Bruce just stopped short of playing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. As he refused to leave the stage he just kept booming GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY…
All day he had walked the Glastonbury site, making it his territory, his people. He looked in on fellow New Jersey natives The Gas Lamp Anthem, to share a song. When his own E Street Band arrived for the headlining set, management ordered all persons be cleared of the pit area. Bruce was to occupy here, inbetween staking out the stage and walking on the crowd, as rock stars have done before him. In his nice but fiercely competitive way, Bruce was out to outdo everything that had gone before him, that was on elsewhere, that would ever follow. Honour and outdo the claim by Franz Ferdinand playing at the same time on the Other Stage that they would be more intense; outdo any grief for Michael Jackson; outdo Neil Young the night before; outdo all who had headlined here before.
Bruce at 60 wanted to out-rage, to out-muscle, to out-sing, to out-minister. He became Billy Graham and James Brown and became possessed of the spirit of Barack Obama (who had announced he would have liked to have been Bruce!) Comically, he looked liked he was burning-up during THE RIVER – steam rising from every part of his body.
25 or so songs appeared in the set with no hint of a slowing up or loss of voice, til well after midnight , and on, always more, by which time the other main Glasto stages would have felt silent. He boomed on, Songs of guns and of America riddled the set, as did caresses and respect for Britain and for Glastonbury. This was his first ever UK Festival.
He started the show – stood before a mainly British audience – ridiculing his footwear…I was told that what with the rain and mud to wear something youd never want to wear again, he quipped. He threw his cowboy outlaw hat on the stage. He wanted to be with the crowd. No sooner had he repatriated to the stage and to the company of the Band, then he was back down the ladder, into the pit, and on to the front and very extremes of the stage, touching everyones hands, borrowing their placards and requests for songs for later use. BECAUSE THE NIGHT was bound to be electric, but WHEN I’M OUT IN THE STREETS surprised with its absolute love – love of people – love of here and now and of being Broooce. The Gaslamp singer joined him for NO SURRENDER – real love between two boys having fun, touching countless lives amassed around them – all the way up the hill and into the darkness and of course watching on tv.
Many people wont be comfortable with what Brooce did this night – he set off for the Moon but took in Mars and Saturn and all. Exhausting everyone save for Max the drummer, who kept up. This was all quite unbelievable.
GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY, GLASTONE-BURY…
In the very space in which I held two exhibitions wooing football fans and non-believers at Bristol Museum years ago, young Banksy has gone and raised the bar, thrashing most exhibitions that have gone before. WITH FANTASTIC HELP FROM THE CURATOR. There were queues down the street when I attended. Still it’s not over until the fat lady sings – the rest of us must try to confine to history what he is achieving just now
Remarkably Burnley, little Burnley (population 89,500), albeit Founder Members of the original Football League and Champions of all England in 1960, are in the Premiership! No one thought it possible for a small, working-class town without huge benefactors or sponsors to be able to reach such a (Premiership) place when so much of the game now is about money. When the maximum wage cap for players was lifted – it looked like their best times were forever behind them. They have relied on just 16 players to get them promotion with 37 year old Alexander playing 61 games in the season.
Teamwork and good management on and off the field occasionally wins the day.
Kevin Roberts CEO (Boss) Worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi has just written about The Homes of Football on his own blog… it proves that you never know who is going to walk through the door. Or who your neighbours are. That someone you’ve never met before might be keeping an eye on you in a nice way. Afterall, amidst the great plan and the slog of everyday, a chance meeting or a kind word here and there can be just the tonic we each need… his piece can be found on
http://krconnect.blogspot.com/2009/05/homes-of-football.html
Saatchi & Saatchi is arguably THE world’s leading creative organization with a team of 6000 people in 150 offices across 86 countries.
It was St.Georges Day. A man, dressed in the England football shirt, read his paper. I read mine. I ate. He drank a beer. He then started staring into space, his back to the bay window and the light. Eventually he got up, to return with another beer. He drank and stared into space. Eventually he placed the beer half-drunk to one side, almost out of reach. And stared.
I’d seen him in here before, with wife and child, she persuading him of his worth whilst the child played and crossed his lap for hers.
Why don’t you just go home – to your wife I felt like saying. Your loving wife, your family.
