Glastonbury Quick Recap and Awards
Move over Grammy's and MOBO's, there's a hot new award in town - The Georgia's!
Glastonbury, the annual music festival that sees Worthy Farm in Somerset become temporary home to 200,000 revellers for a few days each year, is as much a part of the British summer as rain showers, Wimbledon, and comparing lobster-red skin with fellow sunstroke victims who forgot the power of the glowing fire orb in the sky. It is something I look forward to watching on the television from the privacy of my own home, which is joyfully replete with clean, functioning toilets and comfortable seating.
To that end, I thought I’d celebrate this year’s exercise in middle-class ecstasy and hypocrisy (hello signs about destroying national borders all while surrounded by a huge, forbidding fence with security guards on patrol) by giving out the inaugural Georgia Awards to the acts I enjoyed the most this year. In no particular order, here they are:
Award for Ageing Like Fine Wine – Texas
You can interpret that award title as you like, because chances are you’d be right. Texas is one of those bands that I forget is absolutely brilliant until I hear them again and find myself whacking the volume up and singing along. Glastonbury 2023 saw the band return to the filth farm for the first time since 1999, and my word, what a return it was. The band was faultlessly slick, and frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri offered self-deprecating charm by the bucketload, warning the crowd of her impending, “shetty meddle-aged dancin’” (my Glaswegian accent is better written down than spoken aloud, I promise).
To be honest, and this is shallow, it was just nice to see a middle-aged woman looking middle-aged. It suited her. She was beautiful, expressive, and her voice was every bit as fine and strong as it ever was. Top marks all round.
Award for Most Unexpected Set – Rick Astley and Blossoms
Apparently, it’s “Blossoms”, and not “The Blossoms”, as I kept mistakenly saying during their performance. I also have it on good authority that it’s “Rick Astley” and not “The Rick Astley”, but really, I think he deserves the definite article. 1980’s Golden Boy and eternal hero of Lancashire, Rick Astley, teaming up with contemporary rock band Blossoms to deliver an entire set of songs by The Smiths was not something I had on my bingo card, but what a lovely surprise.
Their shared passion for The Smiths shone through, with the band dedicating themselves fully to the neat yet flamboyant stylings of the legendary act. Astley, for his part, positively glowed throughout. His rich baritone suited the songs perfectly, and he acted them out like a man madly in love with his job, which I rather suspect he was. The comradery of the individuals on stage, combined with their shared love of the music, allowed for a seamless performance in what could have been, well, a bit weird.
Award for Best “Absolutely Fabulous” Tribute Act – Blondie
Debbie Harry is 78 years old, and it would seem that the self-pickling process she has been working on since the 70’s has really paid off. The band’s latest line-up handled the big hits well, and Debbie Harry just did what the f*ck she wanted to, which is fine, because she’s Debbie f*cking Harry.
Her voice isn’t quite as smooth or clear as it used to be, but if you turn every song into spoken word, then it doesn’t really matter, although it did have the slightly unsettling effect that driving behind certain silver-haired types instills. You know the (very real) stereotype of the older driver who picks a speed and sticks to it, no matter where they are? Driving past a school? 30mph. Cruising down the motorway? 30mph. Supermarket car park? 30mph. It was a similar effect with Harry’s more casual approach to singing. Slightly unnerving until you hit Rapture, and then it fitted perfectly.
What was clear to me is that she has not lost one ounce of her enigmatic rockstar stage presence or appeal, and the crowd clearly had a great time.
And finally….
The Award for the Most Cate Blanchett Featured – Sparks, feat. Cate Blanchett
This was not a difficult award to hand out this year, although it was disappointing to see so few entrants in the category. Thankfully, it turns out that the men of Sparks are not only still alive, but they are friends with Cate Blanchett in real life, lucky dogs. She worked with them on their recent video for “The Girl is Crying into Her Latte”, a more tame follow up to the “Girl With a Dragon Tattoo” book and film series, I believe. In the video, and indeed on stage at Glastonbury, Cate Blanchett can be seen looking resplendent in a bright yellow suit and performing interpretive dance to the song, occasionally checking that Sparks are still there on either side of her, a bit like how my toddler likes to check I’m still there when he wanders off to find a favourite toy at play group.
I always say that anything is good if it features Cate Blanchett, and I am yet to change my mind. Hopefully, she is simply trying to get her money’s worth for the yellow suit, and we may yet see her popping up and dancing in other places too: appearing between the bags of peas in the frozen aisle at Aldi, perhaps, or behind the Umpire’s chair at Wimbledon being carefully avoided by the well-drilled ball-boys and girls – not even nuclear war would break their stride.
Top marks for Cate Blanchetting. The music was good too.
I hope you enjoyed my recap of Glastonbury 2023. There are various clips available on youtube, but the whole lot of it is on BBC iPlayer. Remember, it will ask you if you have a TV licence, but they have no way of knowing whether or not you do.
Girls, Girls, Girls . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/girls-girls-girls
flamme en el l'obscurité . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/flamme-en-el-lobscurite