Key moments
The weather is great, the birds are tweeting over the Vale of Avalon and we’ve reached the meat of the festival.
Coldplay were Saturday’s headliners on the Pyramid Stage, after sets from Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka and Cyndi Lauper. Elsewhere, the Streets and the Last Dinner Party featured on the Other Stage, English Teacher were at Leftfield and Russell Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party took to the Acoustic Stage.
Our writers covered all the latest from Worthy Farm.
A five-star performance from Chris Martin
Chris Martin simply never stops during Coldplay’s record-breaking headline appearance at Worthy Farm (Jonathan Dean writes). He’s at the piano, running, leaping and semi-cartwheeling during Viva La Vida, and barely ever stops talking. But there’s a reason they’ve been invited back five times: they are, quite simply, the best live act around, with the planet’s most engaged frontman.
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Coldplay’s 25 years at Glastonbury
Coldplay are headlining at Glastonbury for the fifth time, the most by any act.
They first appeared at the festival in the New Bands tent in 1999, and returned as headliners in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2016.
Coldplay have overtaken the Cure, headline act in 1986, 1990, 1995 and 2019.
The Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Radiohead and Van Morrison have each done it three times.
Pianist fulfils dream to play with Coldplay
Millions have just seen the singer-songwriter Victoria Canal on stage with Coldplay — singing Paradise with Chris Martin (Jonathan Dean writes).
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I spoke to her last week, ahead of the biggest night of her life, when she told me how Martin simply Facetimed her three weeks ago to ask if she was free. The singer is on the rise — she plays piano beautifully and has just released a song co-written by half of the 1975.
Here, she talks about her surprise appearance on the Pyramid Stage and how her disability — Canal was born without her right forearm — affects her playing. And as for the bullies, who made school a misery, seeing her at Glastonbury? “Maybe the most wounded and awkward 14-year-old girl with braces, who never had any attention from boys and was shunned by the girls? Maybe there is a little voice from her going, ‘Ha! Look at me now,’” she says. “But, honestly, I don’t think it’d be fulfilling to do this for a living if it was a revenge play.” Read the full interview here.
Binface gets a cheer
The man behind the mask is the comedian Jon Harvey. Last week he revealed the personal tragedy behind his comic persona. Read his story here.
Review: Little Simz (Pyramid Stage)
★★★★★
All weekend artists have pittered and pattered clichés and inane word-soups in between songs. Not Little Simz. “Hello,” she says, surveying the Pyramid crowd. And then, she starts rapping (Susie Goldsbrough writes).
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The 30-year-old artist from North London, born Simbiatu Ajikawo to Nigerian parents, played an electric, power-surging and at times soul-stirring early evening set. Dressed in a long tartan kilt and white ankle socks, topped with a bomber jacket emblazoned with her own name, she looked like an overgrown sixth former bunking off algebra to swing by Glastonbury for the night.
Simz won the 2022 Mercury Prize for Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, her breakout album. Layering blistering, political lyrics over lush soul or whizzy electronica, her sound is distinctive. That’s partly about the words she chooses — emotive, imagery-heavy (it’s full of gorillas, poison and power) and, frequently, furious.
She’s got range: tonight she flipped from energetic tracks like Venom, a hissing feminist hymn, to the swaying, soulful Woman. Rap sets can be somewhat stark, production-wise, but not this one: leathered-up dancers sporting enormous silver motorcycle helmets tore around the stage for the drum-swinging Mood Swings; footage of an endlessly rising housing estate, based on where she grew up, made a powerful backdrop to 101 FM.
There’s something curious about her voice too: deep, urgent, a little serious, and preternaturally commanding. She’s got something to say and you’d better listen. But beneath the seriousness is warmth. “This is by far the most people I’ve ever performed for,” she told us. Then broke into a broad, irresistible smile. Dua Lipa, eat your heart out.
