Oh look – it’s Glastonbury Festival time again. Don’t worry – I won’t air my yearly gripes about the festival again.
Oh, OK, then: I hate the fact that a once-unique festival of genuinely alternative lifestyles, music and culture has been hijacked by the Grazia-reading haircut brigade. Sad but true.
A trip to Glastonbury used to be a weekend break in a parallel universe: one where travellers, hippies, rockers, arts ‘n’ craft people, old people, naked people, drunk people, Hari Krishna people et al could congregate and mix freely.
Last time I went, this mix of cultures had drowned under a determinedly stupid wave of back-combed hair, designer Wellington boots, and a propensity – no, a need – to queue three hours to charge mobile phones.
It goes without saying that, of course, I wish I was there, regardless. I just can’t bring myself to wade through the hoards of idiots any more.
Prince Rama won’t be playing at Glastonbury, or at least I don’t think they are. They’re scheduled to play at Baltimore, MD; now – my North American geography is admittedly dreadful, but I’m fairly sure that’s nowhere near Somerset.
Prince Rama // Lightening Fossil
Lightening Fossil is an intriguing prospect by name alone – unusual, curious visualisations are never far away from anything Prince Rama does.
Just listen to that chaotic swirl of operatic vocals, scatter-gun rhythms and the grand, end-of-world urgency that pervades. Prince Rama might not make a huge amount of sense, but the manner in which they do it convinces; and belief is a huge part of winning the battle against obscurity.
I wish they were going to appear at Glastonbury, and perhaps they do too. They would fit in perfectly in the few truly outré spaces that populate the weirder fields. And more importantly, they’d scare off the insufferable, braying, gap-year morons. Huzzah.