David Belbin

12.05AM. Rich and I lose each other coming out of the Queen's Head. He went one way, I went the other, but five minutes, two texts and one call later, we're reunited. Fran and Chris are off buying presents for my niece and nephew but rejoin us at half twelve. Amidst the steadily growing crowd of young folk gyrating round their handbags, we dance to Motown, then decide to return to the camper van. No security queue to get out this time and no urge on our part to head over to Trash City and the like. Which is a good thing, because at one, just as we're all sat down inside the Hymer awning with wine, hipflask etc, the heavens open and a huge downpour begins. Poor sods who are still out there will have been soaked. We drink and talk until it's over, then I spend my last night outdoors.

In the morning, the queue to get out of the field is as long as it was at 1am, but we join it at 1.10pm and by ten to two we're out and away. The camper van experience might involve a lot more walking (I'm the fittest I've been in years!) but it's also a lot more convenient in terms of access and shelter. Fran, heroically, drives for hours before the camper's out of petrol and we stop for scram at Warwick services around six. Then Chris drives us the rest of the way. Rich sleeps nearly all the time (see above), while I devour the entirety of John Niven's hugely entertaining Kill Your Friends, which I pass on to my siblings. In Sherwood, at half eight, we sit in the garden with a pot of decent tea, four very smelly but very happy people.

Glastonbury, there's nothing like it, and this year's line up could have been made for me. Three and a half days later, I'm recovered from the post-fest jet lag. Next year is the 40th anniversary, but I'll probably watch it on the telly, as I do most years. For this year's will be very hard to beat. 'Best Glasto ever', Michael Eavis says, as he normally does. This year, I'm inclined to agree with him, as are the other people I know who went. Thanks to Fran and Chris for driving, and Michael and Emily for organising it. That's it on here for a while, but you'll find me regularly on Twitter when I have something short to say. For now, though, I have a couple of books to write. Have a good summer.

In the camper van, nobody is stirring. I head over to the next field and buy myself a bacon and egg bap with a mug of tea. The tea tastes disgusting, made with heavily fluoridated water, but the bap is brilliant. I ring my mate Rob over in the family field but fail to get through. So I head into the site and catch the end of the midday headliner on the main stage, Status Quo. In 1973 I had a ticket to see Status Quo and somebody nicked it from me (I know who, but there are libel laws). Thirty six years later, here they are playing 'You're In The Army Now', which is a miserably bad song. Still, I get to hear them do 'Down Down' and John Fogerty's classic 'Rockin' All Over the World' (I saw Bruce play it as an encore in 78, and the Quo opened Live Aid with it), which is nice. And I got a nice photo of two girls playing air guitar, above.

Next I went to the Jazzworld stage to see Linda Lewis, who I last saw supporting Cat Stevens in 1974 (unusually, she was in between his two sets, meaning that Stevens suffered from the crap sound for the first act syndrome - evidently they were going out with each other at the time, which may explain it). She doesn't do the one song of hers I remember, Cat's 'Remember The Days Of The Old Schoolyard' but she does pay a tribute to one of my great heroes, a Glastonbury legend, John Martyn (he appears in my Glasto novel, 'Festival') by playing 'May You Never'. 'John was a great bloke,' she says. 'Always legless.'

Rich texts to say that the Other Stage is running everything half an hour early, so he's just missed Art Brut. I explore the circus and cabaret field, where I see John Otway for the first time in - oh, at least 28 years - I saw him with Wild Willy at my first festival, Chorley Wakes, in 77 and interviewed him afterwards. I still have a signed copy of their first LP that they gave me there. His shtick these days seems to be comedy reinterpretations of well known numbers like 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.' Oh well. I've arranged to meet Rich in the Park field, which is a long slog, but he's already there, and I'd like to see jazz legend Terry Riley. Or is it blues legend, Terry Reid? We're not sure, until Reid comes on stage.

It's a nice area, which you can see in the top two pictures above, and they still have real ale left (the better beer holds out well at some bars this time - last time, everything good was gone by Saturday night). We watch Reid do four numbers, each better than the last. I try to remember which superband he nearly joined, but fail. Rich is less impressed and wants to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - we've arranged to meet Fran and Chris there. So off we go (Reid, it transpires, turned down Robert Plant's job in Led Zeppelin and Ian Gillan's in Deep Purple, so the man has no commercial inclinations whatsoever - no wonder he was playing to a hundred people at the outer edge of the festival!).

