Left Field could not have chosen a better weekend to return to Glastonbury Festival. The sun was shining on the day that our production crew taped off the new site in Holt’s Field and carried on shining until they took the big top down and gave the spot back to Farmer Eavis and his cows.
The weekend was a new experience for me. As ‘curator’ of the Left Field, I had to be on hand to greet the bands that I’d invited to perform, organise the daily songwriters event that we called Bill’s Big Round-Up and generally act as arbiter for any backstage disputes. As a result, I hardly had time to see any other acts all weekend. I managed to catch about 15 minutes of Jerry Dammers on Saturday and Toots & the Maytals on Sunday at the nearby West Holts Stage, but the only time I trekked off to see someone was on Sunday night. Once Paul Heaton had finished, I gathered up my son and his crew and took them over to see Stevie Wonder.
As a result, all of my Glastonbury highlights were at the Left Field: our three headliners, Get Cape, Reverend & the Makers and Carl Barat ripping it up on the first night; the audience clapping along to Grace Petrie’s first song on her Glastonbury debut – and the massive smile she fought hard to suppress while witnessing it; sitting with my missus by the Left Field campfire watching our son playing guitar and leading everyone in a rendition of ‘American Pie’; Itch from the King Blues using a break in their set to recite his pro-feminist poem ‘Five Shampoos’; being invited by Paul Heaton to join him at the end of his set to sing ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais’, a great way to bring our weekend to a close.
None of this would have been possible without months of planning between my office and the festival. From Michael Eavis’ initial call to me around Christmastime asking that Left Field come back “because we might have a Tory in No.10 by the time of the next festival” to the moment our passes arrived in the post, a number of people have been working hard to make the Left Field happen.
My compañera, Juliet Wills was responsible for the day to day liaising with the festival and the production team and the overall look of the Left Field, developing the new logo with Bragg design stalwart Marc Woodhouse and commissioning ‘The Left Field Toblerone’, the big wedged shaped sign that alerted passers-by to our presence and provided shade to weary revellers.
Ben Price from Whole Nine Yards Productions was on site from the week before the festival until the big top tent was folded and packed away. As production manager, he did an amazing job of keeping everything running smoothly both onstage and off, particularly when dealing with those artists who I’d invited to play in the Big Round-Up but hadn’t got around to telling him they were coming.
Geoff Martin, founder of Left Field back in 2002, did a great job of finding people to speak in the debates. He was also responsible for getting Tony Benn down from London and ferrying him around the site – in an open top Ford Mustang.
The real big difference between the old and new Left Field is that we are now plugged in to the main frame of the festival. That fact is mostly down to the involvement of Sarah Sheppard, whose long-term support for Left Field has seen us now take our place as one of the recognised stages at Glastonbury. She has been our main contact at Worthy Farm and acted as area manager for Left Field, finding us our new site and making sure that our presence there didn’t interfere with the balance of the festival. The connections that she made for us ultimately ensured the smooth running of the weekend.
My thanks also go out to the Bragg Central team who ran the t-shirt stall, the onsite office and provided the glue which held all the parts together, the PA crew from Sonalyst who dealt with everything we threw at them, the lighting company GLS, Bren, Neal and Craig, our ever ready stage crew, the volunteer stewards from the FBU and last but not least, Mark Cann who mentored our return to Glastonbury Festival, helping to ensure that the activism at the festival retains its red edge.
My hope is that Left Field has not merely returned, but has renewed itself, both as a venue capable of hosting some great music and as a place where activism can be encouraged through debate, culture and organisation.
The fightback starts here!
the Leftfield was great. Hope all will be as good next year, just need a bigger tent. Great feeling, great acts, I feel revived!!
Right on Mr Bragg
I feel empowered to go out and vote for change.
Which candidate is the Liberal Democrat…….haha, comedy gold !!
Let’s keep the RED flag flying, the Liberals can look after themselves
Sounds like a successful weekend, and a job well done. Congrats! Looking forward to catching your show at Bumbershoot later on this summer! If you’re at all open to requests, I’d love to hear Between the Wars.
“the audience clapping along to Grace Petrie’s first song on her Glastonbury debut – and the massive smile she fought hard to suppress while witnessing it”
That was also one my highlights. She was amazing! I had taken a seat right at the back, if I’m honest just to get some shade on that Saturday afternoon, and yet that hour or so was one of the highlights of my Glasto this year. Amazing. Who was the guy sitting to Grace’s left with a horse voice and a song about festival girlfriends? He was amazing too.
Great work at Glastonbury. I really enjoyed the couple of sets I saw there – especially the duet with the boy Heaton. See you next year.
[...] lot. Yes, great line-up Geno Washington, Jackie Leven (and the many meanings of “aye”), Billy Bragg, The Men They Couldn’t Hang (who I’ve mentioned before), The Wailers, yadda yadda. But [...]
are you still backing the lib dems?
Help!!!!!
Okay, so I am not super familiar with you; but I did just fly across the Atlantic to see YOU at Camp Bestival…..no I am NOT some crazy stalker but my English boyfriend is your biggest fan! We literally flew from the U.S. to see you at Lulworth Castle! But alas, just before Camp Bestival, I heard on our local radio station that you were coming to Indianapolis!!! So…I call the boyfriend and I say to him: “What would you say if I told you I have some information for you that is so valuable to you, that you would pay me any amount of money to hear it?” After some begging for me to tell him and my holding out for a serious cash offer (because as I continue to say, this is HUGE,)
; he says: “what is it, is Billy Bragg coming to Indianapolis?!” Oh my God….He did NOT just guess that! Yep! He did! So, as we are on the phone he swiped up probably the first two tickets sold for your concert in Broadripple (Indy) but of course, we are still setting off to England to see you! What fun! Thank you so much for playing Camp Bestival, because of you, I got a little getaway with the boy!
But here is where I want some help….in my excitement to tell him you were coming to Indy….I forgot that surprising him with tix to your show in Indianapolis would have been a HUGE surprise and probably the BEST gift ever given him! So, since I blew that surprise, how about dinner with a fellow Brit and his silly American girlfriend that followed him to Lulworth Castle to see this Brit sing? I am just saying, what better gift can I give a bloke who has it all!
Thank you very much for that big article
Hi
I’m a vice president of the Town and Country Planning Association, the country’s oldest planning and housing oorganisation with a remit to campaign for a decent home for all – and blessed with a bright, new chief executive, Kate Henderson. I’m also a senior writer for The Guardian on housing, planning, etc.
I’m a neighbour of Patrick Eavis, brother of Michael. Patrick recently left a message with Billy Bragg about a short act we’ve put together, music – decent guitarist and fiddler – song (from the Diggers onwards!) verse and polemic: sub-text, a radical way of campaigning against the coalition Government’s strategy (or lack of it) on housing, scrapping of targets, much of the planning system, etc, etc. It really is a big issue, threatening the 4m people on social housing waiting lists, tens of thousands of building workers, etc.
Would there be a chance of squeezzing into the Left Field with our message sometime over the weekend?
Look forward to hearing from you
kind regards
Peter Hetherington