Glastonbury Festival 27th June 2008 (BBC Highlights Broadcast)

Time to take another glance backwards across Editors' past at Glastonbury 2008, as featured in this BBC 3 highlights show. There's a reason why they have such a strong relationship with this festival, which this video will hopefully illustrate. Sadly, one of the songs that was omitted from the broadcast when it aired on the BBC was No Sound But The Wind, possibly because of its status at the time as an unreleased track. You can still hear it in full if you check out the MP3s below. It's introduced as a new song and that's extremely accurate, considering NSBTW was clearly still in the embryonic stage of its existence at this point.

My favourite part of it is that there's a single note that starts everything off, and it's held throughout the entire song right until it ends. It remains completely the same and doesn't change in pitch or tone, acting like an anchor to all the other sounds that are swirling around it. Every time there's a more quiet part of the track you can hear it, even if you forgot that it was there. There's all these key changes happening with the other instruments but it remains unaltered. I love that, and I have no idea why. I just do.

You might not believe this, but Glastonbury in 2008 was a massive talking point among music fans. Why? Well, brace yourselves for an incoming scandal...they invited a rapper to headline. Oh mercy. Read it again and feel your outrage ignite like gunpowder.

Sigh.

When I got started down the road discussing the values of exposure to different syles I ended up with several paragraphs of ranting, so I've chopped it back for this final cut. A life in a musical bubble isn't really anything I'm interested in experiencing, and neither should you be. There are so many possibilities for joy in music, irrespective of genre, so take in as much as you can and keep what makes you happy.

This was a festival gig before the later days of confetti, streamers and moshpit-roasting flamethrowers. What they did have, was a smoke machine. If you're the Sisters of Mercy in 1985 and your aim is to partially obscure yourself in a mysterious veil of dry ice, it's the perfect accompaniment to your music. Suddenly you go from being 4 ordinary dudes on a stage to being 4 shapes in a mist, sending in spooky and deeply meaningful vibrations from another world. If you're Editors and it's the middle of the day at Glastonbury, however, you just...vanish.

Glastonbury saw them delivering one of the best, and fastest, versions of Blood they did in that first lineup of the band. I actually feel like King Leetch really had to earn his money at this concert, trying to keep up with his partner in rhythm who appears to have chugged a bucket of coffee prior to hitting the stage. Powerful Ed Lay! Playing with the speed of a man who just remembered he forgot to turn the iron off when he left the house.  It's the same when they do Munich which has the solo, crowd-baiting intro from Tom and the first chorus fake-out which you can hear the audience sing along to. Music done at a trot rather than a canter.

Watch out for the very end of Smokers when everyone decides to go a bit nutty before they leave the stage, including Mr Smith attempting multiple sloppy pirouettes like Baryshnikov, all while slapping the crap out of his guitar. Enjoy the show ;)

Highlights Setlist
1 Bones
2 Racing Rats
3 AEHAS
4 Escape The Nest
5 All Sparks 
6 Bullets
7 Blood
8 Munich
9 WOTW
10 Fingers
11 Smokers 

stream it here 

MP3s
1 Intro - download here
2 Bones - download here
3 Racing Rats - download here
4 AEHAS - download here
5 Escape The Nest - download here
6 All Sparks - download here
7 NSBTW - download here
8 Bullets - download here
9 Blood - download here
10 You Are Fading - download here
11 Munich - download here
12 WOTW - download here
13 Fingers - download here
14 Smokers - download here

10 Photos from the BBC website (zip file)

download here

DVD Files

VIDEO_TS.BUP - download here

VIDEO_TS.IFO - download here

VIDEO_TS.VOB - download here

VTS_01_0.BUP - download here

VTS_01_0.IFO - download here

VTS_01_1 - download here

VTS_01_2 - download here

VTS_01_3 - download here

VTS_01_4 - download here

VTS_02_0.BUP - download here

VTS_02_0.IFO - download here

VTS_02_1 - download here

Artwork - download here

Bonus Material - Interviews

This one is with BBC 6 Music, and has some very funny moments. Like Editors being referred to as "indie saplings", when the interviewer talks about the first time he spoke to them.  Or Tom assuring him that the new album, ITLAOTE, would be out the following year and be free when you buy a box of Shreddies. Oddness.

stream it here

An excellent interview with Mr Urbanowicz and Mr Lay here for you now, as they chat with the NME just after they came offstage.  The ending of the video is particularly amusing, given how polite and poised Chris was throughout. For shame, sir!

stream it here

Filmed after the band had completed their set, here's Tom and Russell chatting with Zane and Edith about the gig. Notice how everyone in the room is wearing wellington boots. Ahhhhh Glastonbury. It's all about the mud :)

stream it here

Last but not least, King Leetch and Ed chat about a few things including world tours, and being a punter at Glastonbury. The "What's the itinerary for the rest of the year" question gets a very direct answer from Mr Leetch. There's also an unwelcome interruption from a telephone. How rude. Check it out :)

stream it here

being brought to you with lots of lemming-love :)