secret fireworks

I've just got in the door after travelling back from Draperstown and I have to admit Glasgowbury exceeded my expectations by miles. The bands were better, the craic was better and the weather was better than I expected. Up on Secret Fireworks we will have full reviews from....

The Q
Kowalski
The Jane Bradfords
Pocket Promise
A Plastic Rose
Here Comes The Landed Gentry
LaFaro
Cashier No 9
We Are Resistance
& And So I Watch You From Afar

I was hoping to see a few more sets but I would have collapsed/become deaf/been swallowed into a swamp.

The Good at Glasgowbury:

• The weather. We didn't get an onslaught of rain and while the craic was slightly dampened by the showers it could have been a lot worse.
• The craic. From what I saw, only a few incidents occurred and nothing major really happened. There's also something lovely and binding about a bunch of girls and guys kicking a football up into the air and shouting out a word, then cheering when someone headers it.
• The Beat. One of my favourite parts of the festival, there was an arts and crafts stand set up so we could make our own signs for the bands, or write whatever we wanted. We Are Resistance's followers used this to great effect.
• The positive attitude of the bands. With one or two exceptions every band seemed to revel in the festival spirit: whether it's Tony from ASIWYFA gushing on stage, A Plastic Rose looking like kids in a sweet shop when a few people start clapping along to their songs or Here Comes The Landed Gentry playing an encore there's pride in playing at Glasgowbury.
• Free things. Whether it's a hug from the Jagermeister girls, a free A Plastic Rose CD seemingly containing every song they've ever recorded or a passer by simply offering a complete stranger one of their chips in the pouring rain, it's all good.
• Paul McClean and Rigsy in shades, looking sexy and surrounded by girls. Fair play, lads.
• Paddy Glasgow.
  

• Nowhere near enough bins on the campsite.
  
• Security not being particularly visible.
• One band in particular acting like pricks to the audience on stage.
• Sound problems in the G Sessions tent, but that's par for the course.
• Not enough hours in the day to fit in all the music. :(
• The eejits that lobbed bottles at ASIWYFA. That's not on.

• The couple who began kissing in the front row of the main stage at half 2 and continued until the start of ASIWYFA, then decided it would be a good idea to do the same thing in the middle of a busy narrow country road when traffic was trying to leave.