Glastonbury 2000 diary – part one

In May and June 2000, ahead of his triumphant appearance at the Glastonbury Festival, David Bowie kept an eight-part diary which was published in Time Out magazine. Here is the first instalment.

As of 1990 I got through the rest of the 20th century without having to do a big hits show. Yes, yes, I know I did four or five ‘hits’ on the later shows but I really held out pretty well, I thought. And most enjoyable it was too. Now, of course, facing only a one-off show this year I can safely gird up my loins, stand my ground and with steel like resolve, change horses mid-stream.

Big, well-known songs shall litter the field this year at Glastonbury. Well, with a couple of quirks of course.

I find my present situation more than a little confusing actually, as I really don’t remember why I agreed to close this year’s Glastonbury Festival in the first place. It couldn’t be more inconvenient in a way, now knowing that our pregnancy is well and truly for real. It means losing a clutch of days away from home. Days that I get more and more precious over.

The heat in NY city is threatening to become particularly oppressive this summer, and as we stay in a fairly posh apartment, the air conditioning has of course imploded, the shafts sending out balls of syrupy warm air, slightly pungent in the worst possible way, at irregular intervals.

We escape by going to the movies. Always nice and cold in there. Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks is a colossal let down. It feels like a small idea that got smaller on film. This has got to be the worst screenplay this year.

Other Glastonbury diary entries:

• Part two – 19 May 2000
• Part three – 25 May 2000
• Part four – 1 June 2000
• Part five – 6 June 2000
• Part six – 7 June 2000
• Part seven – 9 June 2000
• Part eight – 11 June 2000