That’s it for us tonight folks! Thank you again for joining us for another day at the world’s greatest festival. I will eventually stop singing “shanananananananan KNEES, KNEES” at random moments before the night is out. Come back tomorrow from 12pm for the final day of liveblog coverage.
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Lana Del Rey reviewed
Other Stage, 10.30pm
There were few sets at this year’s Glastonbury festival more anticipated than Lana Del Rey’s Saturday night Other stage headline slot. It’s been nearly 10 years since the cult American singer-songwriter last played on Worthy Farm; in that time, she’s released six albums and established herself as one of pop music’s greatest living songwriters, period – a bold and experimental musician whose renown only seems to grow as her music becomes more introspective and self-referential. Her latest record, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, is already one of the year’s most acclaimed, and one of the strangest pop records to be released in recent memory: across the sprawling, conceptually dense album, Del Rey samples herself three times, collaborates with “fetish rapper” Tommy Genesis, and, for the first time in her career, writes openly about her family and personal history.
At the time of writing, Lana is the 27th most streamed musician in the world on Spotify – an impossibly huge feat, given how idiosyncratic, and downright anti-pop, her vision of pop music is. While Del Rey will probably never be played on pop radio, her fans are devoutly loyal – more so, perhaps, than the fans of many other pop stars. They prove their devotion at the end of Del Rey’s set: after walking onstage 30 minutes late, her sound is cut at midnight, after a raucous, exhilaratingly dense-sounding rendition of the 2017 song White Mustang. Del Rey pleads with various stage managers as the gargantuan Other stage crowd watch on, aghast; she is eventually escorted offstage, and the crew packing up her gear are met with emphatic, resounding boos.
And you can understand why: the hour of Del Rey’s set that she is able to perform is an absolutely ripper tour through her discography, including intense and psychedelic takes on tracks from 2014 fan-favourite Ultraviolence, a wistful rendition of the title track from 2019’s generation-defining Norman Fucking Rockwell, and rapturously received performances of songs from her 2012 debut Born to Die. Del Rey is not a high-energy performer, but she doesn’t need to be one: surrounded by a band and about 10 dancers, she puts on an artfully choreographed show that walks a perilous line between discomfiting intimacy and stadium-show grandeur.
In the style of her records, Del Rey’s live show is ramshackle and intensely thought-out at the same time; sometimes, she looks as if she’s forgotten the words to her own song, even as the dancers around her are pulling off an intricate, frenetic routine. It’s hard to pinpoint a specific highlight, because each song brings a new, surprising standout moment: Del Rey leads the crowd in a speak-along to the spoken word bridge of Ultraviolence; fans scream along to 2012’s Ride; White Mustang, perhaps my favourite song of all time but still, nonetheless, an underappreciated track in Del Rey’s catalog, is turned into a depressing-slash-euphoric festival anthem.
When her sound gets cut, after White Mustang, there’s a ripple of discontent among the crowd; if I had to guess, I would think that at least a few hundred people traveled here just to see Del Rey’s first UK show in four years. No matter – the hour that she did perform was compelling and brilliant, a showcase of one of the world’s greatest living pop stars.
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The Pretenders’ set was a highlight of today – if you missed it, Chrissy Hynde was joined by Dave Grohl, Johnny Marr and (briefly) Paul McCartney, setting a high standard for on-stage cameos. Here’s Zoe Williams’ review:
I’m now quite disappointed that I missed Chris of Christine and the Queens’ marble-hewn torso, but hey, it’s nonetheless been fun to be here on the liveblog with all of you. Elton’s tomorrow, obviously; I will personally be headbanging at Queens of the Stone Age instead. Alt-J will be headlining the Park, Rudimental will be revving up West Holts, and Phoenix will be at Woodsies for the headline slot.
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Christine and the Queens reviewed
Woodsies, 10.30pm
Referencing Tony Kushner’s Aids epic Angels in America; Pachelbel’s metaphor-laden spoken word on pain, longing and the power of ritual, Canon; even Michael Jackson’s single-gloved choreography, Christine and the Queens’ latest, fourth record, Paranoia, Angels, True Love, is a deeply referential work. At 20 tracks long and containing multiple suites, it might seem like the antithesis of what’s needed to produce a crowd-pleasing headline set at Glastonbury.
And yet, here lies the unique talent of Chris: an enduring capacity to translate concepts, no matter how ephemeral, into feeling and movement, into the body. Stepping out into a busy Woodsies tent 30 minutes late, thanks to a delayed but nonetheless raucous performance from Rina Sawayama, Chris captivates.
Opening in the red light haze of longing single Tears Can Be So Soft and draped in an open waistcoat and trousers, by the second number Marvin Descending, Chris is shirtless, writhing his muscular torso, mirroring the marble statues scattered across the stage. The staging is spectacular, featuring smoke-filled lasers, neoclassical sculpture and multiple costume changes. The set plays more like a mix of theatre and performance art than a simple gig.
It’s a brave choice to barely break character and to eschew earlier hits in favour of a set entirely from the latest record, but it also marks out Chris’s set as truly individual. “This is a ritual”, he tells us several times, and it certainly is unlike anything else you are likely to see at the festival. From the thundering drums of Track 10 to the lithe sensuousness of Angels Crying in My Bed, and his poetic interludes, the show is a dense text open to interpretation. Many of the messages might fly over our heads, especially being four days into the festival, but the mighty spectacle remains.
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Divided opinions on Guns N’ Roses and Lana Del Rey here in the Guardian cabin: some found the headliners to be embarrassingly past it, others are willing to forgive them. Meanwhile, Lana got cut off a full eight songs before the end of her set, prompting something of a crowd revolt.
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Late-night crowd! We’ve got reviews of Guns N’ Roses, Lana and Christine and the Queens from tonight still to come – and we despatched Gwilym to Fatboy Slim a while back too. In the meantime, here’s a throwback to the glorious positivity of Lizzo earlier today.
Lana Del Rey has actually been kicked off the Other Stage, they’ve killed the mic. But she’s still on stage, trying to talk to the crowd. Real Sunday night energy going on, even though we’re only just past midnight.
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The photos are in from Slash and co’s performance:
Loyle Carner reviewed
West Holts stage, 10.15pm
Twenty minutes before Loyle Carner’s set is due to begin, there is a gentle cloak of melancholia hanging around the West Holts stage. It’s the end of another hot day, and rather than rushing straight to the front, groups are huddled round one another on the grass of the warm evening, drinking quietly or having heart-to-hearts about the lives that await them outside of this festival. it’s a much calmer atmosphere that you might expect at Guns N’ Roses or Lana Del Rey, but it’s part of what makes this a great booking: a space to kick back and enjoy a rapper who isn’t afraid to say the quiet part out loud.
It starts well. A white car, half sprayed black, sits mysteriously on stage as if the rapper might burst out of it, but he storms right past it for it a furious opener of Hate. Plastic chills things out a little with a looser funky swing, but the delivery is still so urgent, a man desperate to get his feelings out. He clutches his cap, clutches his knees, visibly overwhelmed by the amount of people who have showed up. For a rapper who sings about aimlessness, it’s phenomenally direct, impossible to look away from.
Finding his feet, it’s clear he has lots to say. He decides Georgetown to his hero Madlib, the artist whose blueprint can clearly be found right across latest album, Hugo. His lyrical meditations on mixed-race identity can sometimes be a little heavy-handed on the metaphors of piano keys and being stuck between two worlds, but they go over perfectly on Still, which he declares to be his favourite ever song. It’s an element of blackness so rarely spoken about that it clearly means everything to the brown-skinned kids who dominate the first few rows, resonating with every conflicted word.
In this vein, the whole set is driven by unapologetic openness – from a duet with Olivia Dean in tribute to his son right through to a spoken word piece by youth campaigner Athian Akec about knife crime, he leaves very few subjects untouched by emotional anecdote; The process of breaking generational trauma to bond with his son, of dismantling toxic masculinity through his wise friends in Ezra Collective, of reconnecting with his birth father and learning to drive during the lockdown under his care, gesturing to the very car – the exact car – that sits on stage. A story suddenly clicking into place, It weaves the whole set together, an evening of intimacy made bigger to fill a deserved stage. As he leaves with his enduring mantra “Take these words and go forwards”, he’s not the only one left in proud tears.
Mel C reviewed
Avalon stage, 9.35pm
The revival of Melanie C is one of pop’s most heartwarming stories – it’s so hard for a member of a major pop band to continue their former glories, but with her latterday turn towards disco-tinged pop, the 49-year-old is experiencing a well deserved career rejuvenation. Not that she needs rejuvenating in the least – with her washboard abs, expressive dancing (a far cry from the Spice Girls’ strict choreography) and infectious ebullience, she has the energy of a performer half her age, and she maintains the kind of openness and curiosity that keeps a musician young. Her set is a brilliant straddling of eras, a self-aware sample from her brilliant debut and more recent re-emergence. Early solo singles like Never Be the Same Again and the rocky, fantastically growled Going Down sound like classics, while recent bops such as Here I Am fit with the current trend towards empowerment anthems, and they hit harder because we’ve watched Melanie C grow up in public and reckon with self-acceptance in real time. She’s clearly having a brilliant time. “Don’t make me cry!” she tells us, though the famously high-achieving artist keeps one eye on her performance. “I sing shit when I cry!”
