From Glastonbury to Finsbury Park- now that's what I call music.

From Glastonbury to Finsbury Park- now that's what I call music.

You could say that this is the start of the outdoor pop music concert season. Yesterday marked the end of the Glastonbury gig that began at the end of last week and stretched over three days of ghetto blasting music from today's 21st century bands and singers to those musical hippies from yesteryear who just love the big occasion. Maybe I shouldn't call them hippies but anybody associated with the late 1960s  always seemed to wear either kaftans, long hair and then danced in nightclubs with strange shadows and circles on the ceiling. Far out man!

Once again Glastonbury was the great outdoor pop festival that has held Britain in its summery trance for 47 years now. For a music concert that began its life on a small piece of Somerset farmland at the beginning of the 1970s Glastonbury has come a long way since then. The expansion has been such that now it remains one of the biggest, most popular and accessible of  music extravaganzas in the world. There may well be others equally as loved and cherished but after 47 years at the top this little piece of Somerset is still highly regarded and celebrated on a monumental, global scale.

Last night the big. headline act was the one and only Ed Sheeran, a ginger haired whipper snapper of a man with a powerful, punchy voice designed to break the hearts of a thousand females. His lyrics and songs are heartfelt, meaningful and smoothly sentimental with a contemporary feel about them. Sheeran's songs appeal to the here and now, a generation currently hurt and quite possibly offended by recent events but nevertheless completely in tune with the Sheeran song book. Sheeran expresses all of his innermost emotions into a microphone as if reflecting the 21st century here and now. the modern zeitgest and appealing to its heart and soul.

Over the years of course Glastonbury has done its utmost to turn the clock back to a time when music had its legendary names who are now valued veterans, artists whose voices have matured admirably with the march of time and may never be forgotten in any generation. In recent years Glastonbury has proudly boasted Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, Shirley Bassey and my personal all time hall of fame favourites the Electric Light Orchestra who last year re-formed as Jeff Lynne's ELO, a moment to hold and treasure.

This year it was the turn of another personal favourite to take one of the seemingly endless number of stages at Glastonbury. Soul and funk meisters Chic, under the shrewd leadership of the brilliant Nile Rodgers, strutted and moved their hips to the hypnotic beat of soulful excellence. Their music transported you back to the golden days of 1970s American disco when flared trousers shimmied with platform shoes and the whole movements of fashion and music became linked together in the same sentence.

I have to admit here that this year's other main headlining Glastonbury act Radiohead have never really appeared on my radar. To a large extent I seemed to lose all connection with mainstream pop music during the 1990s and have no real knowledge of who was fashionable and who may well have been regarded as controversial and, quite possibly, mind blowing. So you'll have to forgive me if I reveal a total ignorance of anything connected to Radiohead, their prolific album successes and worldwide popularity. It certainly isn't personal and may you to continue to purvey the good vibes for many years to come.

In fact I can quite clearly trace the point at which music and I just didn't sound the same anymore. It was that the mid way 1990s period when those wild and slightly anarchic Britpop rockers Blur, Pulp and the fiercely opinionated brothers Gallagher Liam and Noel combined to give us Oasis. Oasis were the 1990 voices of Manchester. Brash, direct. forthright and full of pent up frustration at the state of the nation, Oasis powered their way through the latter end of the 20th century with song after song fuelled with anger and anguish. Liam, particularly, seemed to be permanently incensed with everything and everybody around him but that may be doing him a terrible disservice.

But now in 2017 Glastonbury has retained its standing as one of the finest of all rock venues. Both Oasis, Blur and Pulp all seemed tailor made for that classically outdoor, big stadium feel of Glastonbury but I feel duty bound to apologise to all three of these bands. None would ever move me to either sing their praises or show the remotest interest in their music. Sorry lads my preference lies exclusively in the world of easy listening, soul and jazz music and this will always be my kind of music.

