 

Interesting discussion on reddit about the subject 

 

 

To comment on the reddit feed... 

Not all sound engineers are music sound engineers. Or another way, there are multi disciplines of sound engineering. 

I couldn't engineer a tv studio sound with multiple lapel mics, but I can mix and record a band. It's not easy to swap. 

Yes, they should use engineers who can mix music, but just because it's the BBC doesn't mean they have enough avaliable. 

Mrs B is fed up with me complaining about the sound on tv from Glastonbury. 

 

A tale from a long time ago. 

Back in the early 80s, I did the sound for a Bristol band that got a slot on Pebble Mill at One. 

I sat in the control room while it was being recorded and the chief engineer said "ooh I like this" and mixed the whole thing on the studio Tanoys. Not even checking on a small tv speaker. Which i found odd at the time. 

When we came to listen back in the Green room on the tv, the sound was terrible. Really tinny and weak. 

I know i can't tar every BBC engineer with the same brush (I've sat in on Radio 1 recordings at Maida Vale studios, which were fine), but I've never completely trusted tv engineers to mix bands. 

[Bluewine]

13 hours ago, tegs07 said:

The poster suggests that like the early days of Glastonbury it was a more organic, less commercial, community driven festival. Different times with less of the pressures of budget, health and safety, policing, community relations and all the non musical aspects that dominate music festivals now. I would think more exciting times when there wasn’t a massive industry looking to profit from the consumption of music and youth culture, just people who wanted to get a scene together and have a good time. To a large extent it was started by the hippies, revived by the punks and had its last hurrah in the early days of hip hop. 

 

For now it is the domain of big business. Safer, bigger, more polished and professional. But very different.

 

Very astute commentary. 

 

Time goes on it happened and I was lucky to be there. I also get that it's the past. We can't have 1970 in 2025.

 

I'll say one thing. I could say more but I'll only say one. In 2025 Lu Lu looks fantastic. 

 

Daryl

[Rich]

5 hours ago, borntohang said:

there are punters who go to hang about Strummerville/Arcadia/Shangri-La for the entire weekend and will never even be within earshot of Pyramid, 

Back in 1986 or 7, two of my colleagues who had recently become a romantic item went to that year's Glasto. On the following Tuesday, I asked them which bands they'd seen... turned out that the answer was 'none'. They'd spent the entire weekend in their tent, smoking dope and shagging. So yes, they never got within earshot of the Pyramid either.

[borntohang]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Back in 1986 or 7, two of my colleagues who had recently become a romantic item went to that year's Glasto. On the following Tuesday, I asked them which bands they'd seen... turned out that the answer was 'none'. They'd spent the entire weekend in their tent, smoking dope and shagging. So yes, they never got within earshot of the Pyramid either.

I have the opposite story: the last time I went two of my social circle who were dating had bought tickets together and then split up just before the festival. They couldn't afford/didn't want to lose the tickets so went together in a tiny tent and somehow every act I actually saw they were stood somewhere at the back looking incredibly miserable.

 

Why didn't they just split up and go find some interesting things/hot people, in this huge festival the size of a city, full of interesting things/hot people? It is a mystery for the ages. 

Edited July 1 by borntohang

[LowB_FTW]

Last time I visited this thread it was only 2 pages long 😂

Not wanting to read 18 pages of posts I'll just go ahead and relate to you my 2025 Glastonbury experience …

I started watching Neil Young on the BBC broadcast, the sound was so terrible I made it through maybe 3 or 4 songs before turning over to watch the Jeff Beck performance at Ronnie Scott's.

I'd never actually seen this performance and loved every moment of it - apart from the many, many advert breaks - but what a great set.

 

Mark

[Owen]

I have just discovered that Ca7triel and Paco Amoroso were playing. No iPlayer action so watch this. They are LAYING it down. 

 

 

[gjones]

5 hours ago, Buddster said:

 

To comment on the reddit feed... 

Not all sound engineers are music sound engineers. Or another way, there are multi disciplines of sound engineering. 

I couldn't engineer a tv studio sound with multiple lapel mics, but I can mix and record a band. It's not easy to swap. 

Yes, they should use engineers who can mix music, but just because it's the BBC doesn't mean they have enough avaliable. 

Mrs B is fed up with me complaining about the sound on tv from Glastonbury. 