I think that’s it from the Pyramid Stage, as everyone breaks down into wild soloing at the end of Paradise City. I apologise to everybody in the Guardian cabin who has been subjected to my Axl Rose impersonation for the last several hours.
They’ve brought on Dave Grohl out for Paradise City. One more tune! One more tune!
“I was so fucking late they are about to cut this set today,” says Lana on the Other Stage. Meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses are stilllll going.
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Truly thought that we would never stop knockin’ on heaven’s door, but of course we still have Nightrain to come. Bottoms up, folks.
What a strange (and long!) experience this Guns ‘N Roses set is. An opportunity to see two of the best rock guitarists alive in Slash and Richard Fortus, accompanied by a frontman who lamentably sounds like a bad karaoke version of himself.
Guns N’ Roses are closing (surely!? They’ve been on stage for an aeon) with Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. I am having a solemn headbang moment. Pleased to report that Axl has ditched the silver and white plastic waistcoat and Slash is back on the double-necked guitar.
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Absolutely more cigarette smokers per head in the Lana crowd than anywhere else, says Laura, who says this is so far a slightly obscure set even for a wilful obscurantist.
Sad girl summer is in full swing on the Other Stage, where Lana Del Rey has just finished Pretty When You Cry – we could hear the crowd wailing along to that from here. She’s currently in a white dress and tiara, sitting on the floor with her dancers, staring mournfully out at the audience, who are literally screaming as she sings the opening words of Ride: “I’ve been out on the open road, you can be my full time, daddy, white and gold.”
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We can hear soft whistling from across at the Pyramid Stage, where Guns N’ Roses have slowed things down a little. Guitarists are in perfect unison behind Axl for Patience.
Here’s the word from Woodsies, where Christine and the Queens are mid-set: Chris seems to be doing his Meltdown performance of the new record Paranoia – deeply theatrical, referential and metaphor-laden. It’s all held together by his muscular movement, writhing across the stage, shirt off, marbled torso like the statuary behind him. Long build-ups don’t seem to be phasing the crowd much.
Here’s the full story on Sawayama’s comments from her set earlier:
Axl’s on the piano now for – of course – November Rain. I’ve decided to stop going on about how strained he sounds. Let’s check in on Lana Del Rey for a bit, shall we? Laura’s in the crowd, and says they love her so much that there’s a furious scream when she so much as vapes.
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Not a fan of that white plastic (?) waistcoat. Can we bring back the bandana?
The crowd are helping Axl through Sweet Child O’ Mine, which is echoing across the whole site. You’d think it would have been ruined by being (badly) played in guitar shops everywhere for literal decades, but no, it’s still a big magic. Surely nobody disagrees that this is their best song. Losing it a little bit at the iconic solo there *throws up horns*.
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The crowd giving Slash the appreciation he deserves as Axl introduces the rest of the band, before the guitarist launches into yet another gigantic solo in the run-up to Sweet Child O’ Mine. Yessss!
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Loyle Carner has just brought out youth MP Athian Akec for a poignant speech about knife crime, tied to his song Blood On My Nikes. Loyle followed this up with a short comment on the Tories: “Athian said it better than any Tory ever could, ever will. It’s easy to say fuck the Tories, but it’s negative. My energy is better spent on people like Athian; I don’t give a fuck about the last generation; I’m bothered about the next one. Fuck. The. Tories”
Slash bringing out a new guitar to shred the hell out of with almost every song, here. My favourite’s still the beautiful golden Les Paul from earlier, though you can’t fault the ostentation of this spicy red number (a Warlock?)
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I kind of wish Rick Astley would come out and have a go at singing for a bit, actually.
I’m having a really weird time here reconciling the Guns N’ Roses performance: you can’t fault how absolutely peerless Slash, Duff McKagan and Richard Fortus are at ripping up and down their fretboards, but Axl just can’t give us a rock scream like he could 30 years ago. I mean, few people on earth can give a rock scream like Axl Rose in his heyday, no matter their age.
Lana Del Ray still isn’t out on the Other Stage, meanwhile, and we’re getting close to 11pm. Good thing we’re all on festival time right now.
Then there’s a total tone change for Civil War, with its sparkly opening riff, which has Slash busting out the ol’ double-necked guitar and Axl very low in the mix, until he screeches into the chorus.
Rina Sawayama reviewed
Woodsies, 9pm
Rina Sawayama is half an hour late to the Woodsies stage, though a tentative attempt at a chant of “Rina! Rina! Rina!” is quelled by the playlisted pop bangers. (Robyn’s Dancing on My Own seems to draw the entire crowd out). When the lights finally come down, Sawayama claims the stage wearing floor-length, floaty bridal white – then suspends herself off the scaffolding for opener Hold the Girl. Immediately we are launched into full melodrama, down to a wind machine full in the face and a big key change for track one.
She doesn’t let up for the next, Catch Me in the Air, which situated Sawayama in the eye of a (on-screen) storm, her skirts ripped away to reveal cutoff trousers. It’s not so much 0 to 100 as 100 from the off, and much more potent than the somewhat coy, faux-ironic, blandly inspiring cowboy-ish schtick she led with at Primavera Barcelona last year.
After a costume change, Sawayama is back in short black leather and prostrate on the floor for Dynasty. Between the unrelenting intensity of the setlist and the high stakes suggested by the stage, there’s clearly a story being told here, and not a straightforward one. Her steely, self-confident gaze, held to camera in Akasaka Sad, is followed and undercut by the self-doubting two-step of Imagining, with the refrain of “I do this to myself”, Sawayama cast off-stage by her backing dancers.
The narrative becomes more clear when Rina finally takes a breath, greets the crowd and introduces her song STFU!: “I wrote this song because I’m sick of these micro-aggressions.” She doesn’t name him by name, but a reference to a podcast conveys to those paying attention in the crowd that Sawayama is shading Matty Healy, the 1975 frontman who has been in steadily simmering water since having made controversial and racialised comments on a podcast in February.
Healy was then the director of the company that owns the band’s record label, Dirty Hit. He was removed from the post in April, but as Sawayama says, with real rage: “He also owns my masters.”
It is the first explicit public rebuke by a Dirty Hit artist of the podcast appearance, in which Healy egged on the hosts as they called the rapper Ice Spice an “Inuit Spice Girl” and “chubby Chinese lady” before mocking her accent and, later, imitating Japanese guards at a concentration camp.
But as public callouts go, it’s brief (many of the crowd around me seem entirely oblivious that anything’s gone down), and swiftly forgotten with a swift transition into Frankenstein, the refrain of “I don’t want to be a monster anymore” set to appropriately spooky green lighting.
Though the energy (or the choreography) never gets less fierce, the mood starts to lighten with Beg for You, Sawayama’s noughties-sounding collab with Charli XCX, then Lucid, in which she sings about dreams that come true, relaxed and at ease in oversized jeans and a button-down shirt, on an even footing with her two backing dancers.
Sawayama then stomps off stage and returns in a blazer, reading a newspaper with the headline “Rina Sawayama simply can’t care any less”. It’s Commes Des Garçons (Like the Boys): “I’m so confident”. At the end she proves it, stripping off her blazer to reveal a natty red latex number underneath. She’s handed a sheer negligee and a whip and then we’re into Cherry.
It’s all magnificently OTT, such as when Rina changes outfits on stage and flirts with the audience, calling her dancers back on to the stage like we’re in a big panto. The triumphant finale is This Hell: the cowboy hats from Barcelona are back but this time it feels not like a bit, but a well-earned payoff, a pose struck from a position of strength. The production credits on screen at the end of her set are a classy touch.
Axl and co are now thrashing through ABSURD, one of their newest songs (from 2021) and possibly their most vulgar – sample lyric: “syphilitic priestess baby, I know who you are”, and that’s probably the most PG one.
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Magnificent chuggy riffs still happening back on the Pyramid Stage with Guns N’ Roses, who are now an hour into their set. Does anyone else think these stage visuals belong on a vape advert, though?
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Central Cee reviewed
Other stage, 8.45pm
Days after he was anointed as one of XXL’s Freshman class of 2023, the US rap magazine’s roundup of bright young things that rarely includes Englishmen, Central Cee arrives as the dominant British rapper of the moment. He’s at No 1 in the charts with his track with Dave, Sprinter, and has long been splicing the lurching chaos of drill productions with the candyfloss of pop. And he has the really disarming beauty of a boyband heartthrob (something that he’s perhaps a bit embarrassed by – when he appeared on the cover of the Guardian’s Film & Music section, the only proffered pics were of his grill-clad teeth or the side of his face).