I can see it’s going to be a case of EVERY MAN FOR EACH OTHER , from now on.
England to me remains that dream place – a place I would dream of – where on any given Saturday outside of high summer, one would soon bump into a football match, seemingly of some importance, certainly of some attraction. Though not in the popcorn way. The football match appears earthy and yet original, in touch with our deepest senses and deeply rewarding even if as with most supporters, one is wandering home hardly ever winning anything. Cue “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. The thrill of football in this country grows stronger, not weaker, for me. Not sure if St.George’s Day really amounts to anything much, for me.
“Hey what a great discovery – didnt know your work before – its inspiring – and as people have said a ‘National Treasure’ “Kevin Ryan (Photographer), 13 April
Dear Ava…
Coming out of my front porch I can feel the wind on my face and it doesn’t know whether to blow warm or cold – typical of Britain in Springtime.
Outstretched in front of my house is the sweep of the garden and in front of that the sweep of the fields with some animals and some trees.With the noisy motor-mower I am creating a circular pattern in the grass which looks like a ripple in a large pond. But green. Which you can stand on.
Possibly, later in the week, snow shall blow in from over there, over the tops of the fells and across the fields and arriving at my garden, and the pattern shall show through. Like a ripple on a large pond. But white. Which you can stand on.
It seems incredible that after all we’ve strived for, we should start 2009 so broken – with huge job losses, racial tensions and strikes and all. There has only been two things in Britain so far this year which everyone across the board has embraced : Barack Obama’s election and then this first real snowfall for more than a generation – making everyone look again at things with which they thought they were familiar. These two phenomenens are significant and invaluable.
You can hang back or you can have a go.
10 years ago I went on holiday to the south coast, taking some of my work with me. I returned with what I thought was all of it.
Imagine to my horror/delight this last September when, on returning to that same holiday cottage, where countless other families had stayed also in the years since, I found concealed in one of the chest of drawers around 1,000 of my original pieces of film – all thought lost. How no one else had found them or disturbed them or thrown them out not realising what they were or what they were connected with, I will never know. All in all a valuable slice of The Homes of Football collection – these are pictures which have never been used or even seen by any public – and because what has happened to them, particularly dear to me.
They will be by my side soon!
Truly seminal moments are few and far between. They probably have to be. Some go undetected.
On one of those ‘foul’ dark windy snowy winter evenings, in Blackburn, me and Gordon Taylor, boss of the Professional Footballers Association, stood in amazement before a group of schoolchildren, teachers and Natalie (the organiser), as we looked on drawings, photographs, paintings, collages, laptops, film, dance, dollops of humour, cakes and great manners, fired at some point by my Homes of Football exhibition entwined with theirs.
Meadowhead Junior Community School made us aware how football and art (other combinations might do) can transform the life of an individual and in turn create a better society.
Has there been such a buzz around the World… for a long time?
Finally ‘the World’ has prescribed what it really wanted if only it knew – it just took a while to work it out and make it happen : a man, a leader, both black and white in terms of his appearance – a man seemingly as capable as any. Clinton (Bill) seemed most capable, but this man more so.
How good moreover to see people ‘on the other side’ genuinely pleased about Obama.
‘Ugly’ dolphins with long noses and small eyes, who have evolved in this way to meet their environment, are faring well in the murky-watered Ganges Delta. Other types less so given pollution and fishing and other man-made activity.
In Britain, a man much doubted, has found the ball come to him and he is in a superb position to perform, when few, if any, would have the know-how. Gordon Brown is our star striker, or defender. He has acted instinctively and decisively in the face of financial melt-down, which could still afflict other countries whose leaders are less quick off the mark – dabbling in politics as they go.
In his report on the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, Lord Justice Taylor stipulated that all Football League grounds should be all-seated for safety reasons. The proposal was soon limited to the top two English divisions (and the Scottish Premier League). By 2008, 24 of 102 League clubs moved grounds. Key factors were the financial value of the current stadium’s land (especially if it was centrally located in an expanding town or city), plus the opportunities for developing a cheaper site elsewhere – permissions pending + committees willing. Some clubs decided to stay, raising development money by selling adjoining land for housing or a supermarket. Or making do.
