It is well worth remembering that almost every rock festival held in the UK has been objected to by either Tory MP's or local councils, or more usually- both . Glastonbury was no exception , the area was a conservative one in the main and Mendip Local Council were in the main against a festival and they spent a goodly portion of the 1980s trying to stop Glastonbury from going ahead. In 1987, they initially refused to grant Michael Eavis a licence, but this decision was overturned in court in May. It was a relief, but it was an omen - in some ways 1987 proved to be a bad year for the festival, which ended in some acrimony and resulted in the long standing policy of tolerance towards the travellers who made up the convoy being sorely tested.

   Attendance was in the region of 60,000. It was always difficult to estimate just how many people were actually at the festival, as a percentage of the audience were gatecrashers, usually finding their way in through the fence.The council used this as further ammunition against Eavis. In 1986 they tried to work out how many were in the area by paying for a spotter plane to survey the site, fortunately the estimated numbers were well below the 80,000 the council claimed were actually present .

    Britain was a land that had been polarized in the 80s , unemployment and social disruption was rife, the country was every clearly split into camps of " haves' and 'have not's' . The conservative government were not interested in the social reasons why so many chose to take to the road , they saw these people as a threat and with the help of a gutter press all too happy to demonise the convoy ( and an minority element of people who did not care what consequences their stupid actions would bring upon their fellow travellers ) they had spent huge sums in marginalising the movement through repressive legislation and constant police and council harassment of convoy groups .

   The conditions were ripe for confrontation and it was sad that Glastonbury- a festival which had always accommodated travellers at least, if not actively welcomed their presence on all occasions , should be the location of that confrontation - which was fairly ugly to judge by the rather generalised reports we have seen.

    Michael Eavis has always tried to be as even handed as possible in his dealings with travellers , he has been very helpful over the years, in the free Glastonbury festival of 1978 he used his tractor to extricate vehicles from the mud and he provided free park ups for the convoy up until the ugly confrontations that marred the 1990 festival.

      He is on the record as stating " I've worked with the Convoy and with travellers over the years, negotiated with them one-to-one, accommodated them when I could or when I've had to. My approach is a bit different to English Heritage's, isn't it?"

    But we must remember that , with an attendance of 60,000 people , there is always going to be some trouble. Compared to the average soccer match, rock festivals are pretty peaceful places to be in . For most who attended the festival, things went on very much as they had before, Glastonbury was in general a pretty peaceful festival and as long as one stayed away from the suspect areas , things were cool.

    Michael Eavis wasn't content to rest on his laurels and get into a groove where things did not change , on the contrary - 1987 was the year that the Womad Stage was opened to cater for the increasing bands of world music fans. The festival was diversifying and becoming far more than the stock " Rock festival "stereotype, it was transcending that level and morphing into a unique multi musical and multi lifestyle experiment . It would never be a Stonehenge Free Festival , after all it was a commercial event, but it was probably the nearest thing that a paying festival was going to get to the Henge. Despite the problems on the periphery, despite the criticisms by some that it was too commercial , it was a social experiment on a large scale that was successful most of the time, for most people.

Friday 19th June 1987.

Billy Bragg
06-20-87

Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset.

Length: 45 SBD

1. The Warmest Room
2. Man In The Iron Mask
3. Greetings To The New Brunette
4. Green Fields Of France (With The Men They Couldn't Hang)
5. Valentine's Day Is Over
6. World Turned Upside Down
7. Think Again
8. Help Save The Youth Of America
9. Levi Stub's Tears
10. To Have And To Have Not
11. Between The Wars
12. My Girl (Partial

Billy Bragg

6-19-87 Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset.

61 minutes B audience ( covers set)

1. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
2. Love Has No Pride
3. A Hank Williams song
4. What Made Milwaukee Famous
5. Honey, I'm A Big Boy Now
6. That's All It Took
7. Wishing The Days Away
8. The Croppy Boy
9. Ever Fallen In Love
10. Tracks Of My Tears
11. Bring It On Home
12. Ain't Too Proud To Beg
13. Wild Horses
14. My Girl / Just My Imagination
15. Dark End Of The Street
16. A13
17. Think Again

Julian Cope
Glastonbury CND Festival
Saturday, 6-19-87

1. The Culture Bunker 04:51
2. Trampolene 03:22
3. Pulsar 02:42
4. Eve's Volcano 03:39
5. Strasbourg 03:11
6. Saint Julian 02:43
7. Non Alignment Pact 02:42
8. Bouncing Babies 02:08
9. Planet Ride 05:11
10. Books 02:44
11. Shot Down 03:49
12. Spacehopper 02:43
13. Zabriskie Point 04:02
14. World Shut Your Mouth 04:05
15. Reynard The Fox 10:21