He, then, is a true pop sensation, and so everyone down the front in this actually-not-packed crowd looks to be about 14 years old and is sweet enough to have their own Disney channel show, until they start mouthing stuff like “You said that pussy mine so why you let it go / You’re such a ho”.
He begins with a video mourning a late friend and expressing his inability to fully process his grief. This means that when he comes out holding two giant diamond and gold chains, in a hand with a knuckleduster’s worth of gold rings, the effect is pure pathos: all the jewellery looks so sad and small in his hands, pointless in the wake of grief.
There’s also something bruised, cautious and self-preserving about this performance. He is superb on the mic, almost eerily so – the feeling is of, well, a sprinter running 100m in a relaxed 15 rather than a straining 9.5. While he can complete every bar and run over bar divides with ease, you long for him to push himself, to let the perfection tear apart like a broken sinew. But the details remain magnetic, like the beseeching, pained, minimal spoken melody that he presents Commitment Issues in.
It feels as if we’re moving inexorably towards what could be a big Glasto moment: a performance of Sprinter, hopefully with guest star Dave. Cench promises that a special guest is indeed coming out – and introduces the baby he’s seen carrying in the video. And then Dave does actually come out, and dutifully does his verses, but everyone’s a bit distracted by the fact there’s still a baby on stage. Central Cee is carrying the baby by this point, and doesn’t seem to want to rap too close to its ears. And what should be an electrifying moment has all the energy sucked out of it and into a vortex of cuteness. It’s honestly one of the weirdest moments in Glastonbury history and not in a good way.
He closes out with a decent spike in energy – his hit track Doja – but there’s no true mania, looseness or humour to it. Central Cee is a masterful MC who holds that mastery so casually, like those diamonds in his hands; he has come up through real poverty, crime and trauma and his emotional reticence is understandable. But you long for him to take the blinkers off, and give us the full breadth of what he can do.
A report from Jenessa at the Loyle Carner at West Holts: there’s a decent-sized crowd, given who he’s up against, and a mysterious car is parked on-stage. Christine and the Queens would be just about to kick off at Woodsies, but Rina Sanayama is running significantly over (presumably delayed by Rick Astley’s late start earlier). She’s had about half a dozen costume changes, says Anmar. Lana Del Ray is due on any moment on the Other Stage.
Well, no, but nonetheless that was probably the best moment yet. “You hangin’ in there?” asks Axl afterwards. We’re doing good, man! Are you? It feels like he’s warming up a bit now, though the night notes are still troubling him.
Rina Sawayama criticises Matty Healy for 'mocking Asian people'
Some news from Rina Sawayama’s set at Woodsies, where she has implicitly criticised Matty Healy of the 1975 for his behaviour on a podcast earlier this year. Here’s what Sawayama said:
“I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions. So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches ‘ghetto gaggers’ and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
A bit of backstory here: Healy appeared on the Adam Friedland show earlier this year and made a number of inflammatory remarks, including mocking of Japanese accents, and derogatory comments made about the rapper Ice Spice. He also admitted to watching a racially charged pornography site, Ghetto Gaggers. Healy has since apologised on stage to Ice Spice for the remarks, but hasn’t addressed any other details around the podcast episode. Healy was also, until recently, a director at Dirty Hit Limited, the company behind the independent label Dirty Hit, to which Sawayama is signed.
The Guardian has reached out to Dirty Hit for comment.
Live and Let Die sounding reassuringly powerful out here – finally some great screams. Will we see Macca again, given he was up at the Park earlier with Chrissy Hynde?
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Axl still has a certain bouncy, boyish energy, striding around up there – though they could look a bit livelier on stage, couldn’t they?
Having run out to the stage to have a quick headbanger moment to Welcome to the Jungle a few songs ago, I couldn’t help but notice that the crowd weren’t quite with Guns N’ Roses yet – maybe they’d go down better at Download? Now they’re powering through Estranged, Axl staying in his gravelly lower range (for now)
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I mean. Case in point. He’s unreal, as any foolhardy middling guitarist who’s ever even tried to learn the Welcome to the Jungle riff will know the hard way.
Axl Rose might be struggling here but you gotta say, Slash can still shred with the best of ’em. The camerapeople seem obsessed with his fretting hand, and can you blame them?
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Måneskin reviewed
Woodsies, 7.30pm
It’s a more than full tent watching Måneskin at the Woodsies stage early on Saturday evening. Any lingering sense of Eurotrash naffness that may have clung to the band post-Eurovision has well and truly been cast off, like one of the band member’s incrementally shed clothing: Måneskin are here to play unironic, full-throttle rock music. As two bands outspokenly flying the flag for guitars at Glastonbury this year, it’s interesting to contrast Måneskin’s performance with Royal Blood’s at the Pyramid stage yesterday – both are earnest, self-serious almost, but there is a playfulness or whimsy to Måneskin that makes them by far and away the more entertaining option. They approach their set like a circus act: all four members of the band perform as though there’s a camera on them at all times, treating every song like it’s their one and only shot to sell you on them. On the Eurovision stage this made sense; over an hour-long set it makes for ever-escalating stakes of stagecraft. Shirts come off, and guitarists are on and off their knees then in and out of the crowd.
Måneskin are tirelessly energetic and over-the-top sexy without being especially gendered, like each member has been imbued with essence of Jagger – frontman Damiano David brings to mind Maroon 5’s Adam Levine in his washboard abs, self-conscious braggadocio, copious tattoos and spoken-sung style of delivery. Måneskin’s lyrics are perhaps their weakest point for an English-speaking audience, sounding a bit like they were the product of ChatGPT (Bla Bla Bla, with the line “I hate your face but I like your mum’s” is a good example), but in another way it just adds to the fun.
By the end of Måneskin’s set, one guitarist is crowdsurfing while playing, the singer having just been retrieved, and the ante has been upped to an almost ludicrous degree. The wild applause suggests they’ve certainly secured the audience’s vote. I’d expect to see Måneskin on the Pyramid stage soon, and I’d be inclined to go along.
Up next for Guns N’ Roses, a cover of Velvet Revolver’s Slither, pretty much a GNR song in all but name, and an absolute ripper to boot.
Oh and now they’ve followed it up with Welcome to the Jungle! The biggest test yet of Axl’s vocals and he’s … in the vague vicinity of those high notes.
Over on the Other stage, Central Cee has coaxed out Dave for a very uptempo performance of Sprinter. These surprise guests keep on coming!
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Plenty of you in the comments noting that Axl’s vocals are quite low in the mix. A deliberate ploy to mask some ropey vocals? He’s having to really strain for those high notes.
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Lizzo reviewed
Pyramid, 7.30pm
There’s a real ease to this year’s Glastonbury and many of its bookings have a feelgood theme, leaning on nostalgia, familiarity and affirmation – there’s Rick Astley on the Pyramid (and playing Smiths covers with Blossoms earlier today), Sophie Ellis-Bextor on the Pyramid tomorrow, Spice Girl Melanie C whacking out the greatest hits later on on the Avalon stage. Lizzo’s set fits squarely in this bracket, and is in many ways well timed: Saturday afternoon at the festival can sometimes feel a little mortal, so what better time to be reminded of the importance of self-love, the US superstar’s metier?
Her set on the Pyramid stage exudes it, though it’s better when she shows rather than tells. Lizzo is a joyful performer, today with sea witch-green hair and (at first) a black and pink leather catsuit: like Taylor Swift, she embodies every second of her performance, wearing the emotions on her supremely expressive face and never letting a wink go un-winked. She’s surrounded by her fellow big grrrl dancers, all wearing green wigs and pink leotards, and to see them shimmying together, both in tight choreography yet also clearly spontaneously vibing off real-time joy, is life-affirming. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon once said that the beauty of live music is that “people pay money to see others believe in themselves”, and you truly believe, from this ebullient, kinetic performance, that everyone onstage does.
Where the message falters is in how painfully literal the lyrics are. Ever since Lizzo became a mainstream pop star, after years in the underground rap scene, her lyrics have tended towards positive reinforcement 101. Love yourself, say something kind about yourself, you’re special, check your nails (absolutely filthy after three days on the farm, thanks for asking). Your mileage may vary on how that sits with you, and it certainly works on the crowd, who follow her instructions to love their neighbour and themselves, singing her words into each other’s faces. But it’s hard to shake the sense that a lot of her hits lean on “start with the concept” songwriting, plying bland generalities rather than the kind of specificity that ends up being universal in its truth. It contributes to a sense of energy that’s more organised fun than real freedom. One interlude is nothing short of an ad for her shapewear line: “I take care of my body, I look good in my body,” she tells us, and you wouldn’t be surprised if the Dove logo appeared on the screens that flank the stage.
