Glastonbury 2024 was another for the ages: with fears of a long overdue muddy year ultimately unfounded, Worthy Farm (mostly) bathed in sunshine as another stellar mix of music legends, exciting up and coming artists and beloved cult icons brought five days of fun and frolics to the world's biggest music festival. This year saw Dua Lipa prove her doubters wrong as a more than worthy Friday night Pyramid party starter and Shania Twain bring Maximum Country Hun Energy, while unannounced on-stage appearances from the likes of Kasabian, Damon Albarn and, er, Michael J Fox kept Glastonbury's reputation for springing a surprise or two well intact.
Dozens of artists put in showings worth celebrating, but there were a few whose sets have almost certainly waltzed straight into Glasto lore. With that in mind, here are the 11 acts that undoubtedly defined this year's festival.
Fat Dog
Home of the weird and wonderful, Fat Dog’s barking ska-punk fit right at home at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, with each of their four sets producing crowds of skankers, leapers and laughers. Like a gaggle of wind-up toys, the South Londoners were a non-stop party, their erratic Madness-meets-Soft Play performances featuring a dog mask-donning drummer and a synth player who would often scuttle across the stage like a crab. Captaining the chaos was the ever-rowdy frontman Joe Love, who'd join the audience down in the dance pits. Silly, surreal and heaps of fun, and they’re still yet to release an album. In fact, their debut, WOOF, is scheduled to arrive on September 6, so keep an ear out.
Confidence Man
‘C-O-O-L cooooooool / I'm a cool party girl in a cool party world’. Possibly the most vogue band since Madonna released, well, Vogue, Aussie quartet Confidence Man brought camp choreographed dancing, pouting, posing and multiple outfit changes to their packed-out Other Stage set. The Barbie and Ken front-duo cemented themselves as icons in the making, with Janet Planet gazing over her sunglasses before leaping off of Sugar Bones, who ripped off his shirt multiple times. Fan favourites such as Does It Make You Feel Good?, Feels Like A Different Thing, Holiday and Don’t You Know I’m In A Band ushered in a rave feel to the field, and it felt like an incredibly special, career-building moment. Next year, we expect to see this foursome on the Pyramid stage.
Lambrini Girls
Politically-minded punks Lambrini Girls are here to make change, and there's no band fighting the fight quite like them. Across their four performances this weekend, they dished out a platter of patriarchy-smashing punk and pin-sharp lyrics about trans inclusivity, sexual empowerment and male violence. Frontwoman Phoebe Lunny was a snarling force of nature, as she ravaged her guitar as if trying to fight off a rabid animal, before demanding to be hoisted up over the crowd. She also made multiple speeches about the ongoing tragedy in Palestine as well as about the importance of giving JK Rowling the middle finger.
Little Simz
"Finally made it to the Pyramid!" beamed the impossibly cool Simz early on in a thunderous set that presented a serous argument for the Nigerian-British rapper to be anointed as hip hop's next big Glasto headliner. At just thirty years old, the artist born Simbiatu Ajikawo is on a run of top-tier albums as good as just about any rap great you could measure her against, and her versatility was on show in style here, the emotional, swelling Silhouette and Heart On Fire happily rubbing shoulders with all-out, hard-hitting bangers like Venom and Gorilla. Even from her lofty current standing, the only way is surely up.
Gossip
For those who were uninterested in hearing Chris Martin go on about the colour yellow at Saturday night's headline Pyramid offering, the other option was a far more invigorating one, with Gossip getting the real party going over on the Woodsies stage via riotous indie bangers and swathes of star power.
Despite professing to be under the weather, frontwoman Beth Ditto's vocals towered above the noise, her punk attitude seething through each note with all the might of a motor being ripped into action. Between the dance floor-filling tracks, Ditto also took a few moments to show just how grateful for the moment she was, as tears pricked her eyes on multiple occasions.
