Music news about Glastonbury, Somerset, UK, is dominated by the giant festival that descends on the fields of nearby Worthy Farm, Pilton each year.
Now in its 40th year the sounds of Muse, U2 and Stevie Wonder will be echoing across the Somerset levels from the festival site in June to nearby towns such as Shepton Mallett and Glastonbury itself.
But what of the local bands that have had to play in the shadow of this mighty festival? Neon Filler’s Joe Lepper visited the town of Glastonbury just a few weeks before the 2010 festival, to hear four local bands and to find out a bit more about the other musical Glastonbury, the one that rarely gets itself into the headlines.
For those that have been to the festival but not the town of Glastonbury it is a strange place indeed. Full of vanity publishing bookshops, astral charts and magic stones. For tonight an array of local bands, playing to an audience of largely under-18s in Glastonbury Town Hall, is thrown into the mix.
The members of one the bands playing, Class Apart , may still be at school, in nearby Wells, but don’t patronise these teens. They have a solid track record of winning battle of the bands events, have performed at the Royal Albert Hall and this year will be performing at the Glastonbury Festival.
Class Apart lead singer and guitarist George Ruddle- Hellier says that sadly there are two few opportunities to play live locally despite the giant festival down the road. “Glastonbury Festival is just one week a year, but it’s hard to get gigs the rest of the year. This is our first this year, we’ve tried and made calls but there are just no venues around,” he says.
Glastonbury Festival organisers, the Eavis family do their bit. They organise a gig for local young people at the festival site each year, with Florence and the Machine among those to play there most recently. Also local bands such as Class Apart get to play at the festival, seemingly based on a who you know basis.
George explains, that “someone we know sorted it for us,” adding cryptically, “we were meant to play last year but there was a bit of miscommunication and it didn’t happen.”
Listening to them I can see why they were invited to play at the festival. Despite playing in front of a small crowd tonight they bashed out a cheery bunch of mostly their own indie-pop numbers. The guitarist throwing in some Fugazi moments here and there helped as well. They are a crisp live act, admittedly still finding their distinct sound, but on this evidence will go from strength to strength.
George’s views on lack of venues were echoed by Matt White, bassist with next band, the indie rock three-piece Cover The Crisis and guitarist with last act the hard rock leaning Shadows Burn.
Matt, who has also played at Glastonbury Festival twice, describes the relationship local bands have with the festival simply as, “there is the first rung on the ladder at the bottom and the last rung at the top.”
“Glastonbury festival is what it is but there’s a real lack of venues and music promotion in central Somerset. Someone needs to come forward and do something,” he adds, in between Cover the Crisis and Shadows Burn sets.
It was an emotional night for Cover the Crisis and the couple of dozen fans they brought with them as this was their final gig, due to “life, families, work reasons, nothing malicious,” says Matt. It was the set of a band splitting up, fun and full of tongue in cheek emotion as after three years they go their separate ways.
Matt was more serious and workmanlike though for the set of Shadows Burn, his relatively new venture, which provided a solid, hard rock end to proceedings.
Karen Brandon, from gig organiser Somerset Youth Services laments the lack of punters, as less than 100 turned up to the 300 capacity venue. “I spoke to some kids at school this week who said they hadn’t heard about it. I’m not sure what we will do for the next event,” she says. There were rumours on the Shadows Burn Facebook site that some people were turned away for , “smelling of alcohol.” Just imagine the Eavis family doing the same.
Class Apart seemed a little effected by the lack of people, with George describing his band’s performance as “dire”. This didn’t seem to bother opener The Mirettes, from nearby Wells, though. They were too lost in their cheeky mix of ska and pop to notice , and as a result arguably put in the performance of the night.
While the Eavis family that runs the Glastonbury festival, local youth workers and a handful of pub venues, are clearly doing their small bit to promote music, it is a sad irony that in an area synonymous with live music, the highly talented bands that live in the area too often struggle to find venues and an audience.
by Joe Lepper, 10 May, 2010
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