Review: The Streets (Other Stage)
★★★★☆
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A huge crowd for The Streets, which didn’t appear to faze Mike Skinner (Will Hodgkinson writes). He wandered on stage, holding a beer and looking like he was trying to find something he had dropped on the floor, with all the ease of the darts sensation Luke Littler scoring a 180 before bedtime.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Glastonbury, but we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning,” he said, an odd message on Saturday evening, and then he was in the crowd for fan favourite Who’s Got the Bag, jumping along with the rest of them.
Advice on not getting stuck between stages and taking a pill at the right time was intertwined with Skinner’s spoken word vignettes of everyday surrealism, backed by a live band catching a sound somewhere between hip-hop, reggae and punk.
“We’re going to feel like shit on Tuesday,” he said, while on a fan’s shoulders during a rendition of Don’t Mug Yourself. What a character.
Banksy’s migrant boat back for Little Simz
A dinghy full of mannequins — representing a Channel migrant boat — surfed the crowd during the Idles’ set on the Other Stage on Friday night. It emerged later that it was a stunt by the artist Banksy and the band said they knew nothing about it.
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The boat made another appearance on Saturday, this time at the Pyramid Stage during a set by the rapper Little Simz.
Review: Russell Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party (Acoustic Stage)
★★★☆☆
“Hello Glastonbury, how the f*** are you?” was how Russell Crowe greeted his Glastonbury audience, and not, alas, “Are you not entertained?” (Hadley Freeman writes).
But the people didn’t mind. There was a lotta love for Crowe in the acoustic tent, from an audience notably older than at any other gigs this weekend. I spotted at least three balding and grizzled chaps wearing Tom Petty concert T-shirts. It was that kinda crowd.
This was not a concert for Crowe’s original band, the unforgettably named 30 Odd Feet of Grunts. Rather, it was for Russell Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party, and the best the official Glastonbury programme could say about it was that the band’s “personnel may change, but it’s always big”. That it was — nine people — and Crowe, the singer and occasional guitarist, was clad all in black, bearing more than a slight resemblance to Louis “Niiiice” Balfour, presenter of Jazz Club from The Fast Show.
Actors in bands don’t have the best of reputations, and Crowe is at the better end of the spectrum, which is a low bar. His voice is decent, if not very distinctive, and the music is fine, by which I mean it’s like a superior pub band. Lots of songs about time going too fast and women slipping away and why you need to keep believing — all the usual fare you’d expect from a 60-year-old chap.
The real joy is Crowe’s patter. I cannot do it justice so will just quote the man himself:
“I met a young lady, about three or four decades younger than me but she seemed to like me. So we made a plan to meet in Paris. But she didn’t come to Paris. She went to Southampton. Now if you made a list of the 1,000 places you need to see before you die, f***ing Southampton would not be on that list. Anyway, can you guess the name of our next song? Yup, Southampton.”
And:
“I’ve got one room where I keep all the sparkly stuff in my career. Other actors spread that shit all over the house — ‘I’m an actor!’ I’m an actor!’ Not me. Just one room and only I go in it. Any time I worry I’m not getting anywhere in my career I sit in that room and think, yeah you’re all right, mate.”
And so on. I don’t know if I’d go see Crowe sing again, but I’d definitely go for some pints with him. Were we not entertained? Improbably, we were.
Cabello’s Gen Z star turn for the camera
Gen Z took over the Other Stage as Camila Cabello, the 27-year-old Cuban-Mexican-American pop star spent large chunks of her time performing to a camera instead of the live audience (Will Humphries writes).
BMX riders performed wheelies and jumps in a half-pipe and Cabello routinely sang songs with her back to the crowd while closely followed by a cameraman.
It made for a visually innovative TV performance but it often felt like the thousands who turned out to see her IRL (in real life) came second to the screen.
During her hit song Bam Bam she held up her phone to the camera and asked if the crowd wanted to see a TikTok she had just made.
Maybe this millennial is just too old to get it, but I like artists to face the audience.
Cabello may not need my input as she is one of the biggest artists at Worthy Farm, with her 42.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify only beaten by the three headliners, Coldplay (79 million), Dua Lipa (75 million) and SZA (71 million).
