THE HIGHS & LOWS OF GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL

& a lil playlist 4 u :)

Yeah yeah yeah i went to glastonbury and all i got was 4 days of genuine pleasure and it feels kinda rank to write about to make you read about but also i can sense Depression coming for me that almighty soupy summer spotlight depression its hot garbage breath on my neck and it helps to cling to joy perhaps to set the analytic mind on something fun in the hopes it will be remembered if the body remembers joy too if the body remembers joy

For brown readers not in the UK, first of all, congratulations, and second, Glastonbury Festival is basically what your grandmother imagines when she thinks of hell. 

This was my second time attending, the first being with reformist cult UK Uncut in 2011 (the year of Beyonce) to facilitate direct action workshops and terrorize U2 ? and my band LION KING LION QUEEN performed on a stage we built ourselves. This time i was booked to DJ a couple stages and didn’t have to put up my own tent which is minute but notable progress? Not sure. anyway I am happy to have never paid to attend this event but i have to say i understand why people do

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HIGHS

MAGIC

People often speak of the “magic” of glastonbury and even though when white people talk about magic i kind of naturally dissociate to protect my energy, i did find myself on the final day of the festival sitting on a dusty sofa in a greenroom half asleep and yet nodding enthusiastically as a white person spoke of the magic of glastonbury. 

And why shouldn’t it be. maybe festivals in general are all a bit magic by nature of creating some kind of an alternate container for us to experience life and time and space in, to world-build, to build a world that centers art and craft and pleasure and a simpler and more interdependent way of living (though the sanitary systems still need looking at……)

so glastonbury, due to its magnitude (nearly a quarter of a million people) and historic positioning as an anti-capitalist festival has an edge perhaps? I don’t know, i don’t really give a fuck tbh but magical things did happen while i was there! Because they had the time and space to happen! I think the key to this magic is submission, which makes way for surprise. 

The line up is fucking stacked. The music lovers are giddy. You want to see SZA and James Blake but they’re on at the same time etc etc. You construct a kind of Da Vinci Code level timetable with your friends between the many performances, fields, stages, talks (jk fuck the talks) taking into consideration everyone’s top 5 must-sees and how late we think we’ll be out the night before and who we’re likely to be able to see elsewhere and which of your friends really wants to also try hand-carving a sword, and for the performers, what fits around our own set times. 

And then you set off and it immediately falls to shit. The plan is unrealistic, the place is too damn big, you lose stamina disappointingly fast, the road to the stage is blocked off, your friends go missing, no-one's disordered eating schedules match up. And that alone is magic. the optimism of building a castle knowing the tide is coming in. 

By the end of the week I was averaging one plan a day and letting the rest be vibes. And I missed some things I really kind of hoped not to, like Femi Kuti in the sunshine and Fatboy Slim with a random 3pm set next to my tent that apparently everyone else also missed, and Brittany Howard singing into the English drizzle, but I stumbled into so much magic, was surprised and delighted day and night by things i couldn’t have written into the script.

FRIENDSHIP

I’ll be real, when I was first booked to play i was gonna say no because at my gorgeous age there are people I just don’t want to be trapped on a field with, and yes, more than one of them are djs!! I’ve been in my protecting my peace at all costs era for a few years now with pretty startlingly good results so was happy to just continue letting that lead but then some of my besties who were gonna be there (also djs, to be fair to djs) convinced me to reclaim my goddamn time and go to glastonbury, one of 3 good things england has to offer. 

And like, without extrapolating toooo much more on how and why i love my friends coz i do it to their faces a lot already and some things are even too sacred for substack!! I don’t think there was a moment that i wasn’t deep in gratitude to be free and having fun and frolicking with people i fuck with down to the bone. It's been hard won for me, really truly finding my people. And now that my anti-depressants allow me to think further than one week into the future, i see that finding your people is a life-long practice, and that’s beautiful and exciting like yes i accept but also thank fucking god some of them are right here right now!!! 

thank you for the friends that hold me down and let me hold them up and keep me accountable to being hot and funny enough to be in the group and who would punch someone for me (sorry but that’s a requirement at this point) and who make friendship make everlasting sense; a juicy, soft, easy thing, even now. Thank you for crying with me when the grief hit in the early hours, thank you for jumping on the mic during my set, thank you for de-escalating when i hangry, thank you for walking the whole 12 miles across the farm to say hi, thank you for dancing with me, for looking for me, for finding me.

PALESTINE

Glastonbury was giving FREE FREE PALESTINE all day and while a 4-day bender in the english countryside is fairly far from work for the revolution, i must say i did appreciate the very strong, very clear signal of support. The artist liaison woman who drove us onto site had hand-stitched a palestinian flag to the back of her hi-vis jacket which was a very welcome welcome!