Things do get looser over the course of the set, going from tidy funk into a filthier, funkier mid-section: Tempo is housey and minimal, Rumours (with Cardi B’s verse played on track) would go down a treat at NYC Downlow, the festival’s queer clubbing haven. Jerome is a different beast altogether, Lizzo at the front of the stage sliding down the microphone stand and collapsing in a puddle on the floor, felled by the song’s brilliantly libidinous power. It’s hard not to want more of this looseness, for her band the Lizzbians (great name) to forsake tidiness for JBs-style feral energy. The set embodies a welcome sense of chaos when Lizzo finally brings out her flute (AKA Sasha Flute), trilling through funk workouts and more traditional melodies that feel a lot like something you might hear in traditional Glastonbury town.
I admit: I am a curmudgeon not given to expressions of self-love. The crowd is huge, everyone’s having a great time and Lizzo’s personal brand of empowerment simply jars with my own caustic inner narrative. She’s a fantastic pop star and spent years in the DIY trenches before her well-deserved pop breakout. She plots the distance between then and now: the first time she played Glastonbury, she tells us, was in 2018, “in one of those big ass tents, nobody in there, me and [her DJ] Sophia Eris playing, and now I’m playing in front of you all – I’m so moved.” Her success is the sort of thing we can all feel good about, even if her easy narratives of self-love remain a little far-fetched, at least for the cynics in the crowd.
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Bad Obsession off Use Your Illusion I now, a proper blues stomper.
Props to TheElectricMonk in the comment section, who noted that:
Axl in his 60s now so surely the urge the get settled in early will have him appearing on stage at 21:29
Pretty much bang on the money. They were onstage at 9.30 on the dot!
Here they are, launching into It’s So Easy! Axl is looking relatively trim and energetic, bounding across the stage. Slash looks like, well, Slash.
Blimey, GNR’s entrance video has whirled into gear – I think they might be on time!
While Paul was at the Pretenders, another of the McCartney clan was busy watching Lizzo, accompanied by Kate Hudson.
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GNR start time sweepstake – place your bets!
Right then: it’s sweepstake time. When will the world’s tardiest band turn up on the Pyramid? They’re scheduled to start at 9.30pm but, come on, it’s Axl we’re talking about here. Mind you, the word on the street is that GNR have in recent times been a little more punctual than in their heyday, when they could easily arrive two or three hours late.
With that in mind I’m opting for a fairly conservative 9.51pm start time, while Guardian music reporter Jenessa Williams has opted for 9.47pm and our subeditor Laurence Phelan is splitting the difference with 9.48pm.
When do you think Axl and co will make their way to the paradise city? Place your bets in the comments. The winner will receive the smug sense of satisfaction that comes with being on the money.
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Over on the Other stage, Central Cee is ripping it up in front of an audience whose members look, on average, about 17.
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If Macca did want to perform this evening, he could always pop over to the Pyramid at approx 9.30pm for a quick rendition of Live and Let Die with GNR …
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Manic Street Preachers reviewed
Other stage, 6.45pm
As the Manics launch into a barreling Motorcycle Emptiness, the song’s 1992 music video flashes up on the massive screens behind them, showing the then four piece with jutting cheekbones, skinny waists and a youthful air of snarling rebelliousness about them. The contrast with the three smartly dressed, grey-templed gentlemen below that video is striking. Time has marched stubbornly on. It’s nearly 30 years since the disappearance of Richey Edwards, an event that both still haunts and shapes the trio: naturally Nicky Wire nods to their fourth member here.
This, then, is an evening for looking back, with most of the Manics’ recent output left on the sidelines: nothing more recent than 2014’s Walk Me to the Bridge gets an airing. Mostly it’s a stacked setlist of their 90s imperial era. The Strychnine-laced riffs of Holy Bible rattlers Faster and Die in the Summertime, the glam pout of You Love Us, the stately swagger of Everything Must Go and A Design for Life, the unfairly maligned “Mondeo man” era of You Stole the Sun From Our Heart and If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.
James Dean Bradfield, still able to blast out those booming top notes, appears solo for a surprisingly pretty acoustic version of La Tristesse Durera, and the band are joined by fellow Welsh person the Anchoress for Your Love Alone Is Not Enough and This Is Yesterday, The Holy Bible’s lone concession to beauty amid an album full of such bracing ugliness.
It’s a crowd-pleasing set for a band who, at their outset, were so keen to kick out at such expressions of sentiment. But here it’s a completely merited victory lap, a celebration of the long journey the Manics have been on. “We had a blast,” says Wire of those wild early days, after paying tribute to Edwards. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but God it was fun.” Clearly it still very much is.
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Blanchett, Swinton, Macca … the Park stage has been the place to be for megastars this weekend. Bet the other stages are well jealous. Top that, Croissant Neuf!
Macca does make an appearance … to give the crowd a small thumbs up, and then he’s off again!
Meanwhile, lurking on the side of the stage at the Pretenders is … Paul McCartney! Will he make an appearance?
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Dave Grohl and Johnny Marr join the Pretenders!
Over on the Park stage, the Pretenders are ripping through their not very secret secret set and have been joined by some special guests: Johnny Marr and Dave Grohl. Grohl is absolutely punishing the kit on a very lively Tattooed Love Boys.
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Blossoms and Rick Astley reviewed
It’s a big five stars from Jenessa Williams for Blossoms and Rick Astley’s strangely satisfying set of Smiths covers:
This show is glorified karaoke but, tonight, by granting a big field full of 6 Music dads and Mancunian lasses the permission to revel once again in these songs that so strongly feel like the soundtracks to their lives, Blossoms and Rick Astley get to themselves revel in the joy of being everyone’s unproblematic faves; a guilty pleasure without the guilt.
Read the full review here:
Gwilym here, taking the reins as Glasto readies itself for a big night. We’ve got Guns N’ Roses, Lana Del Rey, Christine and the Queens and much more to come. Don’t touch that dial, or whatever the internet equivalent of that is.
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Lizzo’s flute is piercingly wafting on the evening air now. Here are some pics of that first stage outfit:
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I look away to edit our Blossoms and Rick Astley review – rapturous, incoming shortly – and turn back to find yet another Lizzo costume change: now a Tina Turner-worthy dress of thigh-skimming golden strands. She segues from an I’m Every Woman cover into Everybody’s Gay, and the cheers from the Pyramid are fairly gushing in our portacabin window – this rivals Lionel Richie’s legends set for the sound of pure giddy crowd joy.
Tinariwen reviewed
Park stage, 6.15pm
Tuareg rockers Tinariwen have spent the past 44 years honing their own blend of blues and Saharan desert folk, all unified by a distinctly intricate, finger-picking style of electric guitar playing. Theirs is a hypnotic, cyclical melody that envelops in its percussive rounds – drawing in heatstroked crowds from the punishing sunshine to the cool shadows cast by the Park stage on Saturday evening.
Dressed in the airy, silken shapes of their trademark robes, founding member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib delivers a rousing hour-long set with his five-piece band. Opening in a mid-tempo with an acoustic 12-string guitar, Alhabib soon picks up the pace, wielding his electric guitar and getting the crowd bouncing along to the swirling eddies of their polyrhythms by the second number. The pace builds gently throughout the set; between entreaties of “Hi, is it ok?” from band members, the crowd sway faster and faster, eventually reaching a euphoric mini-mosh pit on the hand-clapped rhythm of Chaghaybou.
This may be music rooted in Tuareg tradition but it also includes everything from the shades of bluegrass in their frenetic chromaticism to Jimi Hendrix-esque distortion on the chugging Tamatant Tilay, and even a brief foray into disco courtesy of a solo by bass player Eyadou Ag Leche. Whatever the musical elements, Tinariwen are a joyous experience, one that keeps the all-ages crowd smiling. This is exactly the type of set that Glastonbury, and the Park stage in particular, were built for: people celebrating and welcoming a musical heritage they would never otherwise experience.
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Lizzo has already changed costume. She is now in a baby-pink boiler suit – bet this was mood-boarded for a much rainier festival – to perform Grrrls, appropriately backed by her all-female band and dancers.
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Lewis Capaldi reviewed
Laura has published her four-star review of Lewis Capaldi’s highly emotional performance on the Pyramid stage. A brief flavour:
“Capaldi doesn’t mention his recent mental ill health until the end of the set, but it very quickly becomes obvious that the audience are keenly aware of his situation and determined to buoy him at every possible opportunity … it’s palpable how much the crowd want him to know that he’s OK, it’s all OK, he is loved.”
Jazz-funkers Ezra Collective, currently on West Holts, have just brought on a massive children’s brass band, Kinetika Bloco, for an uplifting Afrobeat number with Joe Armon-Jones’s keys vamping away in the background. Between them and Lizzo the dial is spinning out of control on the positive vibes-ometer.
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“Unbelievably good” and “utterly transcendent” have been some of the descriptors gabbled at me by people returning from Blossoms and Rick Astley. We’ll have a full review up in not too long.
Meanwhile Lizzo has kicked off on the Pyramid stage, wearing a BDSM-friendly ballgown and in typically barnstorming voice as she fires Cuz I Love You roughly five postcodes to the east.
