When you think of the classic Glastonbury acts, dance artists are right up there: the Chemical Brothers sending you into retinal meltdown, or Fatboy Slim cropping up to DJ everywhere apart from the long-drop toilets. And Orbital are one of the most defining acts of all – their barnstorming 1994 set helped usher in a dedicated dance stage the following year, and they appeared so often in the years since that there’s a live album documenting a decade of their performances.
So we’re very excited to host them at a special Guardian Live event at Glastonbury 2024, held in the Astrolabe theatre on Saturday from 11-11.50am, in conversation with our chief rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis. Paul and Phil Hartnoll will range right across their career, from growing up in Kent and putting together early tracks on their dad’s four-track tape deck, to being at the heart of the dance music revolution in the 1990s with anthems such as Chime, Belfast, Halcyon and The Box, and onwards to amass a 10-album discography. There have been breakups and makeups along the way, but they are on a high again, having returned to the UK Top 10 for the first time since 1999 with their most recent LP, 2023’s Optical Delusion.
We want to pose your questions to the Hartnolls, so post them in the comments below and Alexis will try to get through as many as possible. If you’re at Glastonbury this weekend, please join us in person – head torches optional – but if you’re not, you’ll be able to catch up afterwards with a full write-up of the event.
