In 1970, a young farmer named Michael Eavis opened his
150- acre farm to 1,500 people who paid one pound each to watch a handful
of pop and folk stars perform all weekend long, and the Glastonbury
Festival was born.
The following year, several rich hippies, including
Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, provided funds to enlarge the
event, and 12,500 people turned up to see David Bowie and Joan Baez.
For most of the past 30 years, the Worthy Farm in Glastonbury has provided
a delirious outdoor concert for thousands of people over the summer-solstice
weekend at the end of June.
Julien Temple, (director of the Sex Pistols documentary
The Filth and the Fury), has spent the past few years collecting footage
from every single Glastonbury Festival, ranging from professional outtakes
from the film Nicolas Roeg made about the 1971 event to amateur home
videos collected from the attendees themselves, often retrieved from
forgotten corners of closets and attics.
Interweaving images of impromptu art happenings, skeptical
locals, and stirring performances by music legends, not to mention the
unbridled energy of each successive generation of youthful music fans,
Glastonbury skillfully chronicles the evolution of the longest-running
music festival in the world.
