The Waterboys – When Ye Go Away

As it is Glastonbury weekend I thought it topical to share a few of the Fruit Tree Records Glastonbury favourites from over the years for this weeks vintage selection. The Waterboys are an act whose free flowing, boundary tumbling, questing romantic spirit have summed up the essence of Glastonbury over the decades and they are knitted into the fabric of the festivals history as well as my own back pages with the event. For it was in 1994 (my debut year as a Glastonbury attendee) that Mike Scott roamed the site, his Waterboys band not booked to play as the man himself was about to embark on a solo project gear change, but he made his presence felt all the same by popping up unannounced on at least two occasions playing old Waterboys classics, as here when he played with ex-Waterboy Sharon Shannon on a timeless masterpiece from the ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ album.

Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues

Another 1994 memory, this was probably the seed of the Sunday lunchtime main stage line-up position that would later be branded the ‘legends slot’. I remember clearly dozing with my friends in the Sunday afternoon sun wondering whether to bother sticking around for Johnny Cash then being absolutely floored by the mans sheer stage presence and star aura. I knew little of the man and his music before he came onstage, my musical education was about to get a serious injection.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand

If bands were to follow a guideline for guaranteed Glastonbury success it might say on page one play a hits set, this is not the place to audience test the new record that has not been released yet. Back in 1998 the current Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds release was a ‘best of’ compilation and so their festival set reflected this, although the legendary status of the performance might also be down to the band being at the very peak of their powers at this time. This would have been the occasion Nick Cave has spoken about where he met Bob Dylan backstage, receiving warm praise from the elder statesman for his musical output. There is no BBC film footage of the Dylan set, the nineties being a time when bigger names could opt out of television coverage.

R.E.M. – It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

R.E.M. came on the mainstage as headliners in 1999 with a point to prove. Their most recent album ‘Up’ had not performed as well as expected and so the initial statement that there would not be a tour around the album was revised and 1999 saw them return to the stage with punch and purpose. I do not have many memories of being down the front at gigs, my height normally sees me settling for a further back position, but this was one occasion where I felt the moment and was drawn closer to the source. R.E.M. are one of my top three all time favourite bands and this was one Glastonbury headline slot with everything I had hoped for, a legendary band seizing the moment and delivering the goods.

David Bowie – Rebel Rebel

If you were a TV viewer of the festival in the first ten years of TV coverage you were at the mercy of the broadcaster’s choice of stages and acts to cover. The iPlayer control that enables us all to explore and select as we would if attending was some way off and this was never more frustratingly felt, for me, than in 2000 when all us viewers were aware that David Bowie was playing a mouth watering headline slot on the main stage as we tuned in, but the BBC only offered us short excerpts from his set, no direct live broadcast as you would have reasonably expected. Instead they kept cutting to Bassment Jaxx on the other stage, an alternative selection that did not, could not, meet with the viewers expectations. The dance based duo looked like they knew this as well, appearing to be a little too crouched behind their mixing desk as their dancers took care of stage craft and the Jaxxees (as they would later be known thanks to Primal Scream) pepper sprayed us with generic bland dance toss. In the subsequent years Bowie’s set attained a near legendary status, if only the TV audience could have shared in that euphoria live in real time too.

The White Stripes – Hotel Yorba

The excitement that was exploding around the White Stripes at this time is, I think, tangibly captured in this Glastonbury performance of 2002. At a time when indie was starting to head for the landfill and dance was repetitively beating itself into a stupor, it took a stripped back duo playing the electric blues to ignite the scene with something fresh and vital. This TV exposure could have been the first time many in the UK caught a glimpse of Jack and Meg but they were ready to take you down by this stage, no questions asked