Review: Michael Kiwanuka (Pyramid)
★★★★☆
A bit of psychedelic soul was just what Saturday in the evening sun needed (Will Hodgkinson writes).
Michael Kiwanuka has a voice reminiscent of Bill Withers and a way with a spiritually inclined song. Coming on in a dashiki emblazoned with the word “meaning”, an acoustic guitar and a shit-hot backing band, Kiwanuka seemed an old soul, and a gentle one, but with serious chops. You Ain’t the Problem — acoustic guitar replaced with an electric one — was a funky rock epic for the ages.
“I’m a black man in a white world,” he sang on a percussion-led groove of the same name, and he wasn’t wrong. Glastonbury crowds have got more diverse, but the song is really about being at odds with the world and Kiwanuka’s deep musicality and reflections on inner peace have little to do with modern trends.
“This is my worst nightmare,” he said when faced with an out of tune piano, but that hardly mattered when he brought on Lianne La Havas to duet on Rule the World and they went off into the vocal cosmos together. This gorgeous set was a great argument for going your own way, no matter what.
Stars of David ‘painted over’
A Glastonbury festival nightclub designed to look like a New York street has had two stars of David removed from a familiar sign (Will Humphries writes).
The sign first made its appearance in 2016 in the Block 9 area of the festival, above a fake kosher butcher shop.
Izzy Lenga, a Jewish Labour councillor in Camden, posted a picture of it on Twitter/X and tagged Emily Eavis, the festival organiser.
She said: “Just wondering why you’ve painted over the Jewish Stars of David on ‘M. Levine meat’ kosher butcher sign in SE corner this year? Seems strange to me you’d erase a clearly Jewish symbol on a Jewish sign for no reason?”
Block 9 declined to comment.
Review: Ros Atkins (Stonebridge Bar)
★★★★☆
Swapping his usual BBC studio comforts for the sweaty confines of the Stonebridge Bar, the journalist Ros Atkins seems as comfortable operating DJ decks as he is explaining world affairs (Nicole Cherruault writes).
It was a scorching Saturday afternoon but it may as well have been three in the morning inside Glastonbury’s electronic dance tent. Drum and bass blared from speakers as a sea of bucket hats bopped enthusiastically under a giant disco ball.
Atkins began DJing as a student at Cambridge in the Nineties but it was two years ago, when he produced a set for BBC Radio 6 Music, that he was reintroduced to the industry. Thanks in part to the numerous coaching sessions he received from one of the greats of drum and bass, Ray Keith, Atkins’s Glastonbury debut was a vibrant blend of modern and nostalgic.
Mixing classics from the likes of Dead Dred with some of the genre’s more current heroes, like Chase & Status and DJ Hybrid, his set was refreshingly versatile and creative — and provoked just the right amount of ear thrum. He even dropped in a bit of Keane for those missing the band on the Pyramid Stage.
When revellers went from relatively poised to donning their very best bass faces it was clear: the set was a success. As his MC, Inja, said, maybe Atkins gives BBC a new meaning — “the beautiful base community”. The highlight, however, had to be the remixed BBC News theme tune. An unexpected crowd pleaser and DnB delight.
Dua Lipa enjoys the party atmosphere
Dua Lipa headlined the Pyramid Stage on Friday night, and said she had dreamt of playing in that slot — in part because it meant she could party for the rest of the weekend.
Here she is enjoying the sunshine at Worthy Farm with her boyfriend, the actor Callum Turner.
Review: The Last Dinner Party (Other Stage)
★★★★☆
Abigail Morris, the lead singer of the Last Dinner Party, belongs here — on a huge stage, playing to a crowd bursting out beyond the paths that form the perimeter of the Other Stage, flouncing about as every word is sung back to her (Jonathan Dean writes).
“There’s a lot of you!” she screams, sounding halfway between ecstasy and emotional collapse. That, though, is what the Last Dinner Party do — they play music on the edge and after last year’s hype, 2024 has, quite literally, put the money where their mouths are.
The debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, went to number one and what is telling here is that the bigger, better known radio-friendly songs — Sinner, a monstrous Nothing Matters, Caesar on a TV Screen — that were once sniffed at as being rip offs of Abba, Queen or Sparks, now simply sound like Last Dinner Party songs.
As Morris struts the stage, nobody has ever seemed as comfortable with the idea of being a pop star. If they are not headlining the Pyramid Stage for album two — and new songs Second Best, heavy on the harmonies, and The Killer are a good start — one assumes that they will think they have failed.
The Last Dinner Party draw a crowd
I went to Dublin last December to interview the Last Dinner Party for the cover of Style magazine (Jonathan Dean writes).
That night, they played a tiny gig in the back of a pub — now they’re on the Other Stage and expected to gather one of the biggest crowds of the weekend.
Their debut album went to number one. This is one for the much vaunted “Glastonbury moment”.
Review: Cyndi Lauper (Pyramid)
★★★★☆
“It is time that world leaders understand that women are half the population and deserve to be treated equally,” shouted Cyndi Lauper, 71, from Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage on Saturday afternoon (Hadley Freeman writes).
The festival is awash with all the expected activist flags — Palestine, trans, climate. But women’s rights have long fallen off the progressive agenda, so Lauper’s was a lone, and long overdue, shout out for feminism. And the happy roar from the crowd suggested they felt likewise. Sometimes it takes a wise woman in her eighth decade to speak the truth.
In another example of “weird scheduling at Glastonbury this year, huh?”, Lauper was given a random Saturday afternoon gig instead of the Sunday legends slot. Now, no disrespect to Shania Twain, but if there’s anyone who deserves to be called a legend, it’s surely Lauper, 1980s pop princess, feminist firebrand and a genuine artiste. If you can’t give the Sunday legends slot to a musical grande dame who is just about to embark on her farewell tour, when a documentary about her life and work, Let the Canary Sing, is about to be released, then, frankly, the slot has become meaningless. But Lauper has never fussed about bouquets and laurels, focusing instead on doing exactly the kind of work she wanted.
And that’s what she did on Saturday. Just as she refused to be a purveyor of bubblegum pop in the 80s as record executives wanted her to be, so she opened her Glastonbury set, not with any of her many hits, but a series of relatively lesser known songs — She Bop, Rocking Chair — firmly ignoring the growing exodus of the crowd. She brought them back with her glorious version of Roy Orbison’s I Drove All Night, and even though her voice is sadly a fraction of its former strength, she hit all the high notes.
Time After Time and True Colours were received ecstatically, if not always sung perfectly. But it was Girls Just Want to Have Fun that turned the Pyramid into a giant party. That was when Lauper — always a loud and proud second-wave feminist — made her pro-women speech. She also gave a shout out to her fund that supports women’s healthcare organisations, which is called — what else? — Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights.
In a recent interview she said of her forthcoming farewell tour: “I just want to say goodbye in a fun way that will make them feel like they are at a party.” On Saturday afternoon in Somerset, she did exactly that.
Andrew Scott speaks out on West End theatre prices
Andrew Scott told theatre lovers at Glastonbury that the high prices for West End tickets does not mean “all doom and gloom” (Ali Mitib writes).
The Irish actor took to the Pilton Palais stage before a screening of Vanya, a one-man play based on Anton Chekhov’s family drama Uncle Vanya.
When the critically-acclaimed play was on at the Duke of York’s Theatre in September 2023, there was a ballot for £10 tickets for under 30s, amid reported sales of seats for up to £180.
Scott’s Olivier-nominated performance has since been brought to more viewers thanks to National Theatre Live, which broadcasts in cinemas.
When asked about theatre not being that “accessible” to young people due to the high prices, he said: “If you have to pay £350 to go to a play then young people under the age of 30, not just under the age of 30, are just not [going to] be able to afford to go.
