Glastonbury 2000: David Bowie
History #3: Gatecrashing the festival's best show, and the thrill of playing dress up with fashion icon Kate Moss and the one who taught her how to shop: "coolest woman on the planet" Anita Pallenberg
The annual Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, is currently underway. The most anticipated headliner this year is rock legend Neil Young, who played with Crazy Horse at the 2012 Global Citizen Festival in Central Park, New York City. I was there for that show and he was phenomenal; The Black Keys and Foo Fighters joined him onstage for the final song, Rockin’ in a Free World, which stayed with me for weeks.
When it comes to iconic headliners, Glastonbury, which some call “The World’s Greatest Music Festival” has hosted its fair share, with Radiohead, the Rolling Stones and a Beatle (Paul McCartney) amongst the greats. But, those of us who were lucky enough to be there in the year 2000 will undoubtedly agree that David Bowie was the greatest of them all.
The crowd was enormous — there were about 250,000 of us in attendance — the atmosphere spellbinding and charged with emotion. Everyone knew they were part of something truly spectacular. I will never forget the euphoria of watching Bowie walk onstage and start singing. The audience went absolutely wild, and fittingly, he opened with Wild is the Wind.
If you weren’t there, or even if you’re not a Bowie fan, I implore you to watch his entrance and first song on this YouTube video. He played for two hours, so this only shows half the set, but seeing it again gave me full body tingles. If you do like his music or never got the chance to see him live, watch this and weep.
How can he be dead? I often ask myself, but then I think how lucky to have lived at the same time as someone as creative and inspiring as Bowie, and to bask in the vicinity of his force.
The stars aligned for me to witness this magical moment in music history thanks to my dear friend Nur Khan, who was visiting London from New York. Nur was longtime mates with Kate (as in Moss), another Bowie megafan, and we were all out partying together the night before the festival, along with Kate’s hair stylist and bestie, James Brown, and her lovely mother, Linda Moss.
We knew Bowie was headlining Glastonbury the following night, but none of us had tickets or passes to get in. It’s one thing saying, “Let’s go to Glastonbury tomorrow!” when you’re on a dancefloor knocking back drinks til the late hours, and another to actually get up the next morning and go.
But get up and go we did.