Glastonbury’s gates have closed for another year and as many a weary, mud covered, slightly sunburnt and heavily hungover festival goers make their way back to their beds it’s time to reflect on the festival and it’s key points.
Never a dull moment, there was torrential rain and lots of mud, an awesome performance from Beyonce (which apparently was so sinful to have missed that Zane Lowe was given his marching orders home), the death of a Tory and some good old fashioned protesting. It’s the protesting that caught my eye out of the whole festival though.
During the much anticipated debut performance of U2 on Glasto’s Pyramid stage, 10 protesters from Art Uncut attempted to inflate a 20ft balloon with the message “U Pay Tax 2” aimed at U2’s recent allegations of tax dodging.
Within seconds of the balloon being inflated a troupe of security guards forcibly removed the protesters and confiscated the balloon. This left the crowd and fellow protesters none to pleased and a group of 30 pissed off protesters decided to test their strength against security. Needless to say it escalated into a bit of a commotion before the protesters were out on their ear from the arena, but no-one was arrested.
It strikes me as odd that at the “original activist’s festival” a protest would be quite brutally cut short when just a short wade through the mud to the Leftfield you can protest political, economic or environmental issues to your heart’s content.