People bring big flags to glasto - they tend to be stylistically ugly, probably unfunny in-jokes among friend groups and maybe help locate friends in crowds. Since glasto has been heavily televised, it also helps people identify themselves in the documentation. Anyway, this year the site was flooded with Palestine flags people had brought meaning they were also in the footage live-streamed on the BBC which feels gooood. 

More profound though, was noticing as i explored the festival, the way palestine was worked into the details of the site build, from benches painted with watermelons and white kites flying from stages to whole sculptures and art installs referencing and educating around the current genocide and the decades of palestinian resistance before it.

Idk anymore when to feel grateful or safe but recently i have seen so many brilliant people worn into the ground by their workplaces with accusations of anti-semitism and whatever else, and so much desperate pandering to the israel industrial complex by like every arts organisation ever, it felt somewhat surprising to experience a huge british institution stand clearly in solidarity, and a relief to be surrounded with, cloaked by people who know what’s up, and to have a constant portal for mourning available throughout the festival. 

NONAME

I saw and heard a lot of great music at glastonbury!! It was a total absolute wonderland of joy and goodness and reminded me how sweet life could be if we all just touched grass, ate toasties and accepted music as our only god. For more of my intrepid music journalism paid subscribers can check the playlist at the bottom of this post :p i still need more paid subscribers :p  but what i WILL do is speak on my love of Noname.  

by the time noname was due to play i had already abandoned my itinerary preferring for my health to take it easy and see where the wind blew me. My friend nkenna however had not abandoned hers and really wanted to see the sugababes which i was obviously in full support of and so we went early to the stage to secure a spot and nkenna is my witness that my knees literally buckled when i heard He my little baby Medusa, tippin' the juice up / I go back and forth in an Uber, travel for two months / I'm the emptiest hallelujah, open my chest up / It's a rabbit inside my hat, angel all dressed up…

THE EMPTIEST HALLELUJAH!!??!!!?!!?!?!? come on…..

I really love Noname, i really think she is not only a musical great of this particular time we have found ourselves on earth but also a prophet which are never really totally separate categories but she is… wow… up there. I really see god in her eyes and i dont know what i see in her smile… her smile…………. 

When i am sad which is like every day around dusk and then again around 5am, i look at photos of curly-haired puppies, houseboat interiors, and Noname. The mere sight of her face allows me to open my chest and breathe deeper. Telefone lives somewhere deep inside my marrow and i’ve watched her tiny desk more times than i’ve watched anything except if i’m honest a small selection of videos of myself dancing. 

Watching her do her thing irl, whisper truth to us acapella, bring the sun out, it was the performance of glastonbury ‘24 for me, it really was magic.

THE APP

long story short i want to suck the dick of whoever made the glastonbury app. as a directionally challenged person it saved me from having a nervous breakdown more than once. 

THE BETH DITTO MIRACLE

One afternoon, a group of us gathered to watch 47Soul play. After the show, Deen told me that regrettably they would not be making my DJ set at Scissors that evening as it clashed with Gossip’s performance. I reassured them that that was quite alright and they went on to explain that for some reason they just had a feeling they needed to be in the presence of Beth Ditto, that perhaps Beth and Deen were due some kind of special moment. In that case, I said, let’s spend the rest of the day manifesting this special moment between you both. 

Some hours later, backstage before my set, I spot Deen with my other friends. Turns out they decided to come to my show afterall. Cute! The show is very good and fun and I’m joined on stage by bestie and Head Leo, Leala-Rain, who does not miss a beat when I ask her, 2 mins before start time, if she’d like to be my MC. We were carried on the wings of “shaking batty and bress / touch up your chest / It's a great day to be a dyke / shake batty, shake nyash”. Deen, Nkenna and Mali have also joined as back-up dancers, the blends are blending and I am happy bunny.

At the end of my set, one of the venue producers jumps on stage to ask if I can be ready to finish on her signal as they have a very special guest doing a set straight after me. A few minutes later, Beth Ditto strides onto the stage and I search for Deen’s reaction. She has come straight from her performance, to this small venue, to do a special short surprise secret serenade, which we end up being front row for. She is so funny and adorable and close to us and she takes a sip from Leala-Rain’s drink and Deen cries real tears. The End.

LESS RACIAL COSPLAY THAN USUAL

I’ve been to a lot of music festivals in england but mostly between ages 15-25 and so not… recently. Honestly i think i stopped going when i moved to brooklyn coz i was like i can just go to soul summit or like any random block party and have significantly more fun with significantly less / no white people there? But anyway one thing i noticed at glasto was that there were way less white people walking around in kente cloth trousers or with bindis on etc than usual. in fact i saw exactly 2 because i’m a fucking abacus about that shit. Despite the fields still being lined with white-owned stalls selling goods imported from india and africa, the corresponding ratio of people actually parading around in the stuff was surprisingly, pleasingly low.

