That's everything for tonight – and Glastonbury 2023
I’m signing off for tonight, and indeed for this year’s Glastonbury. Thank you so much for following along with what has been one of the most musically diverse (and brutally sunny) Glastonburys to date – and surely that Elton set has been instantly installed in the all-timer canon. Tomorrow we’ll have more galleries and features, including in a special print edition of our G2 section – but for now, we’re off to Block9 to get sweaty…
Here’s Laura Snapes’s five-star review of Elton John’s performance.
Picture highlights from Elton John
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Queens of the Stone Age reviewed
Other stage, 9.45pm
Playing opposite Elton John’s last ever UK gig is not an enviable position to be in, but hey, Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age are here to make the best of it. “We have been hired to come here on Sunday and give you a night that absolutely NOBODY will remember!” smirks the good-humoured frontman. “We’re not leaving until everyone gets laid, gets happy or finds love.”
The entire set is like the opposite of Royal Blood’s recent onstage tantrum. And actually, over the course of the night, QOTSA get the crowd they deserve. When they open with a blistering doubler of Go With the Flow and The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, there aren’t many bodies any further back that the mixing desk. By the time they’re busting out No One Knows an hour later, the audience stretches back to the tents and are yelling the riff back at them.
I love this band. They sound like sex and whiskey with an edge of dangerous nihilism. It’s the most danceable alt rock out there, as proven by The Way You Used to Do from the album Villains, unleashed about halfway through the set (sure enough, feet don’t fail us now). But they’re also unselfconscious, Troy Van Leeuwen and Dean Fertita performing all the ripping, finger-stretching bluesy solos alongside Homme without any of the pretension, and they’re not afraid to be languid either, letting those filthy detuned chords linger. Homme looks like a dirty preacher with a manicured beard and ’stache, and he’s grinning ear to ear the whole way through. “There’s nowhere in the fuckin’ world we’d rather be right now!” he yells. (Except perhaps the Pyramid stage.)
Homme is coming off the back of cancer treatment and is embroiled, still, in a protracted child custody dispute with his ex-wide Brody Dalle and her partner Gunner Foxx, the outcome of which is tied up in US courts. So it’s good to see him so relaxed here, swearing happily and good-humouredly telling off gun-jumping moshers towards the end of the set: “You fuckin’ go when I say so!” Even Elton’s fireworks can’t drown out Song for the Dead at the end, as the crowd roils and thrashes once more.
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In case you missed the double legends slot earlier, here are our reviews of those sets:
Let us return now, briefly, to the amazing Lil Nas X performance, because we couldn’t fit all the pics in and they’re so great.
I really could go on.
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All I’ve heard around the site today has been people completely convinced that Britney Spears was going to come out with Elton. She’s been spotted in London! No wait, she’s been spotted in Bristol airport! They did that pretty average single together not so long ago – this is happening! To be honest, it did seem quite unlikely that Spears would choose singing in front of 125,000-odd people as her gentle route back into live performance following the traumas of her recent years, but I didn’t like to bring down the vibe. I expected more from Dua though!
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Accurate.
Enjoying Brandon Flowers with Elton John.#Glastonbury pic.twitter.com/k97evkuF6z
— WarrenJonHughes (@warrenjonhughes) June 25, 2023
Estimating Pyramid stage crowds is a very inexact science and the festival itself doesn’t tend to issue numbers, but that has to be one of the very, very biggest. Organisers closed off parts of the fields that are usually reserved for tents in order to expand the capacity, so Elton will have a reasonable claim to having the biggest ever. Foo Fighters and Lewis Capaldi felt almost as massive earlier this weekend, too.
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So that’s it, for this Glastonbury’s Pyramid performances, and – sob!! – Elton’s touring career in the UK. He’ll carry on touring until 8 July in Sweden, but that’s his last ever UK tour date, and – as he alluded earlier in the performance – perhaps his last ever UK performance full stop. Let’s wish him well in his retirement; we were lucky to have him while we did. True stars like Elton, with their capacity for – as actual stars do – brightening life, pointing the way and illuminating the human experience, are all too rare, although an inveterate lover of new music such as him would inevitably disagree.
We’re not done on our liveblog just yet though – we’ll be having appraisals of Queens of the Stone Age’s Other stage headlining performance, and a full review of Elton John by Laura Snapes.
