TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Hi Mark

Soon be Glastonbury, do you enjoy presenting at this festival.. and are there any 'stories' you could tell us?

Cheers Jenny

And as I am going to Glastonbury this year for the first time since 1972, when it was a bit smaller, have you any 'must sees' at this years festival as it's clearly impossible to see everything?

The biggest 'must see' is The Destroyers who are playing at least 4 times, check out their web site for details, one of my favourite Glasto discoveries.

Also there are usually some Hobo Jones 'secret' gigs at various places late at night - try and find em because they are even more riotous then their Beautiful Days gigs.

As was Glastonbury.

I really love presenting Glastonbury. Cropredy and Cambridge and a few others are really lovely, warm festivals but there is nothing like Glasto for the explosions of colour and sound you encounter. The scale of it is utterly bewildering at first until, like a big city, you start to break it down into its component little villages - I particularly like the Avalon stage which ir run by Eddie who books Cambridge and Dave who manages the Levellers and runs Beautiful Daze. I played there on my 50th birthday with The Mahones - the crowd sang happy birthday and Zane Lowe introduced us. Then I went up in the BBC helicopter and saw the whole site from above - amazing, the tor in the distance - and then used my stage pass to sit by the monitor desk and watch Leonard Cohen doing 'Hallelujah'. You're not going to get many better days than that in a life are you?

I couldn't possibly start trying to list 'must-sees' - there's just too much and one of the things about Glasto that you have to be so aware of is that it can take you a long time to get from one stage to another - especially in bad weather so you finish up missing stuff you wanted to see. For what it's worth I'm lloking forward to Elbow, Paul Simon (who I've never seen), Fisherman's Friends, Fleet Foxes, Bellowhead, Darwin Deez, Crystal Castles (mentalist!), Lykke Li, Duane Eddy, Pentangle and of course the truly great John Cooper Clarke. A genius and no mistake.

I love the people I work with at Glasto - especially Jo - and you get the feeling that anyone between the ages of about 11 and 91 who likes music catches a bit of it at some point. I feel pretty lucky to be one of the presenters really. And I always find myself perched on a hay bail somewhere raising a contemplative glass to Peely with whom I spent so many happy times there.

Not forgetting theWombles of course.

Thanks Mark. That must have been a great 50th.

I know Glastonbury is big so I'm prepared. I agree John Cooper Clarke is a must see (been a fan of his from the start), and Bellowhead are certainly on the radar.

Looks like we'll be heading for the Avalon stage for most of the time. I didn't realise that Dave was involved in it. Another question leading from that. Beautiful Days is my favourite festival - any chance of seeing you perform there one day?

Sandra -Bellowhead perchance?

Mark - Space Ritual (Hawkwind)?

Cocos Lovers are well worth catching. Sort of an more folky English Fleet Foxes... ish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbzl71V-xGc

Mark have a great time at Cropredy, I will be looking forward to your links  :)

Cropredy?

Doh! And too late to change it.
Glastonbury. Glastonbury.

Very much enjoying your homage to John Peel there, Mark!

did you leave the blue 2's at home? or are you planning a dubliners type band?

So did I hear you say U2 were putting out the 'same old tripe' and has there been any BBC response?
Nice hat!

 ;D Fair play to Mark if he did. Someone needs to restore a little balance after the odious U2 Day that Beeb radio inflicted on us a year or two back.  :D

Wed - rain, mud
Thurs - rain, mud, rain
Fri - mud, rain
Sat - Sunshine!
Sun - Sunshine!

overall - 6/10

Lovely to see Sandra & Chris (as always)

Now that's a review!  :D