“But [I[ would not be too pessimistic about it, I do think things like NT Live … [and] we can’t ignore the fact that we’re in the middle of Glastonbury and we’re talking about a play. I think that’s really important, and it’s because of initiatives like NT Live.”
Mushroom hats, pink wigs and a Harry Potter audiobook
The blister plasters are coming on (Georgia Heneage writes). Pure monstrosities growing out of my feet. My greasy hair, at least, has been sorted out by a bubblegum pink wig. It made me feel right at home at the Sugababes’ set, which was one of the best things I’ve seen all weekend. It was like being in a Noughties time capsule. Sometimes the acts you are least excited about end up being the best.
My only criticism is the crowds. It feels like they’ve sold too many tickets for the space and the human traffic jams can be infuriating (yesterday it took me a good hour to walk 100 metres to see Fontaines).
But there is something quintessentially British about Glastonbury. Maybe it’s the mushroom hats, the good humour — there are few grumbles in the queues — or the willingness to either roll in the mud or bake in the sun (the latter today, thank God). Or maybe it’s the sweet sound of a Harry Potter audiobook wafting over a campsite in the early hours. That brought a smile to my face.
How lockdown revived teen DJ dream
During the pandemic Sammy Dean, a sales manager at a property developer, scrolled onto an Instagram post that sparked her “midlife epiphany” (Ali Mitib writes).
“The salary is the drug that your employer gives you to forget your dreams,” the post read. It resonated with the mother of two, who decided to pursue her teenage dreams of becoming a house DJ.
This afternoon she was performing at the Spike Bar at Glastonbury for the second year in a row.
Dean, 50, first started DJ-ing in her teens but gave up after becoming a parent. With time on her hands during lockdown, she dusted off the vinyl decks at her house in Warrington, Cheshire. Eventually, she decided to leave her £50,000-a-year job because she didn’t have enough holiday days to pursue her passion, despite warnings from her friends that she was “mental” for giving up a stable position.
“I thought, I’m gonna do this because if I don’t do it now I’m just going to have more regret,” she said.
‘Sober at Glastonbury? It’s a great experience’
Jordan Stephens, one half of the Rizzle Kicks, has espoused the benefits of being sober at Glastonbury but said that you may have to spend less time with your friends once the drinks get flowing (Ali Mitib writes).
The 32-year-old hip-hop musician and actor has been open about experiencing anxiety, as well as struggling with drink and drugs.
“All I wanna say is this is the second Glastonbury I have gone to sober and it’s a great experience, I recommend it to anybody,” he told the BBC. “Sometimes you have to see a little less of your friends past a certain time because … it’s incoherent.”
Stephens will make his non-fiction debut with Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak And Dogs, which will also touch on his experience with ADHD, in August.
Famous faces spotted
It’s as glitzy as ever down in Somerset. Princess Beatrice, a regular Glasto-goer, was spotted at a motorway service station en route to the festival. She was in M&S, obviously (Susie Goldsborough writes).
Last night, Paul Mescal could be seen vibing out to Charli XCX, and Sienna Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Cara Delevingne hollered for LCD.
Later, Billie Piper and Alexa Chung graced the Park Stage bar. A baffled Dakota Johnson had a pint in a local pub with her boyfriend, Chris Martin.
And among the glitterati enjoying the hospitality area so far: Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bear Grylls, and Louis Tomlinson from 1D. If only he’d brought Harry Styles with him.
Review: The Skatalites (West Holts)
★★★☆☆
The Skatalites were pioneers of the Sixties Jamaican ska scene (Susie Goldsbrough writes). They played with Bob Marley & the Wailers, and Toots and the Maytals, wrote Guns of Navarone, and influenced a generation of 2Tone bands from Madness to The Specials. And yes, they’ve been around for a while: this year is their 60th anniversary, their silver jubilee.
These days, the Skatalites are in truth more of a tribute band. Doreen Shaffer is the only one of the ten founding members still alive. But she wasn’t in attendance today — it was an all-male eight-man line-up, multi-age, multi-ethnic, and gorgeously brass-heavy.