As they brought the set to a close with everyone’s favourite 2006 indie anthem Standing In The Way of Control, the tent was a deafening celebration, as Ditto then dipped into a few lines of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit before starting the chant “There’s more of us than there are of them”. Empowering, emotional and a reminder as good as any that even after a 12 year hiatus, Gossip should never be an option, but a first choice.
Aurora
As though entering some kind of fairy realm, the energy Aurora brought to Glastonbury Festival over on the sunny Park stage felt hazily euphoric, as her feet swirled and danced across the stage, ice-blue skirt billowing behind her, casting us all under her mesmeric spell. Showcasing numerous new songs from her recently-released album What Happened To The Heart?, tracks including the Kate Bush-coded When The Dark Dresses Lightly and the rave-y Starvation got fans spiralling their arms in the air, as older favourites such as the TikTok-viral Runaway sparked a sweet singalong. While being possibly the the most ethereal creature to walk the Earth, Aurora also demonstrated her mischievous side - producing the 'call me' hand sign to punters on the front row and even pretending to flash the crowd - and later, her serious one, as she made a plea for the children of Palestine and offered a heartfelt speech to the LGBTQ+ community.
Lankum
No crowd was more eerily silent this weekend than the one watching Lankum's afternoon set over in The Park on Saturday. Between their haunting harmonies, doom-drenched instrumentation and uplifting traditional folk melodies, the Dublin group made for a spectacular experience that was even met with tears from onlookers, particularly during their acapella rewrite of Arcady’s The Rocks of Bawn, retitled as The Rocks of Palestine as an ode to the current conflicts in the region. As they swung between jubilant jigs and dismal dread, the atmosphere was a pendulum swing of emotions that overtook the senses and left us all feeling raw. Powerful stuff.
Skindred
This weekend, Skindred delivered what might just have been the most aggressive, impressive and energetic show of their career…and that’s Skindred we’re talking about. Let that sink in. New songs such as Smile and Gimme That Boom sounded incredible and added a little something extra to the set, and classics like Nobody and Kill the Power ruled like they always do. Through it all, Benji Webbe continued to make claim for the title of greatest living frontman, and as ever, Warning and the crowd-pleasing Newport Helicopter sent jaws to the floor.
The Streets
The Streets were absolutely magnificent fun, and were undoubtedly one of the most enduring memories of the weekend. The set was basically cut into two parts, the first focusing on Mike Skinner’s legendary debut Original Pirate Material and the second on the chart-topping A Grand Don’t Come For Free, with a few choice cuts from beyond those two eras chucked in for good measure, with Skinner holding a vice-like grip on Glastonbury from the word go. By the second song, the gobby Who’s Got the Bag, Skinner had dived into the crowd onto someone’s shoulders, trying to grab a flag with his face on, proving to be a master at riling up his audience. Classic chaos there from The Streets.
Avril Lavigne
Canada's pop punk princess made the career decision of a lifetime when she decided to lean back into her emo-laden teen angst roots for 2022's Love Sux. It helped her surf the wave of millennial rock nostalgia that shows no sign of abating, earning her one of the biggest Other Stage crowds in Glasto history. Avril made the most of it with an all-killer, no filler set that was more polished and professional than raw and emotional, but the mahooooosive audience in front of her brought enough noise and jubilation to make this a truly unforgettable moment.
Coldplay
Predictable? Yes, but there's just no fucking with a good thing, and the fact is that Coldplay remain Glastonbury's ultimate house band, and for good reason. Their now trademark dazzling light show continues to evolve in boundary-pushing ways, while a hits-stacked, guest-star-filled fifth headline set pulled out all the stops imaginable, from live track debuts to covers to multiple stages, fireworks, confetti, streamers, a choir, Michael J Fox, for some reason...it all added up to an absolute Christmas dinner of a show: chaotic, over the top and way too much to take in in one sitting. But then would anyone have Coldplay at Glasto any other way?
- How to rewatch Glastonbury 2024: Relive the weekend's best moments
