Glastonbury '94

Firstly, how the fuck is it seventeen years since I went to Glastonbury?  I work with people who are seventeen.  Fuck.

I went with two friends from the Island and we saw Oasis and Pulp before they were big and Blur on the cusp of releasing Park Life.

We also met a man called Die.

We'd arrived on the Thursday evening and first thing Friday, after failing miserably to get drunk on what turned out to be apple juice, we headed into a local town to buy beer.  We purchased the beer and then needed to head back to the site and were offered a lift by a kindly fellow attendee.  Unfortunately he had also offered a lift to a massive Welshman.  His name was Die.  I guess it's probably spelt 'Dye' or 'Deye' or 'Dia' or some other Welsh way such as 'Dieyeeey', but for me he will always be 'Die'.  I was sat in the back of what may have been a Fiat Punto, with Die next to me chatting about how he was going to get into the site.  He was a ticketless Welsh  skinhead giant and we were three kids with wrist bands and beer.

He took some of our beer in the car.

All the way back to Glastonbury he asked if we'd seen gaps in the fences, what the security was like etc and he remained fucking massive.  The kindly person who'd given us the lift, who I have no recollection of, dropped us at one of the entrances and it was then that it happened.

You know how people tell you things happen in slow motion?  It's bollocks.  Things happen really fucking fast.

Die went for my wrist band.

I got lucky and his giant fingers failed to take a proper grip and my wrist band hand was in my pocket before either of us could blink.  I knew he'd tried to take it, he knew he'd tried to take it, my companions had failed to notice.  Fuck.

The next two minutes were two of the most awkward of my life.  I think I eventually said.... 'Right, I think we're gonna go back in,' and wandered off to the queue as my mates chatted amiably with him about how much he hated England.  For a bit he followed us and I remember whispering to one of my mates something like, 'The giant terrifying skinhead nutter Welshman, called Die, just tried to steal my wristband,' and we hastened our steps.  Eventually, as we got nearer the security guards, he gave up and left us.

Which might be quite a boring end to the story, but out of all the things that happened that brilliant weekend it's the thing that I remember the most.  Thanks for that Die.

I realise many of you will want to tell me how to correctly spell Die.  Please refrain.

And yes, that is a 'James Suck' T-Shirt.