We're not working hard on spots from now on - it's chill out time and the four of us have decided to stick together for the rest of the festival. We watch the YYYs (passable, but not really that interesting) and Bats For Lashes (ditto) from a distance, gorging on enormous burritos. Rich and Chris go over to see Nick Cave, but Fran and I are keen to see Bon Iver, who I picked up on early last year. He's excellent, despite the loud dance music drifting over from The Glade in the quiet parts. Heavier than on the album, of course. Good dynamics. The crowd sing/scream along on Wolves (which you can see the video of by clicking on the last link) makes for a stirring conclusion. But I'm with the girl next to us, who keeps yelling for album closer 'Re:Stacks'. He should have played that. Interesting to see that this artist, while heavily adopted by the Uncut/Mojo crew, actually drew the youngest crowd I was part of. Justin's band has seriously crossed over and it'll be very interesting to see what Bon Iver's next full album is like.

I'm a Nick Cave agnostic. I see what people see in him, but can't get worked up by any of his stuff. The only exception is the song There She Goes (my beautiful world) which I loved so much when I got it on a sampler, I put it on our best of year cd a few years ago. Fran and I arrive in time for his last four numbers. First up is her favourite, The Mercy Seat, then mine, the aforementioned There She Goes. He does a couple more of his big biblical numbers then he's off. By my reckoning, this makes it the perfect Nick Cave experience. Rich and Chris enjoyed the whole show.

We amble over to get a drink at our favourite bar (Solidarity) and and are joined by Rich and Chris. Off we go to watch Blur.

Now I've seen Blur twice before, in '92 and '97. They were good both times but I could have easily passed on seeing them again. In which case, I'd have made a big mistake, for Blur were awesome. Usually, for the last night, the crowd thins out a bit, and plenty of people were leaving. However, as you can see from the final photo above, the audience for Blur was huge. We got a spot dead centre, ahead of a gang waving Somerset flags, just before the set started. Hit after hit and classic album tracks followed. Loads of 'Parklife', including Phil Daniels guesting on the title track. And 'Tender', which I hadn't heard them do live before, was the song of the night. It was a big, happy, Glastonbury singalong, wave your arms in the air experience, and we all loved it. During the big ballad, 'To The End', I felt an arm slip round my waist and turned to find a long haired blonde of 19 or so, in a blue dress decorated with stars. She began to serenade me like a long lost lover: 'and it looks like we could have made it'. I serenaded her back and we sang another chorus together, then she slipped back into the crowd.

Now that, my friends, is what they call a Glastonbury moment.

Slow start to the day. Pyclet and banana for breakfast, then to the Pyramid stage to see the brilliant desert blues boogie of Tinariwen, a Malian band I've seen three times before. It's quiet at the front, so we discover that there's a dividing, safety wall to hold in the first thousand or so people (what, at a Bruce show, is called 'the pit', or at Beyonce 'the golden circle'). You can only access it from the front sides. This information will come in handy later. Tinariwen are as good as ever, perfectly suited to coming round on a sunny afternoon. My siblings go and crash on the grass to listen, but I stay near the very front, swaying slightly to the hypnotic, buzzy rhythms. Their new album is out this week, but they're too cool to mention this.

Then it's off for an explore. We head to the green fields (that's me near the entrance, second photo down) where Fran wants a massage, so we separate into pairs. Rich and I look at all the bits of the site we haven't been to so for (except the distant Park stage, which I save for Sunday). These are places like Arcadia, Trash City and Shangri La that only come alive at night. But we have our bearings now. It's a fascinating area to walk round. We'll see if we have the energy to return later.

I quite fancy the Gaslight Anthem, who the others go off to see (but they leave before Bruce makes a special guest appearance - oops!). I sidle through the crowds leaving Dizzee Rascal to get a great spot dead centre to see Crosby, Stills and Nash. Would have been nice to see them with Neil Young, but I've not seen Nash or Crosby before and their set was very enjoyable. I saw Stephen Stills last year but there was only a two song crossover (no 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' which was a shame). The Cros was in good form, even getting me to enjoy old chestnut 'Almost Cut My Hair'. Not sure why they needed to do cover versions when they missed out so much of their classic back catalogue. They did the Dead's 'Uncle John's Band' (itself a kind of CSN tribute) but it didn't work until about halfway through and followed it with 'Ruby Tuesday', which made no sense at all.

I'd arranged to meet the others nice and early to get a good spot for Bruce but had a bit of spare time, so wandered across by the Other Stage, where, serendipitously, I caught half an hour of Maximo Park. They irritated me at Rock City last month, with muddy sound and bombastic gestures that undermined the fragile beauty of their best songs. But here the sound was superb and Paul Smith was in rather more humble, win the crowd over by explaining the songs mode, which suited him better. I enjoyed 'Our Velocity' and 'Books From Boxes' amongst others, and was sorry I couldn't stay for 'Apply Some Pressure', but Bruce beckoned.