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He thanks the crowd for their Elton cosplay: “It makes me feel loved. And I want to thank you also for 52 years of amazing love and loyalty you’ve shown me, it’s been an incredible journey and I’ve had the best, best time. I will never forget you – you are in my head, my heart and my soul.” And he takes off on Rocket Man one last time.
There’s such a poignant moment here when Elton is gently and insistently tapping a high piano key, fixated on it, seeming to not want to ever stop playing it. But he builds back up into a coda to bring the house down one last time – ramping up into really quite extreme noise with Johnstone playing droning dives on his guitar – as fireworks explode above him and his exemplary band. He walks out from behind the piano again, to absolutely deservedly milk the applause.
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Elton John dedicates Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me to George Michael
“One of Britain’s most fantastic singers, songwriters, artists, was George Michael,” Elton says. “He was my friend, an inspiration, and today would have been his 60th birthday – I want to dedicate this song to his memory, and all the music he left us with which is so gorgeous.” Another incredibly full-bodied performance ensues.
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“The person I did this song with isn’t here, so I’m going to ask you to sing her part, and sing it loudly.” Quite a clipped tone there from Elton – perhaps he asked Dua Lipa to turn up for this performance of Cold Heart but got snubbed. If that’s the case, it’s ridiculous from Lipa – why would you turn down being part of history and playing to the biggest crowd of your life?
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Phoenix reviewed
Woodsies, 9.30pm
Pity poor Phoenix, dealt the losing hand of going up against the titanic Elton on Glasto’s closing night. Yet it’s a sizeable and dense crowd that gathers in the Woodsies tent on Sunday night, eager to greet the exuberant opener Lizstomania with the energy it commands. It’s one of the most committed audiences I’ve been part of all festival: from Entertainment to Lasso, it’s as if every member knows every word to every song and can’t wait to clap along.
Similarly, if the band – always consummate professionals – are aware that there’s more than enough room to breathe at the back in the tent, they certainly don’t give it away, putting on a typically slick, stylish set of the songs their devoted fans have carved out time to hear. After so many days of being among huge but distracted or ambivalent audiences, it’s truly lovely to be part of one that is here for this particular band, rather than the band on the most convenient stage. Truly, I’d rather be here than jostling among the masses at the Pyramid stage, and it’s a testament to the group’s witty, compelling and consistently rewarding back catalogue that they can go up against one of the best-known living songwriters and still draw a crowd of passionate fans.
Frontman Thomas Mars acknowledges this with a heartfelt remark about the fickle fandom typical of festival crowds: “You have people that care about your music, and tons of people eating sandwiches at the back. You have so much choice tonight ... You guys are the most loyal to us, we’ll remember every single face.” I’m impressed by the fact that this is a band of remarkable integrity and consistency: Phoenix may not be the lasting memory of most Glastonbury-goers’ last night, but they may well (and deservedly) be the best for some.
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The flares are lit, everyone’s on shoulders and the Pyramid crowd is finding new parts of its collective mind to get blown: I’m Still Standing has somehow dialled up the intensity even higher. Elton’s off his piano stool at the end, lapping up the adulation.
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A reminder that many of the main players tonight are in their mid-70s: as well as the main man and the aforementioned Cooper and Johnstone, another Elton veteran is 74-year-old drummer Nigel Olsson, pounding his kit with the power and exactitude of a man half his age.
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Another one that makes it feel like Elton John actually invented the piano and then tailored it to his exact hard-rocking, highly percussive specifications: Crocodile Rock. Though it of course owes a debt to every honky-tonk hoe-down in the first half of the 20th century, Elton’s insistent and joyous hammering is what made this style pop gold. That singalong chorus helps. It’s pandaemonium out in the Pyramid field – and the crowd is sent into even greater hand-jiving mayhem by being followed up by Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.
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Rina Sawayama guests on Don't Go Breaking My Heart
“My trousers are falling down, but never mind,” he shrugs. He describes his next guest as “an extraordinary talent, an incredible artist live, an amazing recording artist, and one of my dear friends”. It’s brilliant British-Japanese pop singer Rina Sawayama, duetting on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (the pair previously recorded the excellent power ballad Chosen Family together). Rina looks disco-fabulous in a sheer dress, shimmying up and down the stage in vertiginous heels, and is ably going toe to toe with Elton in the vocal stakes – Elton has come out from behind his piano for this one for a light boogie.
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Brandon Flowers from the Killers guests on Tiny Dancer
Elton brings out Brandon Flowers, frontman with the Killers, to sing Tiny Dancer with him. “I first met him in 2005 when I started playing in Las Vegas,” Elton says. “He came round to my hotel suite to play me his band’s first album, which was called Hot Fuss, and we’ve been friends ever since.”