“We’re going to take you up into our musical spacecraft and orbit ska, rock steady and reggae,” announced the keyboardist, Ken Stewart. The instrumental portions of the set sank from mellow to soupy at times but when the twinkly, grey-dreaded drummer, Larry McDonald, took the mic, voice as deep and creaky as a mahogany wardrobe, the all-ages crowd couldn’t stop bopping.
Saturday morning at Glastonbury can be a tricky time: hangovers, heat, the slow acknowledgment that you haven’t showered in 55 hours. What could be more soothing than a slug of ska?
Kasabian confirm secret set
The secret is out — Kasabian have confirmed they will be one of the unannounced shows at Glastonbury this year (Ali Mitib writes).
The Leicester rock band had not been part of the festival’s line-up, but they will now fill Saturday’s blank spot on the Woodsies stage between 6pm and 7pm.
Review: Kneecap (Woodsies)
★★★★☆
“If you’ve just done a tab of acid, don’t worry — you’re not having a psychotic breakdown. We are rapping in Irish,” said Kneecap midway through this blistering 45-minute set. The first show of the day, they attracted a headliner-sized crowd, suggesting a significant appetite for furious, hilarious republican hip-hop.
The Belfast trio have a track about a loyalist/republican romance called Fenian C***s, their DJ, Próvaí, wears an Irish tricolour balaclava and they are taking legal action against the UK government for halting a grant because it was supposedly wrong to give taxpayers’ money to “people that oppose the United Kingdom itself”.
“Who’s up for a bit of craic?” they asked. Or did they mean crack? Hard to tell with this lot, who make no secret of their love for drugs and sing a song called Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite.
Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap rapped like a sectarian Beastie Boys — their interplay with Próvaí’s thumping beats had a real swing. Away from the BBC cameras, they made their views plain, leading chants of “Free Palestine” and “Get your Brits out”, the title of another of their songs. Well, that woke us all up.
Banksy stunt puts migrant crisis centre stage
Banksy released a small inflatable boat filled with dummy migrants into the crowd at the Idles’ politically charged set on Friday night (Will Humphries writes).
The boat was carried aloft by the crowd towards the front of the stage as the Bristol punk band launched into their song Danny Nedelko, which opens with the lyrics: “My blood brother is an immigrant, a beautiful immigrant.”
A representative for the band announced that they were not aware of the stunt until after their set and that it had been created by Banksy.
Alex Morss, a fan of the band, tweeted: “One of the best performances ever seen at Glastonbury last night. Idles you are my kind of scum. Goosebumps all over. Absolute legends. They shouted ‘F*** the King’, called Farage a fascist, had a small refugee boat crowdsurfing through their Danny Nedelko immigration song and were shouting ‘Viva Palestine’ and ‘Ceasefire now’. A masterclass in firing up the hearts of good people.”
One commenter, who was less than impressed with the stunt, described it as “cringe” and “out of touch”, adding: “Being open borders at a music festival which has a gigantic fence and very high security — so edgy.”
Coldplay wristbands run out within hours
Demand is high at Worthy Farm for one of Coldplay’s signature LED wristbands, which turns their audience into a colourful constellation of pulsating patterns, before their record-breaking fifth headline slot on the Pyramid Stage tonight (Will Humphries writes).
The wristbands were available to collect from information points, campsite steward hubs and the property lock-ups, but many had already run out of their allocation by the morning.
Queues had formed at the information point by the Other Stage before it opened at 8.30am, and by 11am its two huge sackfuls of wristbands had gone.
Roving teams will be handing them out to those heading to the Pyramid field later in the day but some are still searching the site to get their hands on one.
At the end of the show the wristbands can be handed back for reuse at the remaining dates of the band’s Music of the Spheres world tour.
This year’s unmissable DJ set: Charli XCX
Once it was rock’n’roll, then it was Britpop, but on behalf of my people, 2020s youths, I can tell you that Glastonbury runs on dance music (Susie Goldsbrough writes). To plenty of my friends, it’s only after dark that the day begins.
