My first Glastonbury Festival. Only cost £75 back in 1997, a far cry from the £355 that the 2024 festival is costing. Mind you there were also only 90,000 tickets back in 1997 whilst next year sees 210,000 people – so it’s grown a fair bit in the last 25+ years since I first went.

I went with a friend, Andy Pincherle, who drove us – and our tent and refreshments – down to Worthy Farm in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. I’m not sure what made us decide to go this year but this was the first of THREE festivals over the summer of 1997 that I attended. For someone who had only ever done The Monsters of Rock (GIG 227) back in 1995 which was only a one day festival, although we camped (or slept in/on the minibus) across two nights, going to several multi-day camping festivals was quite a big step. But what a way to start with Glastonbury, the king of all festivals!

The weather was not our friend. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to a dry and sunny Glastonbury. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve been it’s poured with rain (which is a bit of an understatement for one of the years which literally flooded so much the tents in the lower fields were completely submerged and people were canoeing around them). My first outting was definetly very muddy. Thankfully we had a 6 or 8 man tent for just the two of us (it was the only tent Andy’s family had) so we could leave out muddy shoes and clothes inside near the entrance of the tent but have a relatively clean rest of the tent for sleeping.

We got there on the Thursday afternoon, with the bands starting on the Friday. I’m not sure what we were up to on Friday morning (guess we were exploring the place) but the first band we saw was Terrorvision was came on to the main Pyramid Stage at 2pm. I’d seen Terrorvision four times since 1992 (GIG 097) when they were supporting Zodiac Mindwarp. Terrorvision were a great first band to see at Glastonbury – they were so energetic with songs that made you want to bounce around. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Next up was another band I’d already seen four times – and a band that are one of the ultimate festival bands even today. The Levellers. Festivals are in some ways very much their natural environment. I dare anyone to see them in the open air of a field and not end up dancing. They have the ability to turn a festival around if it’s not going so well, and to really get you in the mood for the rest of the event. They are infectious. Needless to say I loved them.

Beck came on at 5pm and probably made a big mistake with his choice of wardrobe given that everyone has been bouncing/sliding around in mud all day. He appeared on stage in a pristine white suit. Yeah, he was kind of inviting what was about to happen. He started playing and almost instantly a barrage of mud started being thrown at the stage. To be fair to him I think most people would have subsequently thrown a bit of a strop at being the centre of raining mud. So when he threw a mini-tantrum and told the crowd he’d leave the stage and finish his set if they didn’t stop I think that’s probably pretty reasonable. Surprisingly it did kind of work and certainly a lot less mud was seen flying through the air – atleast towards the stage at any rate – and he did complete his full set. He was ok, but I will admit the most memorable thing about his set was the tantrum and his white suit.

We moved away from the Pyramid Stage at this point to the Other Stage (the second largest stage of the six music stages at the festival). We primarily moved over so we could see Placebo but before them were The Divine Comedy. I’d seen them supporting Tori Amos back in 1994 (GG 166) and whilst they weren’t really my thing I had quite liked them at the time. Wasn’t so keen on them this time round though.

Placebo came on at 7.20pm. Now I’d never actually seen Placebo live before this, despite loving their debut album that they’d released the year before. They were fantastic live and probably ended up being my favourite band of Day 1.

A quick dash (or as quick as walking through thick sticky mud allows) back over to the Pyramid Stage was in order so we could catch The Smashing Pumpkins. I really liked their Siamese Dream (1993) and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1996) albums so was very keen on finally seeing them live for the first time. Brilliant set and really happy to have finally caught them.

Headlining the Pyramid Stage were The Prodigy, who were just about to release their third studio album, “Fat of the Land” (it was actually released on the Monday after Glastonbury finished) and had already scored massive hits Firestarter and Breathe from the album. I had their earlier albums (“Experience” from 1992 and 1994’s “Music for the Jilted Generation”) and, like Smashing Pumpkins, was keen on seeing them for the first time. They were very good but the rain probably caused a bit of a dampner on the proceedings for me. I was to see them again in August headlining at Virgin ’97 (which was much sunnier) and they really blew me away there… but they were still good this evening.

So, Day 1 of MudFest was over and the game of “try and find your tent” began so we could get some rest for Day 2…