Flowers has huge Glasto pedigree, of course. The Killers’ 2019 headline slot, which I went into with a bit of a snotty “OK impress me” attitude, was just wildly enjoyable: pure showbiz, baby. Flowers is giving it the full Vegas treatment here, all throaty power, beseeching outstretched arms and cheesy grins while dressed as a Butlin’s redcoat. Davey Johnstone has cracked out the double-necked guitar for this one: it’s another completely maximal, brilliantly overblown expression of pop’s at its biggest-thinking.
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Mantra of the Cosmos reviewed
Glade, 8.20pm
Here come Shaun and Bez, swaggering on to the Glade like Madchester never died. Maracas? Check. Entirely unearned confidence in their musical abilities? Check. The boys are back in town with a new band – also featuring Andy Bell from Ride and Oasis, Zak Starkey from nepotism, and, for this performance, the Fall’s Brix Smith on bass. With this much talent on stage all at once, surely Mantra of the Cosmos can’t lose.
Well, obviously they’re terrible. “It doesn’t sound like the Mondays or Black Grape or Oasis or the Who, it’s what we’re doing all together,” Shaun Ryder has said of MotC’s sound. And he’s right in that it sounds like each member is playing in a completely different band at the same time. The rhythm section lurches and groans, Bell’s soupy riffs jarring completely with Starkey’s, ahem, pared-back kit work.
Ryder’s lyrics, usually just about on the right side of incomprehensibility, here are just complete nonsense (“Selling fucking Mars bars with a belly full of la-las”). For lead single Guerrilla Gorilla he just barks “guerrilla gorilla” for six minutes like a 15-year-old who has only just discovered a piece of wordplay that they’re extremely proud of. Meanwhile it’s almost impressive that Bez, after all these years, still doesn’t understand how maracas work. Smith, seems to have teleported in from another, better band, and is still acclimatising to her new circumstances. Generally there’s a sense that, at best, they’ve practised once backstage, 20 minutes before the set.
Which is not to say that watching them isn’t extremely enjoyable. How could it not be, with Bez – sporting a truly hideous oversized pair of Maharishi shorts and a sombrero – spending most of the gig either throwing free MotC T-shirts at audience members or trying to catch their hats? (“Good catch, Bez,” Ryder says, before pointing to an audience member and shouting, “You’re out ... Australia gone.”) And who couldn’t warm to a band who have to play their opening track again because, as Ryder says, “Fuck, we’ve run out of songs.” So yes go and see them, tell your friends. Just don’t expect to like a single note of what they play.
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Your Song now – I thought this would have been in the encore for sure, but then again he has an embarrassment of riches to still pick from. I love Elton’s declarative finger that he lifts aloft as he plays – a little echo of Jerry Lee Lewis, perhaps. It goes back to back in phone-light-waving singalongs with Candle in the Wind.
Our Jenessa is at the very, very back of this enormo-crowd and says: “Even this hilariously far from the Pyramid stage, everything has stopped for Candle in the Wind. Nobody is chatting; just crying, singing along or silently watching.” A reminder that this is still, or probably for ever will be, the biggest selling single in UK history.
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“I couldn’t believe someone of 19 or 20 could write a song like this,” he says of his next guest, Stephen Sanchez – yes, Sanchez is getting to perform one of his own songs. What a magical moment for him! It’s Until I Found You, a bit of musical-theatrical pop that went big on streaming and briefly reached the UK Top 20 in 2022.
This is Elton in the paternalistic role that he’s so loved playing in recent years, taking stars such as Dua Lipa and Olly Alexander and even post-punkers Yard Act under his wing, giving advice, and playing them on his radio show. Elton is an obsessive collector of music and remains so; he’s just utterly addicted to pop and its potential, when so many of his generation closed their minds to it decades previously. It’s one of the most likeable and laudable things about him.
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Just clocked Davey Johnstone’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road-painted guitar. Nice touch. Cooper is giving that tambourine some real beans again. There are divebomb guitar runs, huge backing vocals, massive piano chords – this arrangement is just gigantic, but if you’re going to reach the people at the very back, you can get away with it.
