Friday 25th June – The festival proper started, the rain eased up, the mud started to dry out, and despite his good intentions, Cedric missed the first of his “bands to see” as they were first on The Pyramid Stage. Vic and I wandered down to the New Stage to see The Experimental Pop Band, but due to a mix up in the various guides, they actually started 20 minutes before the time we thought. As a result we only caught their last three songs, “Bang Bang You’re Dead”, “Punk Rock Classic” and “The Hippies Don’t Know”. A great performance (especially considering they were on shortly after noon) and it bodes well for their new album.

After that we wandered again, with general intention to see various bands but often as not, we didn’t get there in time, or the tent was so full you couldn’t see anything. We weren’t bothered though, Glastonbury is about a lot more than rushing from one band to another. It’s nice to watch people and performers and just absorb the open, friendly atmosphere.

We chatted to a group of older Welsh guys who were at the festival with their families but who all banded together and sat in the bar by the Dance Tent. Mani (ex-Stone Roses, Primal Scream) was also sitting in there having a beer.

We met up with Eyi, who was arriving by coach, at around 5pm, before dropping her stuff off at one of the lockup points. Over to the New Tent again, this time to see “The Bees They put on a great show and were obviously very popular with the large crowd. They played songs from both of their albums and got everyone moving, despite the mud. After that, it was over to the Other Stage to watch The Chemical Brothers set; very impressive, great light show and very loud. It must be fantastic fun to be allowed to make that amount of noise!

We did consider hanging around at The Glade for “Drunk Soul Brother” , who we guessed could be Norman “Fatboy Slim” Cook, but decided we were too tired and The Glade was too busy so went back to the van for a good night’s sleep. It turns out we were right, as Fatboy Slim AND The Chemical Brothers appeared in The Glade later that night.