Los Lobos

6-22-87 Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury England BBC

1. Evangeline
2. Why Do You Do?
3. Tears of God
4. Will the Wolf Survive?
5. Is This All There Is This?
6. Anselma
7. I Got to Let You Know
8. My Baby's Gone
9. All I Wanted to Do Was Dance
10. Let's Say Goodnight
11. Serenata Norteña
12. I Got Loaded
13. Shakin' Shakin' Shakes
14. Set Me Free (Rosa Lee)
15. Don't Worry Baby
16. La Bamba

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians
6-19-87 Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury, England UK

1. Point it at Gran
2. Egyptian Cream
3. Acid Bird
4. Airscape
5. Insanely Jealous
6. Raymond Chandler Evening
7. A Bad Case of History
8. Kingdom of Love
9. I'm Only You
10. Queen of Eyes
11. Brenda's Iron Sledge
12. Sleeping with Your Devil Mask

New Order

Glastonbury Festival, 6-19-87 SBD

1. Elegia
2. Touched By The Hand Of God
3. Temptation
4. True Faith
5. Your Silent Face
6. Every Little Counts
7. Ceremony
8. Bizarre Love Triangle
9. Subculture
10. Sunrise
11. Perfect Kiss
12. Age Of Consent
13. Sister Ray

poor quality audience video exists of at least part of the set

1. Introduction
2. Deed I Do
3. Staggerlee
4. Paradise
5. Everybody is Somebody
6. ?
   
   BBC transcription disc produced for Radio 1's "In Concert" show.

Michelle Shocked

6-21-87 BBC

1. Introduction
2. When I Grow Up
3. If Love Was a Train
4. The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore *
5. Black, Brown And White **
6. Fogtown
7. Anchorage
8. 5am In Amsterdam
9. Strawberry Jam

Van Morrison

6-21-87 Glastonbury Festival, Somerset, England SBD

1. Northern Muse (Solid Ground) (3:14)
2. Vanlose Stairway (4:34)
3. It's All In The Game (6:47)
4. Foreign Window (4:25)
5. Dweller On The Threshold (3:42)
6. Cleaning Windows (3:52)
7. Sense Of Wonder (5:00)
8. And The Healing Has Begun (7:38)
9. Beautiful Vision (sic - actually Celtic Ray) (2:42)
10. In The Garden (4:59)
11. Summertime In England (9:21)
12. Bright Track of the Road (sic - actually Full Force Gale / Bright
13. Side Of The Road) (5:31)
14. Rave On John Donne / Rave On Part Two / Did Ye Get Healed? (9:30)
    Total time: (71:17)
    

Richard Thompson Band
Glastonbury Festival Main Stage, 6 pm
6-20- 87

1. Man In Need
2. Valerie
3. When The Spell Is Broken
4. Bone Through Her Nose
5. Jennie
6. You Don't Say
7. Drowned Dog Black Night
8. Fire In The Engine Room
9. Ten seconds telling crowd Clive Gregson & Christine Collister will play the acoustic tent the next day
10. Today, I Started Loving You Again
11. Reels
12. Flying Saucer Rock and Roll
13. Tear Stained Letter
    

• Richard Thompson Band, Main Stage, 6 pm, 6-20-87
• Richard Thompson solo, Acoustic Stage, 8 pm, 6-20-87 both good quality audience recordings.
  

  His acoustic set was indeed on at the same time as Los Lobos, however imagine my disappointment at finding out that I passed up the chance to see 'Every punx mother' in order to see the band set...
  

And, just for the record, the other festival highlight was a storming set from Elvis Costello. Solo acoustic with an encore of a second set with the Attractions.
Kevin

Glastonbury 1987
   I paid £21 for a ticket and ended up sneaking in so as not to get separated from my mate who was bunking in. I remember a mad train journey from London..again trippin with a mate (Paul D. who I went to school with)..smoking & drinking on the train (the Guard did not even try to check tickets! ).

Camped up in the Kings Field above the Greenfield.

Met Jon (Pauls brother) and we spent most time around the Greenfield, Kings Field and travellers field.

All very vague.

The Mutoid Waste Company had constructed various bizarre structures and vehicles..Car-Henge..an apparent melted bus, a flat bed truck disguised as an metal dinosaur –style beast crawled around …people on the back beating out a bizarre tribal rhythms with anything that could be hit.

   Eventually after buying a couple of 'dud' acids…we (Paul, Jon and Myself) got some excellent acid apparently from Berlin…very colourful..we ended up in a large Marquee…. 'watching' a feminist type band..not really sure, but I remember them singing.. ‘we are the women of the world’ or something…we completely cracked up laughin…it was so bizarre. In retrospect I am sure the girls playing were very sincere but the acid was very good!

Rest of the weekend is now rather vague.

We wonder why?

Oops , there go the brain cells ....