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Once upon a time, down on a little spread in the West Country, a farmer and his wife decided to stage a music festival.
On 19 September 1970, the day after Hendrix died, Marc Bolan rolled up at Worthy Farm in a velvet-covered car to play to
a modest crowd of 1,500 long-hairs. The £1 ($2.40) entry fee included as much free milk as you could drink.
The farmer, Michael Eavis, hoped to pay off the remainder of his mortgage with the proceeds. Instead, he lost £1,500. But the sun shone, no one disturbed the cows and they all lived happily ever after. Or, at least, until now.
Thirty-seven years on, the 2007 Glastonbury Festival was the biggest yet. More than 177,000 people paid £145 each for the privilege of being rained on, risking their tents being washed away with the raw sewage and straining their necks to catch a fleeting glimpse of The Fratellis.
When the £155 tickets for this year's three-day extravaganza went on sale on Sunday, its organisers might justifiably have expected a stampede to match last year's, when the event sold out in less than two hours.
Instead, a day later, about 35,000 tickets remained unsold, and the complex pre-registration system designed to deter touts had to be re-opened to accommodate fans who were slow off the mark. Of course, Glastonbury will sell out as it always does. The festival now makes millions every year - most of which goes to charity - but has it lost its mojo?
The brightest star at this year's festival is one reason for punters' waning enthusiasm. Many were surprised when it was announced that the American hip-hop mogul Jay-Z would headline the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night, traditionally the biggest gig of the weekend.
Radiohead became the most acclaimed live act in the world after their Pyramid Stage performance in 1997, and most festival-goers expect a relatively traditional guitar band to fill the slot.
So concerned was Jay-Z about his appearance that Eavis has offered to introduce him on stage personally, breaking a lifelong habit of remaining in the wings.
The music magazine NME's online message boards confirmed that the rapper was a controversial choice, with commentators suggesting he'd been chosen to appeal to a younger, more urban crowd than that to which Glastonbury has become accustomed. Others suggested the rap superstar was just what the festival needed to add diversity.
But Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, does epitomise the sense that Glastonbury has become overly corporate. Last week, days before marrying the singer Beyonce Knowles, Carter signed an unprecedented US$150 million ($188 million), "360-degree" deal with concert promoters Live Nation, giving the company a stake in every aspect of his career, and making him arguably the richest rapper in history. It's a far cry from the hippy spirit that gave birth to the first Glastonbury.
Eavis was inspired to establish his own festival after seeing Led Zeppelin play at the Bath and West Showground in 1970. Named the Pilton Festival, after the nearby village, it was a low-key affair, but it attracted the attention of hippy activist Arabella Churchill, who believed that the other major festivals had become over-commercialised.
With her help, Eavis and his wife, Jean, organised the revamped Glastonbury Fayre in 1971, with David Bowie topping the bill, and a crowd of about 12,000. That time, admission was free.
A gap of almost a decade followed, with small festivals in 1978 and 1979, before Eavis decided to institute an annual event in 1981. Churchill used the event as a launchpad for her children's charity, Children's World, while Eavis donated £20,000 of the profits to CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament).
Today, Glastonbury still gives the majority of its profits to charity. The main beneficiaries are Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water Aid - in the past 15 years, Oxfam has raised more than £2 million through its work with the festival.
Glastonbury's watershed came in 1997. After one of the festival's periodical years off to give the land and its owners a rest, the event returned with major sponsorship and a deal with the BBC. Millions tuned in as crowds braved the Glastonbury mud to watch Radiohead play the show of their lives.
Glastonbury jumped headfirst into the mainstream - soon, supermodels in print dresses and dreadlocked new age travellers were mingling in the mud together.
Last year, Eavis complained that the complex ticketing system had turned off the youth demographic and made the crowd middle-aged. But there is also the matter of the lineup - among the most widely touted performers of the past two years have been Dame Shirley Bassey and Leonard Cohen, 73, a year older than Eavis.
Eavis blames the proliferation of new festivals for his event's diminishing appeal.
This year, Glastonbury tickets went on sale after many other festivals, none of which have the same demanding ticketing system.
A decade ago, Glastonbury's competition was minimal. Last summer, however, every weekend boasted at least one musical gathering inspired by Glastonbury's success.
Simon Taffe is one of the founders of End of the Road, a 5,000-capacity festival established in 2006 in the grounds of a Dorset stately home.
"I went to a couple of smaller festivals and then I tried to go back to the big ones and I really didn't enjoy it," he explains. "So I set up something smaller and more intimate, with more attention to detail ... Glastonbury still has a certain magic, but it seems every year they do something else to tarnish that."
Paul Stokes, editor of NME magazine, said: "The BBC treat Glastonbury like a sporting event now. The coverage is so comprehensive that people can watch the festival at home on telly, then go to a different festival ... Whatever attracts you to Glastonbury, there's a chance you could find it somewhere else."
- INDEPENDENT