I first saw Bruce in 78, on 'The River' tour (twice). This would be my ninth time but I haven't seen a decent E Street band gig in twenty years (I can't count the '99 reunion tour, where we had crap seats at the NEC). We got to the front almost as soon as Kasabian left the stage. You can tell how close we were by the photo at the very top, which shows Bruce during one of his crowd invasions, a few feet away from us. But I'm getting ahead of myself. He delighted us by opening with an acoustic performance of Joe Strummer's classic song about Glasto, 'Coma Girl' (I nearly named a book after that song, tho' in the end opted for 'Coma'). Inexplicably, the BBC didn't show this (except for the bit where he said 'for Joe' at the end, before launching into 'Badlands'). After that, what can I tell you? If you're interested enough, you'll have seen nearly 90 minutes of the 2.5 hour set on the TV. There were a couple of songs I could have lived without ('Outlaw Pete', the Poguesish 'American Land') and I was sorry we didn't get 'Jungleland' or 'The Wrestler' from the new album. But it was a classic Bruce show, loaded with big hits (half the tracks on the latest greatest comp were played) and crowd pleasing gestures, like running across the moat and performing on the barriers, once getting into the crowd (as above). 'Promised Land', 'The Rising' and 'Tom Joad' were amongst the highlights. We were a bit cramped but had space to dance, except when one over excited young man pushed his way in. Soon he tried to crowd surf while Bruce was in the throng, and was swiftly ejected. Our view got better as the crowd rearranged itself too. Fran's a Bruce fanatic and it was her first Bruce gig in ten years. It was great to see the show with her and Rich (Chris doesn't like Bruce and left after the first number, listening to the rest from the bar). A classic family event (Paul, who got me tickets for our first Bruce show, at Manchester Apollo 31 years ago, should really have been there too).

Afterwards, we had a pint. At one, we set off to Trash City, Shangri La and Arcadia. This involved walking very slowly with vast crowds of people on a long (often one way) route. It's not unlike the ritual evening promenade in France or Italy, except that people are concentrating on not stepping in puddles or falling down ditches so that they don't look at each other too much (a constant of the whole weekend was making sure that I had either my brother, sister or Chris in sight - only lost each other once, but I'll come to that). Oddly, there are only one or two bars in this whole area, so, although we were out until half four in the morning, it was a very sober experience. The device in the final photo above fired jets of flame throughout a set by one of Chris's favourite bands, Evil Nine. In one of many exotic inside areas we watched a weird Christian Bale movie with subtitles and a trip hop soundtrack. We enjoyed the carnival, but didn't bump into Michael Eavis, who also explored the area for the first time at night, and told the NME he stayed out until four. And on the way back to the tent, buying tea as dawn broke, Fran bumped into several work colleagues who, it turned out, were in the same field as us. Small world.

The rain puts paid to our going out early. Fran conjures up tea and bacon sarnies before we head into the festival, through plenty of big puddles, wearing wellies. There are new stages since I was last here - the Queen's Head, which is mostly a disco, and 'Dirty Boots' where bands play every hour but are not listed in the programme. You have to check the blackboard. We head up to the John Peel stage to see Fucked Up (I fancied a bit of Regina Spektor first but was outvoted - it's a longish haul to what used to be the New Bands stage). They make a lot of noise. Their frontman is a very shouty exhibitionist. He entertains the crowd in every possible way, stage-diving, concluding the set from the back of the tent. 'We're the heaviest band at Glastonbury this year!' he announces, which may well be true, unless you count Spinal Tap...

At the Dirty Boots stage I bump into one of my second year students, then grab a deckchair to watch Broken Records. That's my dirty wellington boot you can see in the photo above, indicating the amount of mud onsite. They start off a bit Arcade Fire, then go a bit Waterboys on me (I thought they were Canadian but they turn out to be Irish). It all comes together into a tuneful, rather joyous noise at the end. All four of us enjoy it, then wander off to kill some time before the Fleet Foxes, who impress everyone. I've seen them before and they seem very nervous in front of such a big crowd, but sing beautifully. They go down a storm (happily, without a storm, it remains dry) and then we go back offsite for a rest. I'd have liked to see Lily Allen, but her set is bound to be on telly, so I settle for hearing her from a distance.