Once again the devoted Glastonbury fans have packed up their tents, rolled up those wonderfully prominent flags and banners and then ploughed their way through acres of Somerset agriculture. It is nice to think that once again a vast music outdoor concert has so entranced the whole of Britain that all of the recent news catastrophes have briefly vanished from our view. Because if it hadn't we'd have all gone completely crazy. Music is certainly the food of love whatever form it may take but Glastonbury once again emerged as the nation's saviour, grabbing the attention of those culture vultures who fervently believe that music is the binding force it should always be. And more so than ever now and rightly so.

Closer to home Manor House is once again gearing up for its yearly rock music gathering. Across the road here in Finsbury Park, the movers and shakers, the rock and rollers, all of those cool music dudes who still fondly remember Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Pink Floyd it's time to dust down those retro clothes, shake their masses of hair and slowly wend their way along the Seven Sisters Road with a casual nonchalance and several crates of Foster's lager.

On the first day of July the whole of Finsbury Park will explode and erupt with the most deafening cacophony of hard, driving rock, a rattling and trembling compound of heavy metal, grunge and music designed to blow off your ears almost unforgivingly. The sound will travel almost instantly to our flat, reverberating its way around the neighbourhood before possibly reaching Stamford Hill by mid-day where our chasidim friends, joyfully celebrating the Sabbath(Shabbat) will no doubt produce their air guitars and pretend its Purim again.

But we won't mind this yearly musical onslaught from our local park because music, regardless of its shape, form, rhythm, genre or style, is that tremendous force for good, bringing together the public from far and wide and generating that feelgood factor that has to be the best source of inspiration for a nation still weighed down by a pervasive sense of grief and loss. Surely the yearly Finsbury Park music fest will make its bold North London pronouncements through the medium of music.

On a run through Finsbury Park today I did though become aware of the sheer size and reach of music, the power that music can convey and the widespread influence that it can always spread without even trying. The whole of Finsbury Park is a mass of metal fencing, huge dark boards that wrap their way around the park quite intimidatingly it has to be said but, under the current circumstances essential security measures. More so than ever Finsbury Park, you feel sure, has to follow in the footsteps of Glastonbury because now is the time when music must communicate the most positive message without feeling at any time threatened by evil intentions.

At the far end of the park I could see a couple of magnificent stages which by the middle of next Saturday afternoon will be packed to capacity, speakers pumping out the most modern of song sheets, the ideas and thoughts of a generation that can barely comprehend the recent terrorist attacks but utterly convinced nonetheless that music can win any battle, conflict or the divisive noises of those around them.

In the year my wife and I moved into Manor House a music giant visited our community. In retrospect it hardly seems possible that we were in the presence of musical greatness but it did happen and he did step onto a stage at Finsbury Park. A gentleman by the name of  Bob Dylan cruised into North London as if it were a kind of spiritual home for him. We didn't join Dylan's adoring followers that weekend but that didn't seem to matter at all because Dylan's voice could be heard in Russia. I can remember just listening to the low thud of the Dylan sound crash landing into our flat and just feeling very honoured to be in his company even though we couldn't see him in the flesh.

For the rest of the week the whole of Finsbury Park will go through its normal routine of sound checking, erecting more railings and fences, moving both vans and lorries around the park like marauding armies but armies with good intentions and armies to re-assure and uplift the soul. There is a festival air about Finsbury Park and for once I can report quite confidently that good news will be the lead story here in North London. Nobody will be injured, maimed, punched or inhumanely killed.  There will be no malice, no vilification, violence or villainy and certainly no ill feeling, none of that appallingly unsavoury behaviour that has almost taken root in our lives, eating away at society and then destroying its foundations.

 I can only tell you that this weekend in Finsbury Park will be the setting for a good, old fashioned knees up. Already I can feel those Beach Boys Good Vibrations. Sadly, the Beach Boys, despite a brief comeback a couple of years ago, will not be in the lush parklands of Manor House which is regrettable but  a sad reality. Still you never know. Perhaps Brian Wilson may sneak into the Park View cafe across the road completely unannounced. Now that could be the story of the weekend.  Let the good times roll everybody.