Glastonbury Fayre was England’s answer to the Woodstock shenanigans. What makes this film odd is a mix of its trouble home video history and the odd edits made to it. While David Bowie appears on the soundtrack, Roeg made the choice to cut the late Bowie performance out of the film. It was early in Roeg’s career and shooting a concert film was still novel. Melanie, Traffic and Arthur Brown are the headliners of what made the film, but that feels so niche for now.
Nic Roeg recently died and I feel that this movie has gone unseen by his fans. There’s a reason for that, as I mentioned above this film was hard to get on home video for ages. The VHS release was semi-gray market and quickly got pulled from distribution. Every once in awhile, the DVD got bundled in with a CD release of the soundtrack. That’s where I first learned about the Bowie cuts from the final film. If you want to know what that performance was like, watch Velvet Goldmine for the outdoor performance by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I’m talking about the scene before Ewan McGregor shows up and steals the movie.
Glastonbury Fayre is now available on Blu-ray