We return in what should have been good time for The Specials but Security choose the most outlandish looking of our number for a complete body search (which he has to endure again the next day - this is not the idealistic free for all Glasto of previous decades) making us late. The Specials have just finished Gangsters when we arrive. They're enjoyable, but it doesn't compare to seeing them at Sheffield Academy on the second night of the reunion tour, which was outstanding. Fran and Chris go off to see The Horrors, who they enjoy, while Rich and I push our way forward to get a good spot for Neil Young. We get up close, although I keep being poked by the bloody portable chairs that so many people carry on their backs (and some insist on setting up in the middle of the crowd).

Neil is Neil. Best sound I've ever heard at a festival. Good setlist, a bit too heavy on hits for a diehard like me. He opens with 'Hey Hey My My' with its line 'the king is dead but not forgotten' which is as close as any of the acts I see gets to paying a tribute to Michael Jackson. He only plays one number off his throwaway new album. He plays too many false conclusions to songs and, by the end of the encore, the Beatles' 'A Day In The Life' has ripped all the strings from his guitar. A dramatic performance, as good as I've seen him give. Rich and I get a pint then head back to the Hymer, where Fran and Chris join us shortly afterwards. We shoot the breeze for a couple of hours. It doesn't rain. Result.

The plan is to set off around eleven but we're on Belbin time (soon to be Glasto time). I'm with sister, Fran (+ her partner, Chris: his first Glasto), and my youngest brother, Rich. They've driven over from Sheffield. The four of us set off at one, following the official route suggested for camper vans (Fran and Chris have just bought a 26 year old Hymer). While waiting, I've read a Twitter friend's account - it took nine hours for him to do the last 25 miles. So we're amazed when, six hours and one pitstop later, we get in to field E11 with no queuing whatsoever. We have a drink, meet the neighbours, put up the awning and tent. And then it starts to rain.

But it stops after a while and we go to have a look at the site. We discover we're a ten minute walk from the festival site. Could be a lot worse. Above you get the picture at dusk. Glastonbury is a constantly evolving city. Basics stay the same - the Pyramid Stage and Other Stage, the vast market area, the Acoustic Stage and Kidz Field, but other things shift, appear, expand or disappear. So it takes a while to orient yourself. Up to four days, for most people. And it's exciting. We get back to the tent at ten to eleven and my partner, Sue, texts me. Michael Jackson has died. If it were just about anybody else I'd think they were trying to start a Glasto rumour (there's always one each year, it comes from being cut off from the real world). But I call her up just as the story is confirmed. Michael was the same age as me and I've been listening to his music for 40 years. His death is a shock but it's not really a surprise - nobody thought he was going to get through those fifty shows.

We go to bed at one. Richard sleeps in the camper van spare bed, so I have the tent to myself. A few vans away, a bunch of posh sounding people are talking loudly. Not irritatingly. They'd probably be good company if I were with them. But I can't get off, and realise I've left my earplugs in the Hymer. I wait for them to get tired. They don't. Then there's a fizzing, electrical sound. What is that? I'm half asleep, but has something caught fire? No, it's light rain, drowning the sound of the party people and soon sending them to bed. I'm grateful, and fall asleep. Waking at five to the noise of a torrential downpour that goes on for hours and hours. The festival kicks off at eleven.

I had a BS Johnson day yesterday. Thanks to Scott, I heard that the BFI were showing all of Johnson's films, which I'll write about shortly. I'd arranged to meet a publisher, but this got cancelled, which turned out to be serendipitous, for it gave me time to visit the superb 'Treasures of the British Library' exhibition (Hardy, Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, Beatles lyrics, the last page of Scott's Antarctic diary and much more), then walk up to Clerkenwell to see poet and novelist Barry Cole.

I've met Barry a few times but this was my first visit to his house. And, while I knew his fine poetry, I'd never read any of his novels, until the Shoestring reissue of his second, 'Joseph Winter's Patronage', which I finished on the train journey to London. It's a terrific, absorbing novel, fast moving, multi-viewpoint, beautifully written, about the rage and passions of old age, all the more remarkable given that Barry was only in his early thirties when he wrote it. The novel is dedicated 'To Bryan', the remarkable experimental novelist BS Johnson. For a time, Barry lived in a building (pictured above) in the square where he now lives, which was later occupied by BSJ. Nearby, a few years later, Barry was to find his friend's body, after his suicide, which I won't dwell on here. What I would like to dwell on is Barry's importance as a 60's novelist. Joseph Winter is as good a novel as the best of BSJ's work and I mean to seek out his other three. When I asked him why he stopped writing novels in 1971, he told me that he 'ran out of ideas'. I suspect the subject's more complicated than he was willing to say and BSJ's death had something to do with it, too.

