From Marc Bolan headlining in 1970 and David Bowie and Hawkwind playing to a field of 10,000 in 1971, the Glastonbury festival has mushroomed over three decades into a cultural phenomenon that now sees 80-90,000 revellers head for the West Country every June. Thousands more watch it at home on TV. George Mckay's history of the festival - and wider festival culture in Britain -- traces the changing nature of the event, explores its roots in the town of Glastonbury and the local landscape and early free festivals, looks at the music and musicians involved (Nik Turner, ex-Hawkwind, The Levellers, and Tom Robinson are among the interviewees), talks to festival-goers and Michael Eavis, the organizer, tackles the festival's more difficult years (drugs, violence, rioting new-age travellers) and generally celebrates the mud and the excess...

George McKay is the author of Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties and the editor of the anthology DiY Culture (both Verso).