Someone Saved My Life Tonight is up next, and Elton is sending it soaring. Can this really be his last ever UK gig?? He doesn’t owe us anything; the pandemic meant that his intention to spend time with his family, and see his sons grow up instead of spending endless nights in hotel rooms on tour around the world, has been put on hold multiple times. But he is in such fine form, and remains such a singular musician, that the prospect feels like a real loss tonight. Let’s enjoy him while it lasts though!
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Candi Staton reviewed
West Holts, 8pm
It’s a scattered crowd for Candi Staton, suggesting she is less of a draw for the Sunday night Glastonbury punters than the oh-so-of-the-moment Lil Nas X, but nonetheless we find the queen of disco in good spirits as she takes to the stage at West Holts for the sundowner set. It’s a slick, upbeat affair but Staton struggles to corral the audience with her nostalgic reflections between songs. There’s something endearingly but undoubtedly anachronistically about Station’s stage manner: Stand By Your Man is introduced as “a song for the ladies” – then she breaks into the classic Stand By Me. Staton begins: “We made a song called ‘I’d Rather Be an Old Man’s Sweetheart Than a Young Man’s Fool,” then jokes that now, at 80-something, she’s thinking about flipping it to be ”a young man’s sweetheart”.
There’s something of the amused, genial-aunt-at-the-family-BBQ air to Staton’s stage manner, with the fact that she had to fight to be the first woman to sing In the Ghetto failing to draw the respect due from the audience. Young Hearts unsurprisingly focuses the crowd’s attention – then Staton triumphs in the end with a forceful reminder of the preciousness of life, pointing to her recovery from cancer and, to close, her life-affirming and undeniable hit You’ve Got the Love.
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We’ve still got a long way to go in this set but it appears that Elton has – perhaps having seen the mixed reaction to Paul McCartney’s set last year – absolutely understood the assignment here. The Pyramid crowd isn’t all chinstroking musos, it’s a cross section of a huge swathe of society, and you have to keep the hit rate very high to keep everyone on side. (As Arctic Monkeys will no doubt tell you). This is just back-to-back barnstormers now.
Our Keza is at Queens of the Stone Age on the Other stage meanwhile, and says she’s never seen such a small crowd for an Other headliner. Alt-J’s will, hearteningly, be even more miniscule, and I can’t imagine Phoenix – as brilliant as they are – will be commanding a huge crowd either. Rudimental are probably mopping a decent quotient of Gen Z and perma-ravers at West Holts though.
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“I was so crazy about a guy called Tom Bell,” he says by way of explanation of the next song. “I was infatuated by his production.” He recalls going up to Seattle to record with him, and one track was “regurgitated” many years later, he says, by Fatboy Slim. It’s Are You Ready For Love? – Fatboy Slim released the Ashley Beedle remix on his own label, and it went to No 1 in 2003 – with London Community Gospel Choir, and Jacob Lusk from soul-pop band Gabriels who does a beautiful job with the song’s bridges. This is a real treat for anyone who has already seen this Elton tour as it hasn’t been included on those setlists, and it sounds wonderfully full with that gospel backing.
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“I’m so happy to be here – I won’t ever forget this”, he tells the crowd. Philadelphia Freedom next, which will perhaps be slightly less well known to this crowd than what’s come before (though it was a US No 1 in 1975). Some fabulously expansive tambourine waving from his magnificent percussionist Ray Cooper here.
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I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues now, and Elton’s doing that thing with his singing that’s at best an acquired taste, and at worse a complete mangling of his diction, where he clips the vowels and adds glottal stops where they really don’t need to be. The most extreme example was his infamous I’m Still Standing during a livestreamed charity performance amid the Covid pandemic, which many people unkindly and entirely accurately compared to Vic Reeves’ “club singer” on Shooting Stars. This isn’t anything like as silly as that, but I rather wish he’d let the words breathe a bit more. Terrifically bluesy ending, though.
The energy mellows slightly for the softer, more mid-tempo Daniel, a song that dates back to 1972 and is suffused with the trauma of the Vietnam war – a stretch of time and gulf of history that underline how astonishing it is to have this performed by the man who co-wrote it. Elton’s piano playing continues to be gorgeously relaxed yet emotive.
Then it’s into Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, his voice soaring and absolutely meeting its mark. Any fears I had that his top register might have degraded further after years of this final tour have been banished.
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Bennie and the Jets now, given an exquisite little bit of synth to bolster those huge chords – perhaps the most purely gorgeous piano sound in his catalogue? For me this is a top five Elton song: the way those chords lag imperceptibly but so funkily behind the beat shows his grounding in Black American music, but it’s a sound that is so utterly Elton. He’s vamping it up with runs up and down the keyboard, then breaking into a stunning honky-tonk solo. This is sensational stuff.
