Glastonbury 2010

The air is full of campfire smoke and the sky lit up with torches and lanterns. It’s the last few hours of sunny Glastonbury 2010.

People are chilling out, thinking about the last few days – celebrating the last few hours of what’s been a fantastic, sun-filled festival.

Lisp, Matt, Jed, Sami, Hayley and Jenna, from Liverpool, lit a lantern at the Stone Circle to mark the end of their second Glastonbury. Last year they said they did a lot of wandering but stuck mainly to the main stages.

“This year we’ve seen so much more – the Healing Fields, the Acoustic Stage, the Fields of Avalon and of course the Pyramid Stage. We’ve loved everything.

“We’re still learning though – you do every year. If you’d met us on hour one, you’d have seen us struggling to drag our stuff in a kids’ sandpit on a rope. Not a good idea. We’ll be back next year – there’s always more to explore.”

What better way to bring Glastonbury to a close on its 40th anniversary than to see Stevie Wonder bring Michael Eavis on to the Pyramid Stage and launch a mass sing-a-long of Happy Birthday!

We were already in party mood, dancing and singing non-stop to an hour and a half of Stevie classics – “Superstition”, “Uptight” “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”, “Sir Duke” – track after track met with cheers and chants of “Stevie! Stevie!”.

The Pyramid arena was full-to-burst. People were climbing up poles and dancing by the food vans. After a stunning, sun-filled few days, it was the perfect end to a brilliant Glastonbury.

What an out-of-this-world way to close the Other Stage! Orbital lit up Glastonbury with one of their trademark sound and light shows and, just as you were thinking it all looked like some kind of alien attack, who should come on to the stage but Doctor Who himself Matt Smith. As he played synth on a dance version of the Doctor Who theme, all you could think was: “Only at Glastonbury.”

Tom and his mates from London didn’t make it to the football and weren’t that disappointed. “We’re here for the music anyway,” he said as Jack Johnson played on the Pyramid Stage. Here’s Tom:

So England are out. It’s bad – but where better to be when you need a lift than Glastonbury.

Liam from Coventry says: “If I was at home and the game had just finished I’d be gutted and probably just have a beer, but we’re here – we’re going to see Stevie, Orbital, MGMT, LCD Soundsystem.”

And with that, he carried on dancing!

It was tough deciding what to watch this afternoon – but those who opted for Slash at the Pyramid Stage were glad they did. And not just because of the England result. The metal legend treated the packed, charged audience to a blistering set including classic Guns N’ Roses anthems like “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and “Paradise City”.

Slash and Ray Davies or Rooney and England v Germany? Festival-goers had a tough decision at 3pm with many of them looking out their England tops again and heading to find a big screen showing the big match. Or, in the case of the Barnsley Warriors, getting kitted out in their full knights’ outfits – “we’re putting up a wall of shields to keep the Germans out”, they said.

Thousands of people flocked west past the John Peel Stage to Bushy Ground, which had been set up as the main football field – and the mood was tense and strangely quiet as the match kicked off. And when Germany took the lead after 21 minutes you could hear a pin drop.

Newton Faulkner’s a very friendly fella. He took some time out of his day to have a chat about The Flaming Lips, what it is to be honest, and afternoon hangovers before going out on stage and performing a 50-minute set in Orange Chill and Charge.

The crowd in the tent absolutely loved him – everyone on their feet dancing and singing along. He finished off the set with a crazy one-man-and-his-guitar rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody which had to be seen to be believed!

Glastonbury is famous for catering for festival-goers of all ages. And heading out to the Kidz Field we saw why.

There’s loads of colour, music, performers and craziness. Whilst the kids love it – there are also plenty of adults who can’t get enough of what’s on offer. You can get your face painted, hair braided, body glittered and fairy wings fitted.

There’s a Helter Skelter, the castle slide, the gyroscope, zipline, climbing wall and bouncy assault – and we can’t get enough of it!

Sisters Meg, Sal and Laura are part of one of the performance companies based on the Kidz Field. They are a stilt-walking act called Company Contrary.

They love the Kidz Field at Glastonbury – as Meg says – “it’s kiddie heaven!”

No-one’s complaining about the weather at Glastonbury – the wall-to-wall sunshine is amazing. However, everyone needs a bit of shade now and then, and there’s actually not much to be found.

People are packing themselves under trees, scooching up close to walls and even, as Bryn and his mates demonstrate, creating portable gazebos to get a break from the sun.

It’s the job that nobody really notices. After a heavy night, once festival-goers wake-up, miraculously the fields are clean of litter.

These are the people who work that magic. They’re up at five and work through until midday. 90 pickers cover the area of the Other Stage, and hundreds more work hard across the site, to get the main areas tidy before the first bands start playing.

Most of them are volunteers, who work in return for their festival ticket.

Glastonbury donates the money the volunteers would have been paid to various charities who organise the teams of litter pickers.

Erica set up the charity Kiota to support vulnerable young women in Tanzania. She now has a group of 60 volunteers working at the festival this year, and last year was able to raise £6,000.

It’s 3am and there’s a real pagan feel to the Stone Circle tonight, with hundreds of people huddling around campfires, and a few people doing some decidedly more dangerous things with flames.

Arcadia was packed for MC Mash Clan’s set. It was really hard to get close – and they closed The Old Railway Track shortly after we arrived to stop anyone else getting in. It’s like stepping directly into a battle scene in the Matrix. The explosions were so intense that they shook and the ground seemed to light up the sky for miles around. The mix of thumping dance music and pyrotechnics is unparalleled. You just don’t see stuff like this anywhere else.