This year’s hottest ticket — thanks to an alchemy of mainstream clout and DJ cool — was Charli XCX, the brassy British pop star adored for her punchy electronic beats and the sort of swaggering persona more often associated with rappers: “It’s okay to admit that you’re jealous of me,” begins her hit Von Dutch.
Although she could easily have filled a major stage, Charli plumped for a prime DJ set — half midnight at Levels, which looks like a laser-beamed, deconstructed Rubik’s cube. Arriving an hour early, the queue verged on crush.
But oh baby, was it worth it. Sporting matrix-style dark glasses and flanked by fabulous female guests — including xx singer-turned-DJ Romy and millennial favourite Robyn — she chopped her tunes into pulsating, arms-chucked-in-the-air anthems. “Talk to me in FRENCH, FRENCH, FRENCH …”
If only she hadn’t let her boyfriend — George Daniel of The 1975 — play a dragging interlude. It’s okay to admit he’s jealous of you.
Stage jumper makes special delivery
At the end of Johnny Flynn’s late morning set at the Park Stage a man jumped the security barrier and handed the folk singer-songwriter a piece of folded paper (Will Humphries writes).
Paddy Benedict, 29, managed to make the delivery to his musical idol and jump back across the barrier into the crowd before the lone security guard at the other end of the stage could react.
Asked what he had handed over, the “rock, folk, country, reggae” artist said it was a copy of his latest album wrapped in paper. He had arrived at the gig without it, so missed the first 15 minutes of the set to return to his tent to grab it.
“I only have six copies of a rough cut because its only just being finished now,” he said. “I gave one to my granny, my mum, and I had one left so I thought I’d give Johnny one.”
Review: Johnny Flynn (Park)
★★★★☆
Johnny Flynn has had an impressively varied career, beginning as a folk-inspired singer-songwriter in the Noughties before rising to fame as an actor, starring in the films One Life and Emma with Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as being nominated for an Olivier award for his stage work in Jerusalem (Will Humphries writes).
• Johnny Flynn: ‘Ripley? It was my hardest job ever’
But for most of middle England he is known as the mercurial voice behind the liltingly beautiful theme song to The Detectorists, Mackenzie Crook’s paean to male friendship and the English countryside. There could be few better settings to hear him sing his signature tune than sitting on the green fields of the Park area on a lazy Saturday morning, with the Vale of Avalon spread out beneath. However, Flynn decided not to satisfy his casual fans and left it out of his rousing setlist. Instead, the hauntingly powerful Song With No Name brought the crowd to a standstill.
The song, co-written with the British nature writer Robert Macfarlane, had a similar effect earlier this month when Flynn played it at the British Normandy Memorial commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, in the presence of the last remaining British veterans.
Review: Fontaines DC (Park) — my Friday highlight
★★★★★
Well, that was a thrill — a confident, brash, intense thrill (Jonathan Dean writes). Fontaines DC, headlining the Park Stage and cementing their status as a major band, were my highlight of a very, very good Glastonbury Friday.
For a certain none-more-indie set, not going to Dua Lipa, talk all day had been about whether to do Jamie xx or Fontaines DC for the night’s final slot. But there is a momentum about Fontaines DC right now that meant there was only going to be one winner between those two. The arena — Glastonbury’s most picturesque, looking down over the site — was packed, and the fans of the Irish band knew every word, even their new single Favourite, which has only been out for about a week.
Veering from post-punk Joy Division to melodic early REM, with the frontman Grian Chatten’s constant, Liam Gallagher-aping snarl, the eclectic band were beloved and lapped up. They are going to have a huge year — a new album is out in August — and their presence, coupled with Idles headlining the Other Stage, means that possibly people shouldn’t have been wailing: “Where is the rock music?!” so much, given it is right here — and scintillating and brilliant.
Welcome to nitrous oxide mountain
If you are an early riser at Glastonbury then you will come across the army of volunteer litter-pickers who scour the ground (Will Humphries writes).
