There are Glastonbury T-shirts, hoodies and babygrows. However Richard Man, 70, has provide you with one other must-have piece of competition merchandise: the Glastonbury tablet field.
Not, to be clear, for tablets of the mind-bending selection. Moderately, he stated, for the older reveller who wants their every day medicine throughout the five-day get together.
“They might promote greater than Glastonbury T-shirts,” stated Man. “It will be the one tablet field that went from Wednesday to Sunday and never the entire week.”
Man and his pal Paul Donbavand, 68, have been to extra festivals previously 5 years than most twentysomethings, together with Coachella in California and Benicàssim in Spain. Glastonbury tops the lot, stated Donbavand, as a result of it embraces the extra mature revellers.
“At Coachella we defined to some Californians that we have been there to see some techno DJ, not Woman Gaga. They usually have been hugging us saying: ‘What? You outdated fuckers?!’ Individuals have been patting us on the again, saying ‘effectively completed, pops’. There’s none of that right here,” he stated, earlier than speeding off to look at a raucous Libertines set formally open this yr’s Different stage.
The query of age has come into focus at this yr’s Glastonbury, which is celebrating its delayed fiftieth anniversary by internet hosting its youngest ever headliner, 20-year-old Billie Eilish, adopted by its oldest in 80-year-old Paul McCartney.
The typical age of Glastonbury headliners has elevated steadily previously 15 years. When Prodigy, Radiohead and Ash topped the invoice in 1997, the typical age was 26 years and 5 months. This yr it's 45 years and two months, even with Eilish, though that's down barely on the typical age of 49 when the competition final went forward in 2019.
Glastonbury has by no means collected demographic information about its 138,000 ticketholders, however it has all the time attracted a usually older crowd than different festivals. For some it has develop into as a lot a UK establishment because the BBC Proms. With greater than 500 marquees and 100 phases, it's no cliche to say there's something for everyone at Glastonbury.
“It’s a competition for everyone, all ages,” stated Karen Kelsall, 62. “You'll be able to put on something, be who you wish to be – gown up, don’t gown up.”
For all of the drug-addled carnage, mosh pits and dirt baths, there are incongruous parts of serenity. At Glastonbury’s solely cream tea stand – the place the motto is “civility earlier than debauchery” – Lynda Inexperienced and her husband, Michael, each 70, had stepped away from the chaos to get pleasure from a civilised refreshment.
Inexperienced, attending her twentieth Glastonbury, stated she loved the “very rather more relaxed” really feel to components of the Somerset competition, in addition to the number of meals and music on provide. “There are not any different cream tea stalls – we’ve been searching for this one,” she stated, sipping from a china cup. “We’ll go to the opposite phases as effectively – we received’t eat cream teas on a regular basis.”
Inexperienced stated she was wanting ahead to seeing Rufus Wainwright and Robert Plant, however was in two minds about whether or not to look at McCartney. “I’m not too fussed,” she stated. “He’s 80, isn’t he. I’m unsure his voice is as much as it a lot any extra, sorry.”
Her husband, who has been going to Glastonbury for about 20 years as an Oxfam volunteer, felt there was an actual buzz about this yr’s festivities after the two-year hiatus. “There’s an actual pleasure within the air,” he stated.
Robin Berry, a 62-year-old medical volunteer, had additionally sought refuge on the tea stand. “It’s only a good place to have a bit of sit down and meet different individuals,” he stated, perched alongside his spouse, Eileen, 56, as a whole lot of scantily clad individuals stumbled previous their tea stand. “I imply, what number of little tea retailers have hundreds of individuals strolling previous wearing all kinds of bits and items.”
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