The highs and lows of Glastonbury

The Glastonbury Festival has had more than its fair share of ups and downs in its 38-year history.

On the eve of this year's festival, here is a guide to its best, worst and most downright bizarre moments.

The first Pyramid Stage was built for the legendary event in 1971

Marc Bolan and T Rex headlined the first ever Glastonbury in 1970 after The Kinks pulled out.

Bolan famously pulled up in a velvet-covered car and when organiser Michael Eavis went to stroke it, the singer shouted: "Don't touch my car, man." But Mr Eavis says the band's set was one of the best ever.

The event established itself in 1971, when a larger, legendary hippy gathering was caught on film by Nic Roeg and David Puttnam.

It was attended by celebrities like actress Julie Christieand model Jean Shrimpton, and headlined by Traffic and Hawkwind.

Glastonbury was an annual event by the early 1980s and the bill in 1982 ranged from U2 to Bananarama.

The girl group, who had just scored their first hit, asked for somewhere to wash backstage - and with no mains supply, they were handed a bowl of water.

Bananarama braved the basic facilities in 1982

The hippies were not happy when The Smiths were booked to perform in 1984. They saw it as going too mainstream and attracting a different crowd. "We had opposition," organiser Mr Eavis says.

But they played a blinder, with Morrissey inviting fans onto the stage in the days before barriers.

In 1989, Suzanne Vega - fresh from hits like Luka and Marlene On The Wall - and her bass player received death threats from a woman the singer said had become infatuated with the bassist.

Police were worried there might have been a sniper in the crowd, but the show went on, with Vega wearing a bulletproof vest, spotters on the mixing desk and a police escort out of the festival.

One of the low points came in 1990 during violence and confrontations between groups of travellers and festival security at the end of the festival.

Liam Gallagher and Robbie Williams at Glastonbury

Robbie Williams went wild with Oasis in 1995

The dispute over access to the site, drug dealing and looting resulted in travellers surrounding the farmhouse, riot police being called, 235 arrests being made and �50,000 of damage.

Disaster struck 10 days before the 1994 festival, when the Pyramid Stage burnt down in the night.

A new main stage was hastily rebuilt in time for the event, hosting acts like Bjork, Manic Street Preachers and Elvis Costello.

Pulp saved the day after The Stone Roses were forced to pull out of their hotly anticipated UK comeback in 1995.

Radiohead's 1997 set is remembered as one of the event's greatest

At the time Jarvis Cocker's band were enjoying massive success in the summer of Britpop with their single Common People.

That summer, Robbie Williams was on the verge of quitting Take That when he turned up at Glastonbury with bleached hair, intent on partying with Liam and Noel Gallagher.

He even joined Oasis on stage for drunken dancing during Shakermaker, an episode that was described as "more than faintly pathetic" by The Guardian.

Just weeks after releasing what is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, OK Computer, Radiohead headlined the Pyramid Stage in 1997.

David Bowie returned to Glastonbury after 29 years

They confirmed their status as one of Britain's greatest bands amid the mud with a set hailed by critics for its "magisterial beauty" and by Mr Eavis as the best ever.

Another muddy year in 1998, and a sewage truck was enlisted to pump mud out of the dance tent.

Unfortunately, it was set to blow instead of suck, pumping raw sewage over fans and causing the tent to be closed for several hours.

After playing his first Glastonbury to revellers at 5am in 1971, David Bowie returned in 2000 to close the festival.

One camping area was turned into a lake by the floods of 2005

He was wearing a floral jacket identical to the one he donned on the primitive Pyramid Stage almost 30 years earlier.

The site was hit by freak flash floods in 2005, when rivers sprung up on site, leading to hundreds of tents being submerged or washed away. Lightning strikes also affected the stages.

The fire service deployed high-powered pumping equipment, Portaloos floated away and canoes were spotted in the campsites.

Michael Eavis made his first ever appearance on the Pyramid Stage in 2005, when he and Bob Geldof joined forces for the Make Poverty History campaign.