Debbie Harry, Alison Goldfrapp, Candi Staton, Billy Bragg and others look back at festival experiences they’ll never forget – including getting stuck in the mud and yearning to take off their clothes
Alison Goldfrapp was going through a gentle, folky, acoustic period when she was invited to play a festival in the outer reaches of Norway. The journey was wonderful, she says. She and her band travelled by boat across beautiful fjords until finally they reached their destination. It turned out it was a metal festival. “We went on stage and there was one long-haired bloke in the middle of this dusty forest.”
Did he enjoy the gig? She doesn’t bother answering. “Slowly people started turning up. Mostly men with beards in black T-shirts.” So things improved? She laughs. Her keyboard player, Angie, had a fight with one of the heavy metal musicians because he kept throwing things into their dressing room and trying to get a look at her changing. “He was covered in tats and had a neck about this wide,” says Goldfrapp, making a circle with her arms big enough to hug a sequoia.
