Shlomo’s blog

I love summer. I love festivals. This weekend was Latitude in Suffolk.

I was there to do a guest spot with MW on the Friday

Backstage at Martha’s gig bumped into Fyfe from the Guillemots, we talked about collaborating.

The awesome Sigur Ros headlined.

No trip to the Suffolk coast would be complete without a visit to the beach on the way home.

Next week is Womad, then Big Chill and Bestival. This country has so many festivals I am up for them ALL.

Last night I was at London Liming at the London Literature Festival.

It’s a spoken word event which mixes up music, film and carnival vibes. It was the first time I have played to the ‘words’ crowd but i really enjoyed it.

The magnificent Ursula Rucker headlined, but highlight for me was Stacy Makishi. Her piece was moving and had the whole room in stitches.

Check out RJ Fernandez’s shots from the 2 hour Unconventional Means show at Glastonbury. See the full photo set here.

After 3 performances over the first two days of Glastonbury, Sunday was for partying.

George recording the podcast at the campsite while breakfast is cooking!

Taking a wander

Then we watched the excellent Balkan Beat Box (nothing to do with beatboxing!) on the Jazz World stage.

over to the Other Stage to watch Groove Armada’s headline slot

Flares in the crowd….

Then all night campfire!

Night time view from our campsite

Sun about to rise

Sun coming up over Park area

Whoops it’s officially the morning

It was all over too soon. Glastonbury 2008 was wicked.

Did two festivals this weekend - Saturday was Picnic Rocks Festival in support of Action Against Hunger. It was on Clapham Common bandstand and the sun was blazing!

Then on Sunday it was Respect festival. It was the first full performance of the One Voice commission. The rain was hardcore. Myself, Hobbit, jestar* and Bellatrix were all stood out in front of the choirs and out of the shelter so we got soaked, but the choirs were breathtaking.

Can’t wait to do it again in September.

It’s 3pm. The show starts at 6. Emily Eavis has given us free reign of the Park Stage for two hours.

I’ve got the Vocal Orchestra and a heap of guest collaborators and I need to rehearse. We find a bar backstage with a decent soundsystem and get to it. Before I know it we are ready to go on, Park Stage is totally rammed!

The sun has come out and the people are smiling. Pavan from Foreign Beggars is helping me host the stage. I hear him saying my name followed by a cheer and next thing I know I am beatboxing to about 10,000 Glastonbury punters.

I kick it off with a short solo set to introduce the crowd to what I do. As I power up my looping setup, there is a loud popping noise followed by silence. I’m told that I have blown the generator for the entire Park Area. Oops. Now I am freaking out – so much work has gone into this show. This can’t be the end of it! The audience aren’t having any of it… they remain enthusiastic, singing and cheering until the power eventually comes back on. Phew!

No time to lose now, I skip straight to my drum n bass looping song to get everyone moving again, and then bring out the Vocal Orchestra. They are on fire today.

The Vocal Orchestra

What follows is a unique mish-mash of guest stars performing spontaneously. The music ranges from folk to jazz to hip hop to tabla to scratch battles to raucous sing-a-longs. If you would like to hear some of the music you will have to wait for the podcast – we did an audio diary of the whole weekend which will be out soon. There are some pics below, mostly taken by RJ Fernandez, more to come.

Martha Wainwright sang a version of ‘In the Middle of the Night’ with me on beats

Martina Topley-Bird sang ‘Police and Thieves’ by Junior Mervin with the Vocal Orchestra as backing band

DJ Yoda survived a scratch battle with Bellatrix!

Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly performed ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials with the Vocal Orchestra

Ed Harcourt presented me with a fake diamond encrusted golden microphone onstage… I think he wanted me to look as bling as Jay-Z! Then he sang ‘50 ways to leave your lover’

Me, Ed Harcourt, Pavan and Reverend from the Makers (these pics courtesy of BBC)

The other guests were Portico Quartet, Pete Lockett and Lemn Sissay.

It was a moving experience, I came off stage exhausted but happy – I felt like all the collaborations and musical experiences from the past year as resident at Southbank have armed me with all the tools I needed to rock a two hour improvised show. It was probably the best show I’ve ever done, certainly the most fun show I have been a part of. I can’t wait to do it again. Watch this space!

Shlomo will be appearing at the 2008 Big Chill Festival. The Mighty Boosh have invited him to perform in the Big Chill Nights tent where they are curating an all night jam after their headline slot on the Saturday.

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Was starving after playing Pyramid stage on Friday, so I had a ‘Glastonbury Garlic Guzzler’ (amazing burger). Wandered down to the Park Stage to see Dizzee Rascal. The highlight was Calvin Harris coming on to sing ‘Dance wiv Me’… it’s now at number 1!

Then came on Pete Doherty. He was sort of stable and seemed to be able to remember his chords and lyrics. It is a bit like listening to an old drunk in the pub way after closing time singing songs about the past.

On Saturday morning I woke up early to try out the solar-powered showers (first wash since Wednesday. Nice). Then it was over to Pyramid stage for my appearance with Martha Wainwright. Pyramid felt a bit more normal second time around.

Martha’s music is a blend of folk and country rock and pretty much the last thing the crowd was expecting was a duet with a human beatboxer.

But playing to a crowd of 40,000 people in the afternoon can’t be bad promotion for the gig that evening!

As soon as we came off stage we were ushered into a Land Rover to take us back to the Park Stage to start rehearsing for the show that evening.

TO BE CONTINUED.

We got to the festival on Thursday evening and set up camp in the Park area. In the past I have camped in the ‘public’ camping areas to be with my friends, but last year I had such a crazy time (my tour manager was taken ill the night before so I was dragging my gear through the mud in a complete daze) so this year I opted for the artist campsite!

SO day one, Friday, and I woke up knowing that today I was going to achieve one of my personal ambitions - to play the Pyramid Stage. I vowed I would do this when I first came to the festival in 2005. I had been invited to do a guest spot with singer songwriter Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. I had no idea what we were going to do.

The crowd that had gathered to watch the set was massive. I’m talking make your whole body tingle every time they cheer massive.

The view from onstage as I watched the first half of the show was incredible. I start to feel a massive release of adrenaline…

In a flash it is all over. I have played the Pyramid!

I’m back from the festival. I had such an incredible time, but it feels SO good to sleep in a real bed! I will post up a full festival blog soon, with photos and video, plus we recorded an audio diary podcast which will be out soon. In the mean time I need to SLEEP!