Massaging At Glastonbury – Part 5

It is a warm Sunday evening. I have been massaging since being at Glastonbury. I decide to go for a wonder…

Sunday Evening

On Sunday evening I decide to go to the Cabaret Field. The first thing I come to is The People’s Front Room. Replete with sofas (on which I am lucky enough to get a seat) and a coffee table, the main draw is a guitarist with a beautiful voice. A small crowd gathers, mesmerised by his performance as he engages with them – his personality is as captivating as his voice. I stay and listen to quite a few numbers.

The sound of drumming draws me out towards a stage with seven male, energetic drummers in white shirts and black ties. They soon become topless, presumably due to the heat. The drumming is several cuts above the usual hippy drumming. There is, once again, a small but appreciative audience who dance enthusiastically. I stay for a few tracks before moving on to the Circus Field.

The first thing that greets me is a Frank Sinatra tribute artist. He stands there in a suit and hat with his twinkling blue eyes, crooning like Old Blue Eyes. I have never seen Frank Sinatra, but I am totally captivated by this guy’s performance. The smoothness and ease of his voice is only surpassed by the smoothness and ease of his charm. A small crowd gathers very quickly. They begin to sing along. (I’m starting to appreciate the draw of live music.) His stage is a two foot high amplifier speaker on a dusty path. His backdrop is a pile of crush barriers. Such talent would deserve main stage anywhere else. But this is Glastonbury…

Wandering along, I come across Rasputin’s Carnival of Lost Souls. A Victorian stage show of the amazing and the odd. They are performing in the open. I see the end of their show, as a man with a whip uses his tool to make some impressive cracking noises and slice in half and half again and half again a piece of newspaper held between the outstretched and delicate hands of his beautiful assistant.

I stop for a bite to eat and a drink before heading towards The Stone Circle. I am now energised. When I get there I manage to find the mysterious underground Irish Bar that everyone talks about. I have to wait until midnight for it to open. But it doesn’t matter. The night is warm. There is a pianist playing with a bonfire burning pleasantly nearby. People are singing along. The atmosphere is light and slightly heady.

The Irish Bar opens 15 minutes late. I go in. It is a small venue with a stage, but it fills to the extent where there is barely room to stand. It is positively oppressive. I leave. No doubt it would have been a great, atmospheric venue at one point, but it has become a victim of its own success.

I head back and go to bed with the gentle Sunday night sounds of Glastonbury in the background. It is 1am. In the morning I will leave and head back to my massage practice in York