Beth-lehem

TIME OUT MAY 24-31 2000

By Chris Salmon
Photo by Barry J Holmes

You'd forgive Ian Brown for being in a bad mood. The former Stone Roses frontman has been up all night tending to his seven-week-old third child. But, contrary to what you might have read, the funky monkey's not the rude, grumpy type. We're running late, but he's happily sitting in an Islington studio, peeling a mango and discussing M6 congestion, while bubbly Beth Orton, the woman who's brought folk music to the dance masses, gets a spot of make-up. This year has seen Brown playing some of the best shows of his career, while Orton won the BRIT Award for Best British Female. And with the pair playing most of this year's festivals between them, who better to give us the lowdown on the festival experience?

Did you go to festivals when you were younger?

Ian: No.
Beth: Did you not?
Ian: [chuckles] No, never.
Beth: How come?
Ian: I wanted to wait to play'em.
Beth: I was going from the age of about six or seven. I'm from Norfolk and they used to have all these hippy fairs.

Which is the best festival?

Ian: Glastonbury, if it isn't muddy.
BEth Glastonbury's like the rite of passage. You get thrown through the vortex, you may come out another person. You may come out with two heads or half a head. And yes, it's happened to me. Yes, I bought those mushrooms to share with the boyfriend that I then split up with, did them all, went and saw Nick Cave. Lost it! I was shown the Samaritans tent.
Ian: Do they have a tent there? I'd like to be a Samaritan.

Why are festivals so important?

Ian: You can't have illegal warehouse parties anymore, so all your leisure's organised for you. If you're young you need that...
Beth: ... sense of freedom. But they're getting more and more heavily organised.
Ian: They're all about making money. None of them are really about entertaining people. Beth: I think Glastonbury still is. I think Michael Eavis has got his heart...
Ian: But don't you think that guy makes a lot of dough?
Beth: Yeah, but he puts a lot into it.
Ian: It's all about the corn. He doesn't do it for the benefit of humanity. If he did it'd be free. Eighty thousand people at UKP80 a ticket, that's a lot of cash. Plus sponsorship. Mind you, they say they give a million to charity every year.
Ian: [chuckles] Showbiz farmer!

So would you play a free festival for nothing?

Beth: Yeah.
Ian: I would too, yeah.

But why aren't there any?

Beth: [sadly] I don't know what happened.
Ian: People are suspicious of free festivals. They'd rather pay, psychologically.

Have you camped at a festival?

Ian: I've never done it. I've slept rough and shit through my life if I've wanted to see somewhere. y'know. I'm 37. There's no way I could spend a night in a tent.
Beth: I have done, but not in a long time. Do do you watch the other bands when you lay? Ian: I always do, yeah.
Beth: Yeah, I do a bit of running around in my few hours. It's so exciting to go to Glastonbury and play. And then if you have to go straight away it's like being a kid going round someone's house and your parents are really straight and you've gotta leave really quickly.

What do you think of one-day dance events?

Ian: I thought it'd be more family, community minded. At the rock festivals all the artists have a laugh together. But at these dance things they all sit in their own little cubicles. If s proper business. And a DJ won't have your guys setting your amps up while he's onstage in case the crowd's not looking at him.

Presumably people just go there and get off their heads...

Beth: That's about it, and it gets really grim at about one in the morning. Suddenly there's nowhere to go except some nasty sweaty tent or some grim backstage get-up, and everyone's getting cold and their eyes are...
Ian: ... all hanging out! Both Yeah. It all gets a bit much.

What about Reading?

Beth That's pure rock. I saw Primal Scream play and it was incredible. I was crowd-surfing. It's really beautiful being held up by all those people. Like everyone's coming together.

When did you last go to a festival as a punter?

Ian: I've never been to a festival aside from playing it. But in a few years, when you're not playing so much...

Ian: Yeah, in a few years if I'm not singing, I'd definitely go back and take my kids, They wouldn't wanna be hanging about with their pops, but I'll take them anyway! Heh heh heh. "You're coming, " hur hur. "No Dad, you're cramping our style, you old bastard! "

What's the best festival performance you've seen?

Ian: Eek A Mouse, at Atlanta. I heard from his soundman he looks at himself in the mirror for three hours before he goes on, striking poses. Both That Primal Scream gig at Reading was pretty exciting. In what way? Both Might've been that E I took just before they came on! He he heh. Sorry.

What festival would you like to play?

Ian: I'd like to see another big Anti-Nazi League festival. They were good festivals, in the'70s.

Beth: Yeah Or in CND days, when they'd fill the whole of London and we'd all behind a bus with Ian Dury playing on it. And you'd get to the park and there'd be a big gig on. It was amazing.

But politics used to be closely associated with festivals. Now it's all Orange mo bile phones and Carling lager.

Beth: This is maybe the point, that that push has gone because politics has moved away. Ian: I think Thatcher and those people made politics super-boring to turn people away from it. People maybe had more faith that you could change things through politics 20 years ago.

What about the May Day protests?

Beth: Yeah, but where's the joy in it? These protests used to be really joyous occasions. Ian: Handing out McDonald's burgers isn't revolution.

Which brings us nicely on to festival food...

Ian: For the punters, if s pretty poor. Although Glastonbury is good, they have loads of Jamaican food stalls.

You check out the stalls, then?

Ian: Yeah, do the whole site.
Beth: I've had the backs of my knees licked outside a burger van.
Ian: [surprised] Have ya?
Beth: About eight years ago. I was so out of my head some geezer was just licking the back of my knees and I was in ecstasy! Just leaning against a burger van. It was genius. Ian: Hur hur. That's proper festival activity.

Are you playing new stuff this year?

Beth:Yes.
Ian: Yeah, me too.

Wanna elaborate?

Beth: No. These things are best left spontaneous...
Ian: I've got a new guitar player, so l've got a full acid rock sound, with beats - the perfect festival sound, I think.

What's the worst thing about festivals?

Beth: Toilets.
Ian: The only bad thing is that there's loads of police. All at the back walking about like John Wayne. Every time you see them they spoil it, don't they?
Beth: It's like a little gnaw. Like at Notting Hill Carnival when they'd stand next to a black woman for a picture...
Ian: Then at half-seven they come in on their horses!

And the best thing?

Ian: It's like when people go on holiday they're less inhibited. It's beautiful to see people living free and having a good time.