I’m back from Glasto, and just about recovered enough to write down a few coherent thoughts and reviews.

Firstly though, before I forget, I want to just jot down a few words on the Patrick Wolf gig I attended last Monday at the Garage. It was a private gig to celebrate his newest release, Lupercalia, and the tickets were given away to fans who had preordered the album. It was quite an unusual gig with no support act and a start time of 8pm (which of course turned into 8:30pm as Patrick was late) and the fans felt a bit more subdued than his normal crowd. Perhaps it was a case of people winning the tickets who wouldn’t normally have paid to go and see him. Nevertheless I enjoyed myself and we got a few treats in the form of the rarely played ‘Teignmouth’ and ‘Wolf Song’, plus hearing some of the new songs live has made me like them more. ‘Together’ is now ensconced as one of my favourite tracks from the new album. Patrick himself veered between emotional and ecstatic, and spent most of the encore in with the crowd, singing and dancing with his fans. Overall it was not the best gig I’ve seen him do (possibly owing to the fact I’m not a fan of Lupercalia in general) but it was still a pleasant evening. Plus there was the bonus of getting home before 11 for a change!

See below for the setlist:

Armistice
Time Of My Life
Teignmouth
Bluebells
House
Wolf Song
The Libertine
Slow Motions
The Falcons
Bermondsey Street
The Days
The Bachelor
This City
The Future
—————–
Tristan Remix
Together
William

Glastonbury, oh Glastonbury. It’s barely been a day, and I’ve already mostly forgotten the horrible slog from the carpark to the campsite, the sea of mud and the Friday full of pissing rain. All that I remember now are the sunny days, the strong cider and the glorious bands. It really was an experience, although I am secretly glad that there isn’t another one until 2013. I don’t think I’ve walked so much over a single weekend in my life! Band highlights include The Vaccines really living up to their hype, Biffy Clyro rocking out despite the rain, Yuck being sublime, The Horrors blowing me away with a surprisingly fantastic performance, The Chemical Brothers and their massive field of ravers, and of course Queens of the Stone Age, for closing Glastonbury with the best set I have seen in a long time. We also did the Arcadia and Shangri-La experience on Saturday night after The Chems, and that was like a whole festival of its own. We saw Orbital on the revolving DJ booth in the Spider in Arcadia, spent a good few hours in the block 9 gay club NYC Downlow, before getting lost in the backstreet slums of the contaminated Shangri-La. We trekked back to our camp as the sun rose and it seemed like a perfect festival moment. I also managed to get up to the Park to see one of the weekends special guests, Radiohead, although as I couldn’t see or hear much it wasn’t all too spectacular.

I’ll do another roundup of Glasto bits when I get my photos back from the developers sometime next week.

This week is the Arcade Fire gig at Hyde Park, and I’m planning to be down the front and going insane for the whole thing. With support from Owen Pallett, The Vaccines, Beirut and Mumford & Sons, it looks set to be an awesome day.