Caroline Polachek reviewed
Woodsies, 8pm
I’ve seen Caroline Polachek’s Spiralling Tour twice now – tonight’s set at the Woodsies tent being the third – and it would seem that it’s only become more polished and more euphoric over the past four months. Polachek is American but her second solo album, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, draws liberally from European pop and folk music: flamenco guitars, turn-of-the-century Eurodance, drum’n’bass, a bagpipe solo from trendy Gen Z bagpipe player Brìghde Chaimbeul
Chaimbeul joins Polachek on stage to perform her solo from the strutting, lovestruck Blood & Butter, and it’s one of a handful of triumphant moments during the evening, including a gnarled take on the 2019 track Ocean of Tears and a version of Caroline Shut Up that draws out the song’s glowing 80s-ballad vibes. Polachek’s crowd is surprisingly sparse, only filling about half the tent – perhaps indicative of just how strong the pull of Elton’s final UK show is. But those who do show up are treated to a masterclass in avant-pop performance, with Polachek showing off her sublime, acrobatic vocals. In indie music, there are few with better pipes than her – except for, perhaps, Weyes Blood, AKA Natalie Mering, who joins Polachek on stage to perform the gut-wrenching Butterfly Net. Their spectacular voices are absolutely wild to hear in person; hearing them harmonise is a balm after a big weekend. There is no doubt that next time Polachek plays on Worthy Farm, it will be to a crowd that is orders of magnitude bigger.
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Elton keeps the energy high with the pure rock’n’roll euphoria of The Bitch Is Back, powered by a tickly, percussive rhythm guitar riff from Davey Johnstone, his longtime guitarist, whose relationship with Elton dates all the way back to 1971 and the Madman Across the Water album.
“I never thought I’d play Glastonbury – and here I am,” he tells this quite ridiculously massive crowd. “It’s a very special and emotional night for me as it may be my last show in England, in Great Britain.” He thanks the audience for “standing there so long – and I really appreciate all the outfits and everything!”
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Elton kicks off!
Hello, Ben Beaumont-Thomas here, taking over from Keza to see you through until the bitter end. Except it should be absolutely the sweetest, most crowdpleasingest ending to a Glastonbury imaginable – Elton John playing his final tour date in the UK (I would expect that he does one-off shows, even if just charity ones, rather than this being his actual final UK gig ever). The fireworks have just been set off and he’s started!
I saw this tour in Hove back in pre-pandemic 2019 and it was superb – even if he couldn’t reach the top notes of old, his voice has aged in an interesting and potent way, adding a bit more richness to his mid-range. That set had some side quests into album tracks – I expect this setlist to be tweaked so it’s just pure balls-to-the-wall hits.
Dressed in a gold suit and rose-tinted glasses – all the better to look at the past with – Pinball Wizard is his opener, climaxing with a guitar solo vying with a flurry of noisy congas. As maximalist as you’d expect.
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The War on Drugs reviewed
Other stage, 7.45pm
I’d be tempted to rechristen the War on Drugs as the War on Wildlife, because the heady boom of their impossibly loud sound mix is the only thing that fully scares away the menacing cloud of seagulls who have been feasting at the Other stage, emboldened to dive lower by the weekend’s glut of half-discarded fast food. My chips may have been pinched before I was fully ready, but the rousing Oceans of Darkness quickly distracts from my sadness, sending fists pumping into the cursed air.
The band are midway through a glorious summer of outdoorsy headliner shows at Halifax Piece Hall and Trinity College Dublin, as well as a romp across the festivals of the US, and their muscular brand of heartland rock is a knapsack that travels well. You know what you’re getting, and the guitars in particular always sound brilliant – well oiled from years of touring and collaborating right across the indie rock sphere. The crowd isn’t huge, barely reaching back as far as the sound desk, but those who are into it seem really into it. They follow the cues of subtle tempo changes: flares and rabble-rousing for the upbeat Red Eyes; a pared back sway for I Don’t Wanna Wait, a sincere ballad that twinkles with 80s synths.