I mentioned this to my friend Sana as we frolicked in the Sunday afternoon drizzle and she agreed, though also posited that perhaps the keffiyeh has now replaced more classic cultural appropriation, as a socially and politically acceptable way for white people to try on culture. To feel something. Without taking on the responsibility or hardship that comes with it.

But who knows, some of the thousands of white folk walking around the glastonbury fields draped in keffiyehs and fist-bumping me as i walked past in mine, might well be busy organising for the revolution when they’re not at music festivals! 

To be honest, I hadn’t really previously considered the keffiyeh through an appropriative lens, coz as at this point in the genocide, it’s been a helpful tool to easily identify where someone stands, or at least, where they think they stand, and that’s good enough for now. But Sana and I, a Black woman and an estranged Arab both shared that we have interrogated ourselves with regard to our right to wear it, and we’re pretty sure most of the white peeps around us have not. But ain’t that just the way…

THIS HAIRSTYLE

Amazing what extreme sleep deprivation can do

PLANNINGTOROCK

I got a lift up to glasto with the London Trans Pride crew, and was also playing the same stage as them, so got to know them a bit better. This year their headliner was trans electronic music baddie Planningtorock. I think Planningtorock was the first time I heard non-binaryness being spoken about publicly, and at glasto i got to tell them. I told them I remembered when they were on the cover of The Guardian’s Guide supplement, because I kept reading and re-reading the interview with them… and they told me they were never on the cover, they just had a feature inside, and we both agreed that it was Very Cute that teenage aisha PUT THEM ON THE COVER EVEN THO THEY DEF WEREN’T ON THE COVER!!!! I danced on stage with them during their performance which was great and they held up a sign saying TRANS 4 PALESTINE and it was sweet and i’m grateful for them <3

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LOWS

OGGY OGGY OGGY

Those of us who despite a desperate semantic wrestle, are indeed British, will be familiar with the white man’s call and response, oggy oggy oggy (oi oi oi). I don’t want to hear it again. This one could also be titled MALE MCs, because oggy oggy oggy (oi oi oi) is not indicative of all the intolerable things they do. Now, I personally don't usually speak during my sets because I truly do value non-verbal communication when we get the chance and also I’m kind of a pussy on the mic. But after my experience at glasto wherein I saw intoxicated men ruin multiple dj sets, I am determined to up my mc game, or hire Leala-Rain to host all future shows, so never should a man feel empowered to reach for the mic during one of my sets. Thank you. 

CROWDS AND GENERAL LACK OF ACCESSIBILITY

It’s awkward when a “famously anti-capitalist’ festival clearly oversells on tickets to the point where your entire experience of said festival is shaped by avoiding rush hour just like the rest of your goddamn life!!!! Trying to find your friends in a crowd of 250,000 people is hard enough, especially when one of them keeps sending random close-up photos of the people in front of them by way of guidance (no name & shame but you know who you are) but add to that, gridlock, diversions and major crushes and you have no chance i’m afraid. There were multiple moments, at a stand-still in crowds of thousands, that i died, if not physically then spiritually, and many acts I didn’t even try to see because I feared the journey getting there or couldn’t get there early enough to find a spot before the field inevitably got flooded and then closed. That’s not fun!!

To be fair, I don’t know the ins and outs of glastonbury’s access provisions, but based on how difficult it was for me to get around, my hopes are not high! One of the days Nkenna looked at their step counter and told me that we had walked 12 miles so far that day and no-one should have to see that look of pain in their dear friend’s eyes.  I did read that there was more in place for neurodivergent attendees this year, but there’s no point having designated ‘LOW STIMULATION AREAS’ if you’re going to die trying to get there.

FELIX

Ok so one day i’m walking out of the artist camping area and i see someone i recognise from one of my past lives, a kind of handsome dark featured white man, and i slow down and he’s also staring at me and i’m like i know you… and he’s like aisha? From oxford? And i’m like oh shit yeah. And we make a bit of weird small talk and i notice he’s in crew camping so i ask him what he’s working on at the festival and he tells me he’s selling chips and im like oh cool i love chips and he asks me the same thing and i tell him i’m djing and i see a small shadow descend over his face and he says ‘that sounds easy’. And in the moment coz i am a gentle person with a slow(er) processing time and had also been on drugs for 3 days i was kinda like…. Yeah! You should come! LOL  But as i walked away and realised he was in fact being a jealous cunt i felt winded and hurt!!! Not for me now but for me who went to oxford and was literally SURROUNDED by evil white posh people who belittled my sense of self in ways i truly couldnt even comprehend anyway fuck your mum felix.

‘ISRAELI’ FLAG DURING SHANIA TWAIN

I was only at shania twain for one (1) special canadian and they didnt even ask me to go. do not recommend. & that’s where the only Israeli flag in four whole days was spotted by my crew and it makes perfect sense that they happened at the same time. Was probably felix’s

my legs had given up at this point…