Malone on the joy of festivals then and now

wondered how different a scene it was back in 1969. I imagine there was no fencing, no portable toilets, no £29 jugs of Pimms… (Yes £29! We drank cider to keep in keeping with festival tradition.)

If I was back in 1969 in Hyde Park waiting for The Stones, I would have been the friend that went to find a pub loo and missed half the gig, or found a tree and peed on myself by accident (female outdoor weeing is no easy feat) and then spent the next 24 hours looking really kool in a kaftan but smelling of wee.

“I imagine there was no fencing, no portable toilets, no £29 jugs of Pimms…”

I’d have been hanging out with famous ’60s types in Bayswater afterwards, people like Andy Warhol would’ve been like ‘who’s that kool looking girl, the one that smells of wee?’ The ’60s look really amazing in photos, but I bet the actual reality was different. Smelly.

My mum reckons Afghan coats absolutely stunk once wet (it still rained back then.) My uncle saw a man at Glastonbury fall in the ‘pit’, (the toilet), a huge long hole dug in the ground with wooden planks laid across, so that you could sit, while doing your ‘number twos’. Apparently he walked for miles covered in poo looking for help, a tap… Where was the free tap love? Free love was not available to hippies covered in hundreds of people’s poo apparently.

Now at festivals we have taps and proper toilets (maybe not flushes but we’ll be thankful for the doors.) We have any type of over-priced sweaty food you can afford, we have wellies available in other colours apart from green. We have video screens so you can feel a bit cold while you watch the telly. Yes, festivals have changed a lot from the ’60s, thankfully.

I said to my mum “I’ve been telling everyone you saw The Stones in Hyde Park”. My mum replied: “Oh I didn’t see them. I heard them. I heard them playing as we drove past the park on the way to buy some hashish”.

Right… my mum was too rock ’n’ roll for organised concerts. Meanwhile, in 2011 I had packed two raincoats (one fleeced), drank moderately, the only drug I took was draught caffeine and was tucked up in bed by midnight. With my daughter. Rock ’n’ roll.