Conspicuous among the rubbish they find are mountains of canisters of nitrous oxide, the gas inhaled to make users feel light-headed, which are gathered up each morning for collection by the bin lorries.
The government made nitrous oxide a class C drug this year, making possession and sale for recreational purposes a criminal offence.
Liz Eliot, founder of the Green Fields area at Glastonbury Festival, has made repeated pleas for people not to use the “damaging drug which pollutes our beautiful field with noise, litter and N₂0 gas, a greenhouse gas which is 298 times more polluting than carbon dioxide”.
In previous years more than two tonnes of canisters have been picked up by hand from the King’s Meadow alone, home to Stone Circle.
Review: Jamie xx (Woodsies) — proper Glastonbury magic
★★★★★
I’m still thinking about the magical Glastonbury moment that happened about halfway through Jamie xx’s set on Friday night (Hadley Freeman writes). With Romy, his band mate from The xx playing the festival later this weekend, there was always a good chance she might make an appearance in his solo set. Yet no one predicted that the third member of The xx, Oliver, would turn up too. But suddenly, there the three of them were, performing You’ve Got the Love and then hugging one another excitedly behind Jamie’s decks. That seemed like surely the highpoint. But Robyn was waiting backstage…
This set was one of the most anticipated of the weekend and despite people having little more than inches of space around them, the place was bouncing straight off when he opened with crowd-pleasers like Treat Each Other Right, the slinky and irresistible Kill Dem and — most enjoyably — Skepta’s gritty remix of Jamie’s I Know There’s Gonna Be Good Times. Woodsies, the venue formerly known as the John Peel Tent, is one of the prettiest and most bucolic at the festival. But Jamie xx made it feel like a dirty club basement, in the best way.
He released Life, the new song from his upcoming album In Waves, only a week ago. But as soon as the opening notes played iPhones started snapping desperately at the stage. That’s because everyone there knew Robyn features on it and, suddenly, there she was, one of the most adored dance/pop artists making a surprise appearance in Somerset. Proper Glastonbury magic.
Expect tears for record-breaking Coldplay
Saturday at Glastonbury blends hype with hits, from The Last Dinner Party on the Other Stage at about 4pm, with their arch, bombastic songs about love and devotion, to Coldplay on the Pyramid (Jonathan Dean writes).
If all goes to plan for The Last Dinner Party, whom I interviewed earlier this year, they should play in the top slot after album two, but for now it is Coldplay — again. After this year, they will have headlined Glastonbury more than anyone else. If you are a Chris Martin naysayer, then you have not seen his band live. Nobody said it was easy, but nobody does gigs of this size better. Expect tears for Fix You and an exodus if they do that one they made with Chainsmokers.
Other highlights on Saturday boast more hype, with 2024’s whip-smart indie success English Teacher from Leeds, and the evocative, punchy Mercury winner Little Simz. Oh and who is that on the Acoustic Stage? Russell Crowe, weirdly. No idea what to expect, but the Gladiator man will miss a trick if he doesn’t, at one point, shout: “Are you not entertained?”
‘Most controversial band since the Sex Pistols’ — what could go wrong?
There are several phases to every Glastonbury (Ed Potton writes). You go from the excitement of arriving to the mild neurosis of working out the logistics — centring in my case on the fact that I had brought a vast air mattress that didn’t fit in my tent unless I folded it in two and perched on top of it like a rubbish version of The Princess and the Pea.
By Friday night I had got myself together a bit and could focus on a great run of music from Confidence Man to LCD Soundsystem to Dua Lipa. My colleague Will Hodgkinson (link to review) thought that Lipa was sometimes too slick for her own good and I agree but thought some of the big tunes in her headline set were just wonderful. I hallucinated during Levitating and levitated during Hallucinate.
• Dua Lipa at Glastonbury 2024 review: fireworks from a disco diva
Now it’s Saturday and my first band of the day is Kneecap, an Irish-language hip-hop trio who have been called “the most controversial band in the UK since the Sex Pistols”. What could possibly go wrong?
