Sunday 27th June – Still more rain, mud sticky, slippery and nasty. Most of our field was woken by one of our neighbours playing the Keane album over and over again at top volume from their car stereo. There were cries of “Change the CD!” but they were in vain. After the third repetition, everyone was heartily sick of it (and some of us who weren’t fond of Keane to start with had grown to loathe them).
Eyi had lost her coach ticket so left early to try to sort that out (which she did, successfully). Vic and I decided it would be a good time to sort out the tyre changing, as we wouldn’t be caught in a rush with people leaving. After much wandering and advice gathering we put the van’s jack on a large flat stone, jacked it up and changed the wheel with relative ease. All ready to leave on Monday. We had decided to take the rest of the day easy, without slogging backwards and forwards between stages, so headed for the Green Fields and spent some time enjoying the atmosphere, the food and the general vibe.
Eyi’s bus left around 3pm so we didn’t catch up with her before she left, though we’ve heard she made it home safely.
Feeling much more chilled after that, we passed by the Radio One stage where Fatboy Slim was obviously enjoying DJing in front of a few hundred rain-sodden, but happy individuals. We watched for a while before moving on.
Back to the Cider Bus, bumping into several Urban 75 folk again (hi Stig, William, MrMoose and Mike again!) while Morrissey performed on the nearby Pyramid Stage.
The last event of the festival for Vic and I was in the small Avalon Stage tent up in the Green Fields. We weren’t bothered about seeing any of the main headliners (Muse, Orbital, Ozomatli) so went to see Adrian Sherwood and “special guests”. The Avalon tent was pretty empty but the vibe was great. Everyone was really relaxed and Mr Sherwood played some fantastic dub reggae. The guests turned out to a bongo player, whose name I forget, Ghetto Priest, and one Denise Sherwood, Adrian’s young daughter who gave a great performance of “I’m tired of ‘Soon Come'” – great voice and definitely one to watch. After that, we watched the traditional end-of-festival fireworks before heading back to the van, encountering a giant golden Praying Mantis on the way (no really… it was a performance by a troupe from Montpelier in France on the Fire and Dance Stage).