Extreme Listening Mode!

Yes, it’s here again. Glastonbury arrives and, for many of us, will be enjoyed through the medium of television. Even though you wouldn’t neccesarily know that if you had much exposure to mainstream media this week, who treat it as almost an act of sacrilege if you simply don’t fancy it. So for those who will try and see some great music on their flatscreens, here is the guide to what you can expect.

Michael Eavis will appear several dozen times and pretend to be a lowly farmer who runs a music festival in his spare time for larks.

Jo Whiley will assume that her audience have been living in a small cave in Papua New Guinea for the last twenty years and have never heard of mainstream acts such as Bloc Party, Doves, the Ting Tings and White Lies. She will therefore relentlessly patronise the audience whenever these bands appear.

Tellingly, when something genuinely leftfield does appear, she will glaze over into a confused ball of light matter and desperately attempt to blag her way through it. She will fail.

The peerless Mark Radcliffe (pictured) will be so much better than everyone else you will begin to feel sorry for him.

A comedian who has never made you laugh, ever, will be filmed walking around a field having ‘amusing’ conversations with people from Kent who are about as interesting as a table water biscuit.

A man with too many piercings and not enough hair will tell you all about his ‘Glastonbury Experience’ as if you are supposed to give a fuck. Meanwhile, someone superb will be playing and you will be missing it.

The Beeb will have a 1:1 staff to festival attendees ratio.

Plugs for the coverage will be all over radio, including Radio 2, whose presenters will go along with it whilst making it abundantly clear that they’d rather eat their own reproductive organs than actually attend the thing.

There will be a breathtaking aerial shot of the huge crowd watching Springsteen during ‘Born to Run’ that will make you reconsider your decision not to go.

This will, however, be short-lived, as the next moment they will cut to the holistic jazz field, where you will be forced to listen to a man called Julian describe his, like, vision for his organic nettle serum stall.

The Beeb will show the entire performance of the Sunday novelty act rather than the hundreds of great acts playing. This year it is howling Welsh arsehole Tom Jones. Note; now beyond kitsch. Now just a bellowing six foot tadger.

A radically unsuitable act will perform acoustic in the BBC Presentation Tent. Whiley will watch with rictus grin; Radcliffe with amused bemusement.

The word ‘incredible’ will be said 18,965 times. On the Friday alone.

Phil Jupitus will pop up looking fat.

Emily Eavis will appear on TV and talk with a solemnity that makes you think she’s referring to planning the current campaign in Afghanistan rather than a music festival.

Some locals from the villaage will pop up sounding like extras from the Vicar of Dibley but much more irritating.

When it ends, the staff will make you feel you have missed an epoch making event. You haven’t.

There will be some stunning music.

That’s about it; enjoy!

Filed under: General Stuff Tagged: | bbc, gigs, Glastonbury, glastonbury 2009, music, radcliffe, tv, Whiley