News of Nicolas Roeg’s passing at age 90 crossed my newsfeed at almost the exact moment I finished watching his 1972 documentary Glastonbury Fayre and had settled down at my computer to begin writing about it, and that news of course casts a kind of melancholic, elegiac tone to my reaction. In a way it makes Glastonbury Fayre perhaps even more emotionally relevant, since the film accentuates, in Roeg’s own words as captured on a commentary track included on this release as a supplement, the hopefulness of youth, when life stretches out seemingly in infinite ways and with more than sufficient time to achieve whatever goals may have been set by those selfsame young folks who are feeling so positive about the future. Roeg himself was at least relatively young (in his early forties) when Glastonbury Fayre was shot, and the film has a certain loosey goosey charm that emphasizes the freewheeling attitudes of attendees to what was marketed as not "just" a live outdoor musical festival, but a kind of hippie fueled performing arts extravaganza that was meant to augur a new kind of Utopia. Watching a bunch of obviously drug inspired naked folks (of both genders) lolling about in the mud soaked fields of Pilton might hardly be some people’s idea of "Utopia", but there’s a rather sweet innocence to the proceedings here that is distinctly different from some of the darker aspects of Roeg’s narrative films like Walkabout and Don’t Look Now.
 
SETLIST:
 
Scene Access
01. Opening Credits
02. Terry Reid
03. Behind The Scenes
04. Magic Michael
05. Sun-Dawn
06. Fire & Brimstone
07. The Maharishi
08. A new Dawn
09. Sermon On The Tor
10. End Credits
BONUS:
01. Audio Commentary With Director Nic Roeg
02. The Making Of Glastonbury Fayre
03. Yessongs Trailer
04. Glastonbury Fayre Trailer
05. Melanie Trailer
 
LINE-UP:
 
Melanie
Fairport Convention
Family
Terry Raid
Arthur’s Brown Kingdom Come