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So after a huge amount of controversy Glastonbury 2008 is finally over. The reviews of this year’ s festival have been unanimously positive and many cite the decision to book Jay-Z as the headline act as bold step to broaden the appeal of the festival. As a result the event reached out to a bigger audience, proof of which could be seen 
on the numerous web pages that talked about it. To say it’s a sweeping success may be a stretch but Glastonbury becoming a topic even in online Pokerstars is nothing short of unbelievable.
I had not been to Glastonbury for a very long time and as result forgot how enormous and unwieldy the festival is. Geographically the site is more or less the same size of Bath (or Monaco) and with all the ticket holders, staff, police, bands, vendors etc. is populated by just over 200,000 people which is the size of a small city! Needless to say with a festival this size it’s difficult to have a single identity rather Glastonbury now looks and feels like five different festivals each with their different strands of music or performing art. One thing that really impressed me with Glastonbury is the emphasis and support that it gives to charities such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water Aid. Although most of the festival goers may have little interest in these charities and their work, the fact that they watch awareness films before each of the major acts hopefully means that they familiar with their causes by the time they leave after three days.
I also managed to spend a bit of time in the Leftfield tent where I heard the likes of Billy Bragg and Tony Benn talk about social injustices both home and abroad and what needs to be done to eradicate world poverty and tackle the rise of fascism and the BNP in areas such as Dagenham. There were about 3,000 people watching the debate and considering that it was blazing hot outside, and there were some great bands playing elsewhere, this showed how many people visiting Glastonbury do so to engage in lively political discussions.
As the main reason for me attending was to photograph the headline acts I had little time to get into the Glastonbury spirit. Instead I spent most of my time in the press tent sending pictures and getting jostled around the various pits by the other photographers and the over zealous security guards who treated us all as criminals.
Over the three days I photographed 29 bands, took around 5,000 pictures, and send around 500 images over a dodgy internet connection to my agency in London! Overall the bands were pretty good and represented some of the best from the indie and rock scene. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to explore any of the jazz, dance or world music stages however I am sure that I missed some great music.
Out of all the bands that I saw the stand out acts were The Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend, Amy Winehouse, Jay-Z, Leonard Cohen and the Raconteurs amongst others. In particular it was wonderful to watch Leonard Cohen who until recently had not performed live for over 20 years. At 73 he was top on form and he played all of his masterpieces including “Hallelujah”, “Suzanne and “Chelsea Hotel”.
For obvious reasons I have not reviewed each gig that I photographed however had added links below to some of the more interesting shows. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Amy Winehouse
Jay-Z
Kings of Leon
The Verve
Leonard Cohen
The Ranconteurs
Get Cape Wear Cape
Duffy
The Zutons
Neil Diamond
KT Tunstall
The Feeling
The Kills
Vampire Weekend
The Ting Tings
The Fratellis
Gabriella Cilmi