 

A tale from a long time ago. 

Back in the early 80s, I did the sound for a Bristol band that got a slot on Pebble Mill at One. 

I sat in the control room while it was being recorded and the chief engineer said "ooh I like this" and mixed the whole thing on the studio Tanoys. Not even checking on a small tv speaker. Which i found odd at the time. 

When we came to listen back in the Green room on the tv, the sound was terrible. Really tinny and weak. 

I know i can't tar every BBC engineer with the same brush (I've sat in on Radio 1 recordings at Maida Vale studios, which were fine), but I've never completely trusted tv engineers to mix bands. 

I have friend who was a Bbc engineer and is also a bassist. He says the same thing about the shortage of engineers with live music experience within the BBC.

[super al]

Was a bit disappointed that the BBC didn't have Roy Harper's performance on the iPlayer ... either they thought he is irrelevant or he'd cause more trouble than Bob Vylan!

Luckily we live in an age of smart phones so I can watch Roy's set from every single angle on Facebook. Some of the footage I'd say is better than the BBC's own work... especially that annoying shaky camera during Neil Young's set.

I rarely enjoy Glastonbury on the box these days due to the onset of musicwasbetterinmydayism in my mid 50s but after watching Neil Young/Old the beeb put Doecii on (hope I've spelt that right?) and she blew my greying grey matter. Great staging, choreography and a couple of "how is she doing that?" moments.

I avoided Rod the silly old sod on Sunday, I jumped in the river instead... perhaps I'm not as old as I thought I was 😁

[Leonard Smalls]

13 hours ago, Buddster said:

but I've never completely trusted tv engineers to mix bands. 

Nowadays that's not necessarily the case, as most will be freelancers specialising in whatever aspect of sound recording/mixing they're hired for...

However, you definitely have a point about the past! I worked with studio sound people a lot in the days of live Top Of The Pops; their thinking was the sound must be "as is", no FX, no making it sound any better as that was cheating and not putting out exactly what was put in. This, I might add was also when these folks were exclusively recruited as engineers - there was no time for fancy frills and expression, twas purely a matter of keeping it within spec and watching the meters. Their thinking was "if the band don't sound good enough on their own it's not our job to help 'em!". As a result, most bands sounded terrible! I also had them working for me on a well known drama, and the amount of grief we had just convincing them to actually add to the plot with a spot of intelligent sound design was amazing. Not all of 'em, I might add!

So I kept the best 2 or 3 and brought in sound dubbing mixers from Post Production (the others were studios) - their job was to make it sound good so that's what they attempted to do but because of studios demarcation, those mixers never got a look-in at music mixing.

[Leonard Smalls]

13 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

any music with 'core' at the end of its name

When I were a lad there were only two cores (apart from apple) - soft and hard.

Soft was found under the Magic Porn Bush, with its pages stuck together by rain and who knows what, and hard was near-mythical - most certainly not what was shown in cinemas with titles like "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" or "Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse".

[stingrayPete1977]

At some point the Jools Holland and Glastonbury threads will merge. 

 

How many years of complaining about the mix or the acts do people endure before they realise it's not compulsory or legally binding to watch either of them? 

[YellowLedBetterBass]

Rewatching some of the sets yesterday and today. I think my favourites have been Inhaler (that P Bass tone was incredible) and Biffy Clyro. Both bands I liked sort of but was never a massive fan as such, but I will definitely make an effort to see both of them again.

[Doctor J]

.

Edited July 2 by Doctor J

[Steve Browning]

24 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

At some point the Jools Holland and Glastonbury threads will merge. 

 

How many years of complaining about the mix or the acts do people endure before they realise it's not compulsory or legally binding to watch either of them? 

 

Or follow the threads maybe? 🙂

[Doctor J]

 

24 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

At some point the Jools Holland and Glastonbury threads will merge. 

 

How many years of complaining about the mix or the acts do people endure before they realise it's not compulsory or legally binding to watch either of them?

 To complete the set, just wait for Eurovision to come around again so people can tell you how many years it has been since they watched. It seems to be very important information for everybody to be aware of 😁

[Mrbigstuff]

Anyone else finding the sets available on I player a bit restricted? There’s quite a few sets I missed and wanted to catch up on but can’t find them in the menus! Seems to mostly just be the well known acts.