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Here’s our reporter Josh Halliday’s news story about Lewis Capaldi announcing he’s taking possibly the rest of the year off to focus on his mental health.
Blossoms’ bassist Charlie Salt is doing a very fair stab at the bassline to Barbarism Begins at Home, originally played with monstrous funkiness by the recently deceased Andy Rourke. Blossoms are generally doing a good job of approximating the Smiths sound although it’s a demonstration of the actual magic that sits at the heart of great musicians: you can rebuild the Marr guitar sound with a 3D-printed accuracy but it’ll never feel the same.
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The eternally great Tinariwen are meanwhile up on the Park, and to be honest there’s nothing I would rather be right now than lying on the hill there, three-pint pissed, while Tuareg guitar lines gambol over me.
Our Ammar is up there: “Tinariwen are incredible – getting the crowd bouncing after only one tune; swirling rhythmic eddies with their intricate finger-picking guitar. Feels like this is what Glastonbury is made for: people of all ages celebrating a musical heritage they’d otherwise rarely encounter firsthand.”
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Manic Street Preachers have kicked off with a biggie on the Other stage: Motorcycle Emptiness, famously inspired by Guns N’ Roses who are on in just a few hours. James Dean Bradfield’s voice is settling in a bit, but the way he pushes it into the near-gargled red is one of rock’s great vocal effects.
Part of the enjoyment of this Blossoms and Rick Astley set is imagining how much Morrissey would absolutely despise it. I want to watch Morrissey as he watches Rick act out the lyrics of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, miming “as he opened a crate of ale” with the exaggerated motions of a Butlin’s magician. Suffer little Moz!
As John Paul and our Keza have both said, there’s also joy in the crowd at singing along with the Smiths totally guilt free. Camp and silly as it undoubtedly is, it’s as if Astley’s goofy good nature sucks out the toxins of Morrisey’s odious latterday views and we can all just get on with vibing out to Hand in Glove or whatever.
Personally, even after Morrissey wore a T-shirt reading “FUCK THE GUARDIAN” during my music editorship, I just carry on listening to them like nothing’s the matter. Something about the whole-band synergy makes the Smiths much more than Morrissey to me.
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Our sub-editor John Paul is in the sweaty mix with Astley and Blossoms. “He’s hitting the falsetto notes of What Difference Does It Make? without doing the usual ultra nasal thing that impersonations usually rely on. Blossoms seem a lot softer and lower in the mix than the Smiths were live though, turning it into a kind of uncancelled Smiths karaoke.”
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Jacob Collier reviewed
West Holts, 17.30
It’s baking hot at Glasto today so when Jacob Collier bounds on to the stage dressed in the most violently colourful outfit imaginable, shrieking wildly at the crowd, you’re tempted to write him off as a figment of your heatstroke-addled imagination. But no, Collier is real and he is A LOT.
Extremely talented and extremely happy for everyone to know it, he uses this set as an opportunity to show off his capability with every instrument he can get his hands on: only the triangle mercifully remains unplayed by the end. There are some genuinely impressive moments here, and a cover of Can’t Help Falling in Love With You on which he modulates his voice into a rainbow of astonishingly close harmonies, has audience jaws dropping.
The problem with Collier, as plenty of people have pointed out, is that as talented as he is, he tends to use his powers for, if not evil so much, then at least for beigeness. So much of the trickery on show here – the quarter-tones, the syncopation, the clever call-and-response vocals – seems to be in service of curiously conservative compositions: by-the-numbers jazz, funk and soul. There are enough bells and whistles to keep the masses entertained, but if Collier could make his songwriting as riotously original as his outfits, then he’d really be on to something.
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Lewis Capaldi took a break from touring ahead of this Glastonbury set, and has announced he’ll now take another one. “For the next few weeks; you might not see me even for the rest of the year. But when I do come back and I do see you I hope you’re up for watching”. He has suffered from poor mental health and his Tourette’s tics have been evident today – and he has been brave in keeping all this struggle out in the open, particularly on a recent Netflix documentary. His candour, and undimmed banter, are met with a huge swell of undiluted love from an audience who want to hoist him aloft.
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Rick Astley, having changed from his earlier powder pink suit to one in powder blue, is in booming stentorian form on his and Blossoms’ opening song, This Charming Man, helicoptering the mic around his head at the climax. It’s certainly kitsch but doesn’t feel like actual cosplay.
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I don’t have any pics yet but Jacob Collier is dressed like a particularly grating children’s entertainer, but is doing a great job as teacher, conducting the crowd in a massed choral singalong using only his hands – an amazing effect.
On the Woodsies stage, we’re awaiting the arrival of one of the weekend’s secret-until-quite-recently sets: Blossoms and Rick Astley performing the songs of the Smiths. Our man Dave Simpson enjoyed this fever dream very much when it debuted in 2021:
They’re running about half an hour late, but Woodsies has suffered from technicals at various points today.
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“I’m fucking roasting. Is anyone else hot?” It’s taps aff time for Lewis: his T-shirt is disposed with for Wish You the Best. “I feel like Iggy Pop!”
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Have gone back to Maggie Rogers and, despite doing a vigorous set facing into the most blazing sun of the weekend for around an hour, she has the lightest of flushes in the face and a nicely deepening tan. I, meanwhile, would look like a votive candle display that’s melted into itself. She closes on That’s Where I Am, sending it soaring into the cloudless sky.
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Lewis is carrying on with some excellent standup patter, dedicating Before You Go to his late aunt Pat. He gestures at the heavens – and then the floor. “You know, I don’t know which way she went, let’s put it that way. She was a lovely person but she could be a bitch, do you know what I’m saying?”
Richard Thompson reviewed
A big crowd is sheltering from the sun in the Acoustic tent this afternoon, and getting serenaded by one of the UK’s most prolific folk musicians. Thompson, clad as ever in a black beret with accompanying black denim, draws from 18 (!) solo albums as well as his band Fairport Convention’s oeuvre. He opens with the bluesy, beautiful If I Could Live My Life Again, sounding in extraordinarily fine voice at 74. Genesis Hall is next, and the crowd are appropriately rapt.
It’s just him and a beautiful, bright-sounding acoustic guitar. He plays so well that you can’t take your eyes off his picking hand, as you try to figure out how he’s making the sound of three guitars come out of one. He is one of the most stunningly gifted guitarists you’ll ever see live, and his dextrously fingerpicked mid-song diversions prompt claps and whoops from a crowd that is otherwise quietly reverent. He’s also wonderfully personable on stage, telling the stories behind the songs, introducing the gorgeous Johnny’s Far Away as a “cruise ship sea shanty” and inviting us to sing along, which the audience gamely does.
When he brings on Zara Phillips (no, not that one) to accompany him halfway through the set, the addition of honey-sweet harmonies elevates the music even further, from 1982’s searching Wall of Death to a mournful travelling-bard song from his most recent album, Singapore Sadie.
I can’t get over how bell-bright his guitar sounds – nor how full his voice is, only briefly struggling on the occasional shoutier line. He finishes with a punchy double, first the “anthem of social distancing” Keep Your Distance (actually from 1991, so impressively prescient), and then his rather more uplifting hit I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, which has everyone singing along for a final time before we’re sent back out into the slowly abating evening heat.
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“Ladies and gentlemen … Ed Sheeran!” Huge cheer. A beat. “He’s not fucking here”. He launches into the Sheeran co-write Pointless though – a song that’s like walking through Glasto’s mud in a rainier year, though he’s singing it well, not forcing his voice as he can sometimes do.
The crowd might not be quite as packed as Foo Fighters but it’s still all the way back to the trees nonetheless.
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Red Arrows performed a flypast for Lewis Capaldi – I think that might be a Glasto first?
The crowd strike up in an “Ohh, Lewis Capaldi” chant to the tune of Seven Nation Army. He scolds them: “We don’t need Jack White making money off this situation.”
“I’m quite literally shitting my pants right now,” he says, hopefully badly misusing the word “literally”. “I cry to your songs in the shower” reads an excellent sign down the front. The bantz has emphatically begun.
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Lewis Capaldi has started up to what sounds like a vast and rapturous crowd, about 100m from where I’m sitting, on the Pyramid stage. He begins with Forget Me which is the very model of excellent Radio 2 pop-rock – Alan Partridge would definitely tap a finger on the steering wheel to it but it really is very good indeed.
On the Pyramid stage just now was poet Miles Chambers (Bristol’s first poet laureate!) and NHS staff from Somerset, celebrating the NHS’s 75th anniversary. Chambers could have a sideline as a hype man for Central Cee or some other rapper later – big energy!
“Tell me, what do you see? I see an army of women dedicated to you and me, caring for Somerset to the Isles of Scilly,” he begins. He celebrates immigrant workers “from Jamaica or New Delhi, they came here for us, a vital growth in our medical body, part of the hands that bring remedy”, and finishes: “These hands are blessed, these hands make up our NHS”.
