Twenty-five years in the past this weekend, R.E.M. performed an excellent set at Glastonbury competition. It was Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills’ first go to to Worthy Farm but it surely very practically didn’t occur, because of an over-eager safety guard who wouldn’t let Stipe onto the location.
As reported by The Guardian again in 2000, Stipe was travelling to the competition by helicopter, with the chopper carrying him touchdown in a neighbouring farmer’s discipline and competition employee and native Robert Kearle handed the duty of going to select the megastar singer up. “They requested me to do it due to my native data,” Kearle instructed The Guardian. “He was the most important star of the competition so I didn’t need to mess up.”
Kearle, after all, wasn’t banking on a jobsworth safety guard nearly scuppering R.E.M.’s headline set. Choosing Stipe up and heading again to Worthy Farm, Kearle will need to have had the air of mission achieved en route with the R.E.M. man in a talkative temper. “We had a extremely good chat on the best way,” he stated. “He was nice to speak to, very pleasant and occupied with what was occurring on the competition.”
Enter Mr If You’re Identify’s Not Down You’re Not Coming In, telling the pair after they arrived on the gate that in the event that they didn’t have tickets, they weren’t coming in. “I couldn’t consider what I used to be listening to, I stated, ‘I’ve received Michael Stipe right here, Mr Eavis despatched me specifically to fetch him.” However the overzealous safety guard was not budging. “No ticket, no entry,” they had been instructed. “Michael Stipe? By no means heard of him.”
That is the place, Kearle recalled, Stipe took issues into his personal palms. Stepping out of the car, he stated, “I’m taking part in on the Pyramid Stage in just a few hours. Should you don’t let me in now, I’m off. You’ll have lots of disenchanted individuals in your palms.”
And so our antagonist relented, Michael Stipe was allowed onto the competition web site, and R.E.M. carried out probably the greatest headline slots in Glastonbury’s prestigious historical past…