Who's in It: Steven Patrick Morrissey, Björk, Nick Cave, Scissor Sisters, Radiohead, David Bowie
The Basics: OK, did you read that brief lineup of who shows up in this concert film/documentary about England's biggest yearly music festival and cultural happening? Well, here's who else is in it: The Velvet Underground, Prodigy, Primal Scream, Billy Bragg, Black Uhuru, Cypress Hill, Babyshambles, David Gray, The Chemical Brothers, Blur, Joe Strummer, Pulp, Ray Davies and a lot more. Sounds awesome, right?
What's the Deal?Well, guess what? None of these artists are shown singing a single song from start to finish. Sorry to ruin the whole thing for you there. But seriously, the biggest names get maybe a minute of a song, and then it's a wham-bam cut to some stinky, unwashed, drug-shredded audience member lying in the mud or dancing like a spaz. So if you're such a fan of Morrissey or Björk that you'd pay 10 bucks just to see them walk onstage and blow their nose and then leave, then by all means, get right down to the theater and sit through all two and half hours of this. But otherwise, you could just watch any of their live DVDs and be much, much happier for having done so.
The History of Glastonbury: The legend of this place is that Jesus visited here back in the day. Like, somehow, he got on a plane and just popped on over to bless the land or something. So it's a mystical place for people in the U.K., and that's why the music festival began there. At least that's what the movie would lead you to believe. In any case, the history of the festival itself is fairly interesting as a marker of generational shifts in taste and fashion and politics, but it doesn't care much about giving you any sort of chronology of that stuff. It just throws everything together in a big jumble. Even the moments in time when events outside the festival — aka Margaret Thatcher's reign of misery — had an effect on what went on during the festival, even that stuff is sort of glossed over. It's more concerned with lots and lots and lots of footage of people in sombreros and multicolored dreadlocks and wacky costumes who all come off like college students on a bender screaming, "Yeah, we're gonna get crazy!"
Director Julien Temple's Pet Band: That would be Primal Scream, which appears here about three times. And I'm not dissing Primal Scream. I like them just fine. But three times?
Director Julien Temple's Dodgy Musical Taste: It should be mentioned that the following groups are also in the movie: The Bravery, Alabama 3, Jah Wobble and the Invaders, Tofu Love Frogs and Stereo MCs. Of all the bands who've performed at this thing for over 30 years, these bands made the cut. Coldplay, too. I can't stand Coldplay.
Who Makes It Less Annoying: Pulp. Bowie popping up near the end to sing "Heroes" is nice, too.