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Maggie Rogers has a satisfyingly hefty full-band sound over on the Other stage, giving Say It an almost boom-bap hip-hop feel – it’s an extremely summery mood – and then goes into a high-energy version of the already high-energy pop-rock of Shatter. I don’t envy anyone having to do anything above about 110bpm this afternoon but she really nails it, bouncing up and down on the spot and hopping back and forth into falsetto.
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Finn Foxell reviewed
The Lonely Hearts Club, 3.15pm
The Lonely Hearts Club, as well as having the loveliest distressed art deco staging in all of Glastonbury, is doing a nice line in rising UK rappers this year. A good thing too as they seem slightly underrepresented elsewhere at the fest. West London star Finn Foxell is the latest up-and-comer to take a spot under the 1920s cinema-style awning and sets a high bar for the rest of the pack to meet in terms of pure exuberance, gathering a sizeable crowd in the process. While much of this year’s crop are leaning into drill and trap, Foxell instead takes the scratchy, fidgety work of Jamie T and Slowthai his major influence. But on tracks like Red and Blue he proves just as adept at making gliding, soulful hip-hop. It’s all delivered with a buoyant, almost manic stage presence. (“Can you make some noise for me if you’re happy to be alive”, he wails slightly desperately at one point.) Even so, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him.
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Aitch reviewed
Pyramid stage, 4pm
For his homecoming Parklife festival recently Aitch brought out a children’s choir, but the Mancunian rapper doesn’t need any expensive party tricks to get this Pyramid crowd onside: he bursts out with braggy statement of intent Safe to Say (“I’ve got his monthly wage in my jeans”) then rattles right into Learning Curve, a staccato beat pilfered from Kendrick’s Humble. Before the crowd can even think of getting restless, he wheels it into a quick chorus of Big Pimpin, then straight into Taste (Make it Shake), arguably still his biggest hit. You could accuse the 23-year-old Mancunian rapper of blowing his load in the first eight minutes, but he’s word perfect and commanding throughout, rallying both “the ladies” and “everyone at the back” with seasoned showmanship. The crowd pay him back in kind; near us, a human pyramid forms four wobbly stacks deep, unfurling a Manchester flag, while in the distance, an entire Swingball set is held aloft, swing string bopping along to the beat.
He’s got a solid transitory catchphrase (“You know where I’m from right? Tell me one more time!”), Coming back time and time again to guide us through the set. He uses it to introduce his verse of Take Me Back to London (no appearance from Ed Sheeran, alas), but quickly sets about assembling a moshpit for Keisha and Becky (no Russ and Tion Wayne either). “I’m sorry to be rude on telly,” he apologises by way of an introduction to quick profane romp through D-Block Europe’s UFO, and then he “feels like rapping again”, headed back to the safer ground of his own material.
He sounds brilliant, but all this endless chat about getting money and “hitting it from the back” has got to get tiring eventually, so when he pulls on a Man United top (with Big Shell) on the back, jokes that he’ll get a bloke in front wearing a Man City shirt removed, and gets down to the more personal stuff – Close to Home and In Disguise, plus a wonky yet well-intended interlude of Wonderwall – it’s a nice counterbalance. Coming together as a well-rounded rap set, the final flourish is a guest who actually turns up in the flesh: Anne Marie, turning out a playful version of Psycho. Driving the whole thing home with easy charisma and just enough variety, there can be no mistake about it – this worker bee has well earned his place in the upper echelons of UK rap.
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Big Mike in the area! Stormzy has returned to the site of one of Glastonbury’s greatest moments, his 2019 headline slot, but presumably just to have a pear cider. He’s gone entirely cognito in the crowd to watch Aitch, wearing a pair of heart-shaped sunnies.
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Shame are perspiring enormously on the mercifully shaded Woodsies stage right now. Reminds me of when I saw them in Coachella in 2019 and they were put in the only indoor venue on the entire site, as if to seal these pale oiks off from the bronzed beautiful people outside. I absolutely love this band – they never sound like they’re checking over their shoulder to see what anyone else is doing, just charging forward under the force of their own life energy. For Six Pack, frontman Charlie Steen rips off his trousers to reveal some gold lame underpants, really one-upping the similar outfit from Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery earlier. Soon he’s being held aloft by his ankles by some audience members in an impressive show of core strength all round.
Generation Sex reviewed
Other stage, 3.45pm
The upsettingly named Generation Sex – the Sex Pistols and Generation X supergroup, formed of singer Billy Idol, bassist Tony James, guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook – take the Other stage at a very respectable time, with the sun high. Despite the heat, 67-year-old Idol is in full punk getup, including bleach blond mohawk, padlock necklace and studded leather jacket – he must be boiling – but it’s clear from the choice of opener, the Sex Pistols classic Pretty Vacant, that Gen Sex is here to faithfully reproduce the punk-rock spirit.
If that means a near-septuagenarian donning his dog-collar in 30-degree heat, so be it. It is surprisingly (at least for me) enjoyable to see these ageing rockers chugging through the power chords to standards like Black Leather (“I think Guns N’ Roses do this one too,” says Idol) but the grainy footage of punk’s heyday playing behind them is perhaps a mistake, focusing the audience on the past rather than the performance happening now. When Idol sings Hot in the City, there’s a wistful nostalgia to it that makes a different kind of sense in his advanced years now; an image of his young self blown up huge behind him is a little on-the-nose.
It’s true that on the whole there’s much more polite toetapping from the crowd than headbanging – it could well be just too hot – but Idol notices from the stage and sounds a little disappointed. “You’re all so polite,” he growls.
Helped by a cooling breeze (and jacket now off, revealing a large bicep tattoo), he succeeds in rousing the crowd for Dancing By Myself and Silly Thing, after which Idol, seemingly genuinely moved, says it’s “magic” to hear his bandmates play as they did back in the 70s. “You didn’t need to be the best player, you learned as you go,” he says of punk’s DIY ethos. These old dogs may not be learning new tricks, but – it’s clear as they pogo around the stage to God Save the Queen and closer My Way – the ones they know, they do so well.
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OK, I take back what I said about a lack of guest artists as Aitch just brought out Anne-Marie. Hanging on for Central Cee to bring out Dave later this eve though – surely?
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Reggae group Third World – they of Now That We Found Love fame – are now on West Holts and you sense that this afternoon’s weather might have been included on their rider: beautiful, softly skanking singalongs and incredible percussion solos are wafting zephyr-like around Glastonbury’s funkiest stage.
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I love how Billy Idol is clearly reading the lyrics to My Way – that obscure little number – off his monitor beneath him. Really enhances the already considerable karaoke vibe of this set.
There’s some kind of infographic to be done plotting age against risk aversion for your average punk: all the grizzled dads down the front are wearing a sensible hat of some kind. “The afterparty’s at Stonehenge, see you later!” Idol tells them.
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Aitch is still absolutely shelling it on the Pyramid stage – not a word missed. He’s just pulled on a Man Utd top and jokingly points to a man in the crowd – “security, can we get the guy in the Man City shirt out of here?” His guitarist starts up the riff from Fool’s Gold and he tears into 1989 in a celebration of his home city – and a big crowdpleaser for the passing indie heads.
I do feel like Glasto has been lacking its usual special guests though. This set is crying out for ArrDee, Russ Millions and Tion Wayne, Bakar etc to turn up for their features.
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Jockstrap reviewed
Park stage, 3.15pm
I thought ADG7 were going to be the most interesting band I saw at Glasto this year but, Jockstrap might have ’em beat. They are a fascinating collage of musical influences that shouldn’t make sense, but do. Their first number sounds like Sleigh Bells doing Bollywood. Later we get Glasgow – a bit of a guitar moment, still swimmy, still crunchy. When I expected a massive dubsteppy drop, I got a sparing vocal. When I expected melodramatic synth strings, I got a chiptune breakdown. There was soul, club music, a minor Slipknot-esque distorted screaming moment. I was frankly delighted.
Georgia Ellery is in a gold jumpsuit, singing like she’s in conversation with herself, alternating between guitar, violin and shimmery dancing; her bandmate Taylor Skye is boxed into a little synth cage beside her. At one point he unleashes something that sounds like a lost Mario Kart theme that was too frenetic for the final game. One song has Georgia enacting a couple’s tiff through an Alvin and the Chipmunks filter. Sometimes the danceable bass takes a holiday so we can better appreciate rhythmic singing or violin moments, then comes thundering back with dubstep crunch.
Right at the end of the set it feels as if the band has glitched, and we descend into absolute howling jungle club filth. The crowd is momentarily feral. I’m not the only one to feel like Glastonbury’s bigger stages are playing very safe this year, so this was just what I needed under the baking sun up at the Park.
This is Bethan, Kay and Louise. Kay has been pestering her friend Louise to come since they were 18 but they decided to finally go for it for Kay’s 60th. They didn’t rate Arctic Monkeys, but have been enjoying partying at Shangri-La till 4 each morning. “We still can’t quite believe we made it!”
