2 JUNE 2007, Page 46

Good vibrations in Glastonbury

James Delingpole on the best music festival in the universe Theo and Louise Fennell are about to lose their Glastonbury virginity this year and I'm feeling very jealous. They paid more money than Theo will dare admit for a pre-erected tent in a special, posho area of the festival site, where the Fennells are less likely to embarrass their daughters Emerald and Coco (who'll be slumming it with the ordinary punters). If I can somehow blag a press ticket I'll be joining them like a shot, for Glastonbury is without question the most wonderful festival in the history of the universe.

The first time I went was in 1990, and I got a bit addled. I'd just worked my way into the very thickest part of the huge crowd which had gathered to see the Happy Mondays when things got rather alarming. I became convinced that the music was chasing me and had to run — faces looming, cold sweat dripping — all the way back through about half a mile's worth of packed revellers.

Looking from the top of the hill back down towards the main stage, I remember being struck by how Apocalypse Now it all was, with parachute flares and helicopters overhead, and shell-shocked, drug-crazed characters giggling and gurning from the torchlit darkness.

Also, with all the tents, it reminded me a bit of one of those wood engravings — 'The British camp before Sevastopol' — together, perhaps (the mud, obviously), with a hint of Passchendaele.

What I appreciated about Glastonbury then as I still do today is its glorious sense of complete abandonment. No matter how old or careworn or mortgage-strapped and childburdened you are in real life, the moment you enter Glasto's magic portals all worries and responsibilities cease. Your only concerns are the determined pursuit of peace, love and mindless self-gratification.

Am I going to have a Thai green chicken curry or a Real Meat Company sausage roll, or go to that West African stall with the shorter queue? Can I really be bothered to go to any of the big stages ever again when things are so much mellower here drinking chai in the Teepee field?

It's like being a teenager all over again, only better, because this time round you don't have to worry when you buy a £3 pint of beer that you've now exhausted your entire weekend food budget.

Of course, this isn't to say that Glastonbury doesn't have its problems. Worst of all — apart from the rain: don't believe anyone who says it's just as much fun when it rains are the distances.

Because the site is so vast and everything's so spread out, you spend every day tramping Thomas Hardy distances, ending up with blisters and a ruined lower back, in a state of exhaustion which nothing but a strong pick-me-up can alleviate. (Theo Fennell has been alcoholfree for eight years, so Lord knows how he'll cope.) Over the years, the Fawn and I have tried circumventing this by going to smaller, more manageable festivals where the campsite isn't a zillion miles from the car park and queues for the showers less closely resemble those at a Soviet-era butcher.

The Big Chill festival near Eastnor Castle probably has the prettiest site; the Larmer Tree Festival (de rigueur for the Wiltshire/ Dorset smart set) is absolutely brilliant to go to with children; the Secret Garden is generally reckoned to be truest to the spirit and magic of early Ibiza-era rave; Bestival on the Isle of Wight is one of the friendliest; Green Man near Hay-on-Wye is the most bucolically folky; Cornbury may well be the most reassuringly upmarket.

But all of them suffer from at least one fundamental drawback: they're not Glastonbury. They don't have so many freaks to gawp at, nor so many potential new friends to bond with in the Tiny Tea Tent. Their line-ups are nowhere near as big or varied or exciting. They're not built on ley lines so they don't have the same vibe. This is the worst thing about Glastonbury, as the Fennells are about to discover. Once you've been there nowhere else on earth is quite good enough.

GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL OF PERFORMING ARTS www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk THE BIG CHILL www.bigchill.net LARMER TREE FESTIVAL www.larmertreefestival.co.uk THE SECRET GARDEN PARTY www.secretgardenparty.com BESTIVAL www.bestival.net THE GREEN MAN FESTIVAL www.thegreenmanfestival.co.uk THE CORNBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL www.cornburyfestival.com