Festivals Are For Poshos

It’s 6 am and Jocasta and Crispian are out of their boutique yurt to participate in some salutations to the sun yoga with their pals Starla and Josh. Their kids Mungo, Timmy and Giselle are a tad fractious this morning, but that’s okay, they can be dispatched in the kids’ tent while they have some organic cereal and spliffs at Kanda Bongo Man.

Then it’s some mediocre acoustic folk, a healing workshop and off to buy some Peruvian hemp clothes. They’re not really arsed about much of the music to be honest, but it’s only £350.

*Sigh* I’m sick of it. Poshos are taking over big festivals. Don’t get me wrong, Latitude (which I reviewed twice as I got press tickets) was fun and is pretty bougie, as is Glasto, but Glastonbury especially is pricing us ordinary plebs out. And that would be bad enough, but the poshos, with their luxe everything, don’t even care about the bands, they just want to, like, pose on Instagram, braying, ” Queens Of The Stone Age,like, smashed it” (they saw two songs, that one about pills and something about, like, a witch?) What’s the bloody point? Why bother going?

It’s getting ridiculous. I remember T In the Park in the nineties. It was about £30 and we saw loads: Bjork; Pulp, Primal Scream, One Dove, some DIs , danced and got sunburnt. Okay, inflation is a factor, but look at the reaction this year: loads of Arctic Monkeys fans moaning that they “couldn’t sing along” because Alex had suffered laryngitis (Greta voice: “How DARE you!” ) couldn’t hear Blondie, hated Guns ‘N’ Roses and thought Lana del Rey was “weird”.

I realise I’m an old goth, but I go to see bands I like, odd theatre, dance, and a few weird experiences. I’m up for new stuff and a few headliners (Paul Weller was surprisingly great at Latitude) but paying over three hundred quid is taking the piss. Glastonbury used to be about a mix of ages and backgrounds, but there’s no question of my ever going if that’s the ticket price these days. Seems a high cost for a selfie. Here’s to the ones who actually saw bands, slept in cheap tents, drank cheap cider, and actually enjoyed the experience.