Aitch, an enchanted can of Dark Fruits cider that is granted its wish to be a real life boy, has started up on the Pyramid stage. The question as to whether you can get away with repeatedly saying “pussy” to a crowd of people in camping chairs has been answered – Buss Down is sounding superb in the sun and he’s doing a great job of hyping the crowd, opening up moshpits and getting arms waving. He’s completing all his bars and is way louder than his backing track – his hype man almost looks a bit left out by this consummate professionalism.
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Steve Jones is indulging in some very un-punk but really good longform soloing with Generation Sex. His guitar tone could clean your oven. Billy’s still got his leathers on – he’s doing Sex Pistols’ Black Leather after all – but doesn’t look like suffering a major dehydration incident just yet. The grandads down the front are in raptures.
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Sudan Archives reviewed
West Holts, 2.30pm
Almost 10 minutes of silence and protracted sound issues plague the opening of Sudan Archives’ set, but it’s of little consequence to the classically trained violinist because when she and her bandmate finally get going on a busy West Holts stage, they make an almighty, earth-shaking noise.
Aptly dressed in what can only be described as a red leather battlewear, with her instrument strapped to her chest, a Britney-era head mic taped to her cheek and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, Sudan Archives – real name Brittney Parks – is on fierce form. Playing tracks almost exclusively from her second album, 2022’s Natural Brown Prom Queen, Parks paces across the bare stage, commanding us to get our “titties out” on the euphoric NBPQ (Topless), bouncing to the crackling bass of funk jam Freakalizer, screaming the title refrain of OMG Britt on her knees and crooning soulfully on Homemaker.
Then there’s the violin playing, sliding between phrases and punctuating her forceful vocals; Parks wields her instrument with an ease that only comes from years of focused training, even slipping into a fiddle jig with trap snare backing at one point. “That’s one for the Irish,” she giggles afterwards.
Forget the sound struggles, this is a powerhouse set from Parks – all the more impressive for it being her debut performance at the festival. She comes to a close with Natural Brown Prom Queen highlight Selfish Soul, getting the sunkissed crowd bouncing through their heatstroke before she drops to her knees once more and plucks melodies on the violin, quieting slowly to let the audience’s cheers ring out. The violin has never been more of a party-starter.
Overheard by Laura at a falafel stall: guys complaining about “third degree gurns”. We’re absolutely stealing that.
Also, apparently Badly Drawn Boy is still wearing his trademark beanie despite the heat. Please refer to the heat advice below, Damon.
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Generation Sex are starting up on the Other stage, and if you’re not familiar with that entirely preposterous band name, it’s a supergroup of Billy Idol and Tony James of Generation X plus Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols. In the sun and the buoyant mood, this gig scans like the final act of a comedy drama film in which some jaded old punks learn to rock out one last time. “Are you ready to partayyy?” queries Billy, wearing a leather jacket that should be classed as a health hazard in this weather. They kick into Pretty Vacant and it sounds pretty damn good!
Tom Grennan reviewed
I’m honest enough to admit that Tom Grennan wasn’t necessarily the highest artist on my Glastonbury must-see list, but over the course of an hour, he proves me at least 30% wrong.
It’s easy to see why the Eavises booked him: with his new album reaching No 1 yesterday, his northern-soul and EDM inflected pop is a solid dose of inoffensiveness, the kind of trend-defying Soccer Saturday atmospherics which are perfect for uniting an all-ages audience wanting to while away a Saturday afternoon before the big headliners.
To his credit, Grennan gives Glasto his everything. Tearing up and down the stage in a fetching Y2K vest-and-trouser combo, he begins with If Only, a One Republic fist-pumper of rollicking drums and raspy vocals that speaks of romantic near-misses and ambiguous optimism. Royal Highness offers a similar formula, as does Crown Your Love, which he cheerfully remarks was inspired by “Freddie Mercury; that’s who gave me the dream.” He invites us into a cheesy “We Will Rock You” slow-clap moment, and despite the blistering temperatures, many oblige, clearly won over by his everyman charm. “I remember coming here in 2019, and now I’m here” he beams. In absence of details, we presume he’s alluding to the graduation from punter to performer, but either way, he’s definitely feeling the excitement of the hour.
Things pick up drastically when he brings backing singer Petra to the fore, taking on Ella Henderson’s part in ballad Let’s Go Home Together before she sprinkles a little sauce of Sergio Mendes’ Mas Que Nada into Found What I’ve Been Looking For, elevating the party for its home run. “As soon as this is done I’m coming out there with you lot!” he grins. You’re inclined to believe him – he’s far from reinventing the pop wheel, but with a talented gang at his back, Grennan’s good-time attitude is infectious.
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It is a grass scorching, ice cream liquifying, vitamin D overdosing type of day today – a true scorcher. Shade is at a premium, too. Glastonbury’s common sense tips are here though: head for a tented venue for the next hour or so perhaps. If you’re reading this at home you’re probably fine though?
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Amadou & Mariam are bringing the more immediately appropriate sunny afternoon vibes on the Pyramid. The Malian pair have become foils in recent years for a series of dance producers – Folamour, Sofi Tukker, Blond:ish etc – and they’re leaning into that facility for four-four bangers at the moment, but still with lovely highlife guitar lines and naive, blithe vocal lines around all the airhorns and electro effects. One in the eye for the idea of “world music” as polite dinner party fare.
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Jockstrap are on the Park at the moment, with Georgia Ellery in fine, delicate voice and one of the weekend’s most powerful looks: a kind of gold 70s workout combo that you’d see on the cover of a Top of the Pops album. I wonder how this simultaneously very poppy and very strange and cerebral stuff – orchestral alt-reggaeton anyone? – is going down with a melting Park crowd. Apparently they came on to the strains of the Succession soundtrack!
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Wunderhorse reviewed
Woodsies, 12.45pm
Afternoon all – Ben Beaumont-Thomas taking over now from Laura Snapes on the liveblog, coated in a fine combo of sweat and dust. Here’s my review of the magnificent Wunderhorse from earlier on.
If there are any vestiges of that Noel Gallagher type who moans about the lack of “real bands” at Glasto, they were hopefully there to see Wunderhorse, a quartet who are making wondrous art out of indie rock’s most basic first principles.
Opener Butterflies recalls Radiohead in their Pablo Honey era, while frontman Jacob Slater variously channels Lou Reed (the magnificently jittery yet anthemic Teal), Bob Dylan (on the verses of terrific new song Minus) and Chris Martin (simple, soaring closer Superman). Their aesthetic of baggy jeans and bunny hops meanwhile has them looking like a group of boys venting before their shift at Dominos in the evening; Slater’s Robert Pattinson handsomeness is the kind that launches a thousand teenage crushes at the lip of a skate park bowl.
They can be all things to all listeners, then, especially with songs as strong as these – Purple’s chorus blooms so suddenly and gorgeously, like a time-lapsed rose, while Leader of the Pack is a proper hit single: Slater does a strange but compelling run up at it, snarling and stuttering its chorus with pent-up raunch then releasing into its classic riff, like Sweet Home Alabama turned sour. If they carry on in a groove as strong as this, a big slot on the Other stage beckons – or even bigger.
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The Uniqlo banana bag conquers Glastonbury – in the Guardian cabin alone right now, I can see at least three.
And here’s Louis Theroux enjoying – or perhaps looking confused by – Raye.
Raye reviewed!
Pyramid stage, 1.15pm
“Bloody hell, I didn’t think there would be anyone here,” smiles Raye, peering out at the substantial lunchtime crowd: she’s had festival appearances, she explains, where there were “more people on stage than there were in the audience”.
But then there are indeed a lot of people behind her – her backing band augmented by a brass section and a chorus of vocalists – and they look as formally glamorous as it gets clad in white dinner suits: a fairly serious commitment to image given the punishing heat. But for an artist who has clearly been through the mill, what’s striking about Raye’s live performance is her ease.
“I’ve not had the easiest of journeys,” she notes at one point, alluding to her struggles with a major label who refused to release her debut album. And her songs often feel like diary entries, starkly detailing the pitfalls that await a young woman in the music business, from sexually predatory, abusive producers on Ice Cream Man to substance abuse on Mary Jane (“The truth is that you held me better than any man did,” she sings of opiates) Yet she’s a bubbling font of Croydon-accented charm between songs (“Dating rappers – I wouldn’t advise it”), while her vocals are authentically show-stopping without going in for the kind of flashy over-singing that the late Luther Vandross memorably categorised as “vocal karate exhibitionism”.
There’s something very unforced and natural about her on stage: when she sings Ice Cream Man, the fury of its lyric at odds with the loveliness of its languid melody, her voice occasionally quivers and catches, as if she’s on the verge of tears. She kicks off her shoes and dances with cheerful abandon during Black Mascara. And she talks about self-releasing her album and watching it go to No 2 with a genuine, infectious excitement, as if she still can’t quite believe she pulled it off.