After a tour of the house, with its endless artworks and 5,000 books, we spent a long, pleasant lunch in Exmouth Market, talking about Crime Fiction, poetry and Stanley Middleton, as well as Johnson. The writer Jake Arnott, whose latest novel Barry had just enjoyed, stopped by to say hello. Then I caught the bus to the South Bank, where I would again meet Barry and Rita, his lovely wife of 51 years.

I've been waiting for more than 32 years to see 'Fat Man On The Beach', the film BSJ made not long before his death. I remember being told about it by a friend when I arrived at university. The friend embellished the story by saying that it ended by BSJ walking into the sea (which he does) as though killing himself (not really, but Reggie Perrin connections are inevitable) and this was how he did die (it isn't). The film was how I first heard of Johnson, whose work I have read and reread over the years, beginning with 'Aren't You Rather Young To Be Writing Your Memoirs' and 'House Mother Normal', then his suppressed (he thought it too conventional) first novel 'Travelling People' (which Scott is hoping to republish with The Friday Project). Stanley Middleton lent me a couple (including the brilliant 'Trawl') I hadn't tracked down, but it wasn't until this century I got to read the famous, randomly organised, book in a box, 'The Unfortunates', set in Nottingham, where I live.

It was the short film about 'The Unfortunates' which Johnson made for the BBC's 'Release' programme that was the big surprise for me last night. Amazing archive footage of Nottingham in the late 60's and Bill Hoyland (who appears in most of the films) reading from the book, BSJ in Yates' Wine Lodge, watching the same aged trio of musicians that were there when I arrived as a student. Barry found the two hours of films (donated to the BFI by Johnson's widow, Virginia) rather long but I have to say that, from my point of view, the seven films shot by. Strange to see a handsome, raffish young Barry playing a teacher in BSJ's first film, 'You're Human Like The Rest Of Them' (pictured above, with William Hoyland). There was a fascinating 30 minute film about BSJ's namesake Samuel Johnson (who has a table to himself in the British Library exhibition) which showed that BSJ could do smart, articulate arts coverage. That said, he included in it little flash messages like 'All publishers are parasites!' to add humour and some vitriol to the proceedings, which were first shown on ITV on a Sunday lunchtime.

And finally, at last, to 'Fat Man On A Beach', directed by Michael Bakewell. Johnson has put on weight but still looks surprisingly youthful. And he doesn't put on any poses. This is the Johnson I know from the purest voice of the novels and essays, with an added, relaxed wackiness and a lot of bananas (!). Jonathon Coe (who introduced the evening, wrote the notes and is largely responsible for the revival of interest in BSJ) writes about the film at great length in his terrific biography of BSJ, so I won't describe FMOTB in great detail here, but it was fascinating and moving and ought to be available on DVD (Scott has tracked down a youtube extract and you can see it on his blog entry about the evening). Maybe it will be. Virginia Johnson has also donated all of BSJ's archive to the British Library who are holding a one day conference about BSJ with Coe, Zulfikar Ghose and many others on October 12th which, were it not the first day of term, I'd love to attend.

And that's it for this month. Here's a silly little story I wrote for Barry's 70th birthday festchrift. I'll be back in two weeks time with what has, in previous years, proved by far the most popular feature on this website, my Glastonbury Diary. This year, with added camper van!

My friend and colleague Michael Murphy died yesterday after a long illness. Michael, who was only in his early forties, was a fine poet and a lovely man. I wish I'd known him better, but shortly after he started to work at Nottingham Trent he was laid low by the brain tumour that was to cause his death. I last saw Michael in August, at the National Wildflower Centre in Liverpool, where he lived. He was launching a pamphlet of poems, 'Allotments', written during his 2005 residency at the centre. Michael was in good form that evening but, when we talked, had no cause to be optimistic. His was a heartbreaking long goodbye. To the left is the one decent picture I snatched, of him signing our copy of his pamphlet. George Szirtes was also there that night and has written about Michael here. I'd like to send my condolences to Michael's wife, Deryn, and to their young children, Eira and Felix. Rather than try and explain what made Michael such a good poet, I'm going to type out one of his poems so that you can see for yourself. Perhaps the most appropriate choice is the title piece from his second full collection, published by Shoestring in 2003.

Rest in peace, Michael.




Elsewhere

Do you remember burying the thrush
we found late out on the cinder track
beside the railway; perfect as a mammoth
swaddled in a coat of soil and permafrost,
how you wrapped him in a Kleenex
among broken pots, split canes and bulbs
sprouting in the loamy darkness
under your dad's shed?

All night,
at opposite ends of the city, we waited
to see if - if - feathers, beak and all the
intricately coiled stuff

had, with morning, ascended.