In 1970, the Glastonbury music festival was born. At the time, the festival stretched over two days and T Rex headlined after The Kinks dropped out. Now, over thirty years later, the festival lives on almost yearly with headliners like Coldplay and Radiohead. The journey has been chronicled in a new BBC documentary by veteran music video director Julien Temple, entitled simply, GLASTONBURY. The 2-hour plus opus blends archival footage with festival attendee home video footage and new footage shot by the director to piece together an homage to a festival that has somehow managed to maintain some level of authenticity, unlike so many of its touring festival counterparts that have become increasingly about product placement and sales and less about the music itself. The documentary starts out enjoyable enough as people everywhere begin making their pilgrimage to the now three-day festival with their lodging and supplies crammed in the trunks of their cars. Once there, they set up camp and film begins to compare the numerous different generations that have come to this very spot over the years to celebrate freedom and music. And then Temple seems to forget about the music. Once acts like Nick Cave or Massive Attack or Blur take the stage, they are barely allowed the time to give an entire song’s performance as Temple diverts our attention back to the crowd. The hope is that we might feel as if we are there but the fact remains that we’re not and the footage isn’t good enough to make us feel as if we are. GLASTONBURY is less about the music and more about Temple’s movie, and the movie isn’t very good.
After originally airing on the BBC, GLASTONBURY made its way onto three screens in North America at the height of its four-week run. No worries though as surely music fans will flock to this 2-disc set on DVD. Music fans, be warned! You won’t be getting very much music. It isn’t for lack of trying though. This DVD certainly has its share of extras. The problem is they’re mostly useless. The feature commentary sounds like it was recorded into a tape recorder, which makes me wonder about the caliber of equipment at the BBC. Even if you can get past the sound quality, you have to listen to Temple and Pulp frontman, Jarvis Cocker, go on about whether they like or dislike this band or that band. They don’t even say anything particularly scandalous. The second disc contains interviews with James Brown, Noel Gallagher and others that can be interesting at times. At the very least, they are more entertaining that the bevy of festival goer interviewers. Those folk just seem out of it. There are a couple of throwaway short pieces, one about the 1999 festival which amounts to a montage of fireworks and another about the earthy cults that breed at Glastonbury. In fact the only truly enjoyable part of this 2-disc DVD are the uncut performances. Many of the bands here were not included in the documentary itself. Exhilerating performances by the White Stripes, Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney are so enjoyable, it makes you even more sad that none of this energy found its way into the film itself.
You have been warned, music fans. You will see names of bands you love in bold on the cover of this DVD but let me remind you one last time before you purchase blindly, you may think you’re getting hours of musical enjoyment but you’ll ultimately barely notice that any music was actually played at Glastonbury.