Her music offers a very London stew of influences – street soul, reggae, UK rap, Amy Winehouse-ish retro R&B, house music – allied to a set of genuinely fantastic songs: her Jax Jones collaboration You Don’t Know Me and this year’s No 1 hit Escapism both provoke mass singalongs. Black Mascara offers an object lesson in how to give house music a pop sheen without causing it to lose its edge; Five Star Hotels sounds better live than it does on record, her vocals better for being stripped of autotune.
“My wildest dreams have come true!” she cries at one point, and you can understand why: from an artist that had been more or less written off 12 months ago, Raye’s Glastonbury set feels like an early-afternoon triumph.
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Just in from Ammar, Sudan Archives – dressed in a full red warrior outfit with a bag of arrows slung over her shoulder and violin strapped to her chest – is having “serious sound issues – no backing track playing, she looks close to walking off. Couldn’t hear the violin at all or her voice.”
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While we await Alexis’s review, here’s Raye looking resplendent on the Pyramid stage, where apparently she wept with joy at the response to her set.
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Josh Halliday has been celeb-spotting: “Just bumped into Chris Moyles. He said Rick Astley had ‘just owned Glastonbury’ and that he was phenomenal. ‘He covered Harry Styles – the balls on him!’”
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From Keza: “The Woodsies Library is another little oasis up near the woods – they’ve got crafts and books for kids (or adults who are feeling fragile).” (You’ll find me making something with pipe cleaners there in approx 75 minutes.)
It’s very, very hot and it’s all any of us can talk about (music journalists not necessarily being the most outdoorsy people). During the 2019 Glasto heatwave, I saw one person taking shelter under the sandwich board at a food stall. I think we’re getting to that point today…
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Raye is now up on the Pyramid stage and has brought out a big live band, says Jenessa Williams, who are all dressed “punishingly smart” for this brutal weather. “She’s also doling out some solid life advice: ‘Don’t date rappers.’”
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Rick Astley reviewed!
Pyramid, 12pm
Rick Astley cuts a sprightly figure on Saturday afternoon, bounding out on to the Pyramid stage in a salmon-pink lounge suit, intensely cheerful. From the melodramatic and slightly bizarre Star Wars intro music to the nudge-nudge, wink-wink interpolations of his best-known hit (you know the one), there’s something of an element of the daytime television special to Astley’s performance: upbeat, affable, fun for all the family. “I miss my dog too!” he tells a member of the audience (presumably in response to a flag). Later: “Make sure you’ve got factor 50 on!”
It works for the Pyramid stage at this time of day, as an undemanding crowd-pleaser with which to ease us into another day of music. Well-coiffed and bubbly, Astley is a professional entertainer of a bygone era, but the sizeable crowd and instant recognition of opener Together Forever show that there’s still a huge appetite for fun, feelgood music. Astley himself is hugely good humoured about his reputation as a few-hit wonder, managing the crowd’s anticipation of Never Gonna Give You Up from the outset (“We do that one at the end”) and showing his range with covers of Harry Styles, AC/DC and a bit of Queen. When the song finally comes, it’s festive with hula-hoopers and leotarded dancers onstage – all the feelgood payoff of completing a Zumba class.
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Jeez, poor Billy Nomates (AKA Tor Maries) got such extreme trolling for her performance on the Park stage yesterday (via a post on BBC 6 Music’s social media) that she has asked the BBC to remove the footage of her set and is seemingly contemplating quitting live music.
I know it’s not for everyone what I do. I know lots of people don’t rate me. But the level of personal abuse on that public page is too much. There will be no more shows after this summer. You wouldn’t stay in a workplace that did this to you. Why should I.
Her post drew support from Billy Bragg, who tweeted: “Solidarity from everyone at Left Field with Billy No Mates who was so badly abused online after her @Glastonbury set was posted on @BBC6Music that she asked them to take [the] clip down. She played a set for us last year and was brilliant. You’ll always have [a] place here Tor.”
Geoff Barrow of Portishead and Beak> also posted in solidarity with her.
This is what some female artists
— 🏴☠️ Geoff Barrow 🏴☠️ (@jetfury) June 23, 2023
Have to put up with from #6music Dads online
Fuck’em #billyNoMates
Is one of the most talented song writers and performers I’ve ever worked with and had the pleasure to know. https://t.co/P7JqF2oCHV
What a sad state of affairs. Billy Nomates is great – read our interview with her here – as is her second album, Cacti.
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While we await Elle’s review, here’s Rick Astley having a very nice time indeed on the Pyramid stage (and rivalling Cate Blanchett for tailoring).
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Ben’s out scouting Glasto’s stylish people: “I asked these people why they were all in blue and they looked at me like I was an idiot. ‘Just because!’”
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The Last Dinner Party reviewed!
Woodsies, 11.30am
Since time immemorial, music journos have massively overhyped bands to a degree that isn’t actually fair on them, leaving an inevitable gulf between the hype and reality, disappointing audiences and creating a backlash, which we journos can then write about. It’s the circle of life! Couple this with audience suspicion of anyone who seems to have been anointed by the industry in this way and there have been quite a few dark mutters about “industry plants” of late – none louder than those about the Last Dinner Party, a quintet signed to major label Island Records before releasing any music. Sexism surely amplified the grouching, from men suspicious that a group of young women with a cohesive image could actually have formed themselves.
On the bad-faith internet, the music can feel immaterial – and the stage banter here suggests the band won’t beat the posho allegations. But what are they actually like? They fit into a lineage of proudly theatrical alt-pop alongside Patrick Wolf, HMLTD or Anna Calvi (and while musically they’re nothing like Porridge Radio, they share that band’s massed declamatory vocals). Some of these songs are a bit episodic, shunting from one middling section to another with a bold flourish to paper over the lack of finesse or arc. But the crowd are punching the air to Sinner despite having never heard it before, and while Godzilla isn’t to my personal taste – a sort of big-production blues rock that recalls the most money-soaked end of Britpop – the band really sell it.
Their neo-Victoriana aesthetic stands out, and while some may find lead singer Abigail Morris’s repertoire of Kate Bush-ish twirls and self-conscious prowling a bit irritating, there are plenty more who will find it the very essence of pop panache. She can really sing, too, beautifully topping off Mirror with a pristine chirrup around her high notes. The tent is pretty much full and everyone seems to know insistent debut single Nothing Matters – there’s clearly enough here, in songcraft and rapport, to drown out the keyboard warriors.
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Max Richter reviewed!
Park, 11.15am
The Park is clearly the place to be for celeb spotters this year. After Cate Blanchett’s star turn at Sparks last night, here’s Tilda Swinton, dressed fittingly in a powder blue suit, providing the narration for Max Richter’s 2004 suite The Blue Notebooks.
Richter, supported here by an accomplished string quartet, introduces the performance by noting that it was originally written as “a kind of protest against the Iraq War” but – with the exception of the roiling The Trees, these sombre, stately compositions give off a mood of resignation rather than fury. It opens with On the Nature of Daylight, best known for soundtracking a tonne of films including the Denis Villeneuve sci-fi Arrival. It’s a gorgeous slow-build of a composition that elicits a quiet sob from several presumably worse for wear festival-goers near me.
The rest of the set continues in the same mesmeric fashion, with Swinton’s fragmentary, diaristic spoken-word segments bookending the ambient swirls of strings while Richter feverishly flits between grand piano, keyboard and laptop. It’s an incongruous experience, watching and listening to something so rarefied while in the distance a man in a Crocodile Dundee hat gamely tries to transport four pints of cider at once. But there’s a sense of ceremony and grandeur here that leaves a varied all-ages audience – parents, pensioners, caners – utterly rapt. A sensational start to Saturday.
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This is nice: yesterday a new David Hockney video artwork was unveiled on the Pyramid stage, I Lived in Bohemia Bohemia Is a Tolerant Place promotes ideals of togetherness, incorporates AI, and is based on Hockney’s 2014 painting The Dancers V.
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It’s already been an eventful morning up at the Park stage – not only did Max Richter bring out Tilda Swinton (not to be outdone by Sparks having Cate Blanchett) but their performance was interrupted a streaker who had to be led away. Retro!
In case you missed it, here’s Alexis Petridis’s three-star review of Arctic Monkeys’ Pyramid stage headline slot last night.
The sense of a band marching to their own tune – uninterested in providing the fabled Glastonbury moment, when music and surroundings coalesce into something magical – is hard to miss, and it’s simultaneously admirable and underwhelming: an odd way to feel about a headlining set at the world’s most famous festival.
And we're back!
Good afternoon from a painfully hot Glastonbury (I am not sad to be spending the first three hours of the day inside the cabin, let’s put it that way). Our reviewers are out in the field seeing the likes of Rick Astley, Raye and Max Richter so the piping hot liveblog action is soon to commence…
