Erase & Rewind

This time last year, I was tentatively preparing for – the one and only – Glastonbury Festival. I arrived petrified at the crowds, the snaking wall that sealed us all into the valley, and the heat. Yet within an hour I had happily become part of that colourful, free-wheeling, autonomous community. We danced in a half empty, sun-scorched field to Beach House, watched the mist roll in at night – capping the arenas and saturating the tents. We battled to find Shangri-La and caught the sunrise from the stone circle as the seagulls swept through the valley in the early morning. We wondered what they made of the fields of bubbled plastic and thousands of people crawling in and out of them.

A year on and I’m not sure what I make of it. I can’t even bring myself to look at the Glastonbury line up. If it wasn’t for last year being so… LOVE-ly then it wouldn’t be so heart-breaking to miss out this year. As the festival has been a wash-out for years, I think I’m not the only one to cast rainy spells for similar matters of the heart. Maybe the only reason it was a scorcher last year was to do with its 40th anniversary; the sun came out with Stevie Wonder to honour Michael Eavis who started it all. However, I’m sure there is a better way of staving off the ghostly past. Time is too precious to keep locked away, submersed in BBC iPlayer, commanding the rain to drown out the love-in two hours south of here.

So, what’s going on in London this weekend?

If the rain keeps to the south west valleys: The Queen of Hoxton’s Rooftop Film Club every evening, and ‘Apocalypso’ on Saturday night.

Islington Academy: ‘Feeling Gloomy‘, Saturday 25^th– a night dedicated to miserable Indie music!

Foyle’s, Charing Cross Road: Free, live jazz – Ben Bastin, Thursday 23^rd.

The Lexington, Islington: White Light: The Anti-Glastonbury Show, Friday 24^th– Hey Colossus, Part Chimp and Pale Horse until 4am.

The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival of Performing Arts, in various parts of the city, is free and kicks off this Friday 24^th until July 2^nd.

Potters Field Park, London Bridge: Free – Tapas Fantasticas Wine Festival, Saturday 25^th/Sunday 26^th.

Now there’s a wide mix of possible distractions. Yet while Barcelona’s Anti-Sonar is renowned for being edgier, more reckless, more loose-limbed and with better music than the Sonar festival itself, where is the Glastonbury equivalent? Hopefully someone will hear my cry, run into another beautiful valley, plant flags, a stage, and some Oxfam stewards at the entrance – all in the name of Anti-Glastonbury. It would not only be a safe house for all those trying to cast off the ghosts of Glastonbury past, but also a re-birthing of the original free-for-all, without the corporate twang. Someone?

But this year, forgetting the bed of Somerset stars I once rested my head upon, I will be dedicated to enjoying the present, for, as Paul Auster said: “It is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold.”