With the sun beginning to fade behind us, the whole thing should feel like cinema, a transcendent soundtrack to a road trip through desert states. At times, it does gets pretty close. But in order to channel full main character energy at a show like this, you need to be able to connect more with the lyrics. Anyone who isn’t word-for-word familiar here would struggle to decipher Adam Granduciel’s husky-toned delivery thanks to his tendency to murmur the ends of his phrases. You get tiny snatches of intriguing yearning – “I’m a victim of my own desire”; “I’ve been hiding so long”, “It’s so hard findin’ friends these days” – but they are often whipped away by the wind or drowned out by sax, missing their final illustrative flourish.
One woman near where I’m stood leaves the crowd to lie down for a nap nearby. While I don’t understand her tolerance for volume, I must say I understand the impulse. The War on Drugs’ set is musically virtuosic, bold, and ultimately quite beautiful, but a wash of sound better enjoyed at a gentle distance.
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Lil Nas X reviewed
Pyramid Stage, 7pm
If you have a discography like Blondie’s, you don’t need to worry too much about anything but playing the hits. But if you’re coming to the Pyramid with only a handful of songs that most Brits know, you’re minded to put on a big production to help wow that huge crowd and carry them along with you. Lorde did this last year with her wondrous stage set; now, Lil Nas X arrives with by far the year’s most batshit and epic show on the Pyramid.
In front of a vast tableau of Hepworth-y sculptural forms, male dancers with enormously long plaits hurl their hair around as a thrash-metal arrangement of Call Me By Your Name starts up. Lil Nas X is resplendent in white fur, gold breastplate and tassled (yassled?) chaps. A giant serpent is paraded across the stage, to be succeeded later by other mythical beasts including a puppet crane and a minotaur with his tackle very much on display.
For Old Town Road, Nas rides in on a giant horse and his dancers drape themselves around it in fetchingly sexualised arrangements. Presumably deciding that his ostentatious outfit is just too conservative, he returns in a glittery blue loincloth, blue furry boots and matching kneepads. Soon he’s pashing one of his dancers. The stage floor is frequently thrust upon. Somewhere, a deeply repressed Conservative MP is drafting a tweet about how our children aren’t safe.
Nas’s dancers admirably hold the fort while he gets changed, flipping like Olympic gymnasts at a ballroom face-off to a soundtrack of trap, reggaeton and Rihanna. It’s not just the visuals that broaden the appeal. Snatches of hits such as Nirvana’s Something in the Way, Michael Jackson’s Beat It and Ginuwine’s Pony are threaded into the arrangements to keep the crowd on side. While these are deftly done, in truth his songs are strong enough to not necessarily need them. That’s What I Want is particularly good, the purity and absolute need in his wish for true love expressed in such an open-hearted, emotionally available melody.
He closes out on an even bigger high: the horn fanfare of Industry Baby. While guest rapper Jack Harlow doesn’t really get to make an impact, hampered by a slightly dodgy mic and short-form verse, we’re all distracted by the dancers, who are now dressed as electric blue majorettes – and of course Nas, his voice soaring at the climax. This must have been the most openly, ostentatiously queer show ever staged on the Pyramid, but for all the pearl-clutching that Lil Nas X induces online, in the crowd, everyone from families to chiselled gay men to lairy lads just get on with enjoying the sheer joie de vivre of this massively endearing performer.
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A tip for tonight if you’re not into Queens of the Stone Age and/or there’s a lull in Elton’s set when you’re watching later: French dance-pop outfit Phoenix, playing Woodsies at 9.30pm, are supremely fun.
Established avant-pop artist Caroline Polachek has a very sparse crowd over at Woodsies, where she’s been playing for the last 20 minutes or so. The programming has not been kind to her – last year she was playing to a pretty decent audience up at the Park.
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Ben’s back from Lil Nas X. Jack Harlow came out for his verse on Industry Baby at the end there. Review coming soon!
Man, this War On Drugs set is such sunny, spangly, chill vibes. They’re in the middle of Red Eyes just now. Such a full sound, so very many guitar pedals. Meanwhile the crowd at the Pyramid is starting to get a little restless, reports Shaad.
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The War on Drugs have just arrived on the Other stage, sounding wonderful with Oceans of Darkness. The evening is very much underway – T minus just under one hour to Elton …
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A couple of photos of how Lil Nas X is showing up on the Pyramid Stage right now:
There is a huge crowd for Romy (formerly of the xx) at Mexi-themed micro-venue San Remo, reports Laura Snapes: “she’s playing big-feelings dance music, including a banging remix of SFA’s Flowers.”
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Blondie reviewed
Pyramid stage, 5pm
“A robust performance of the superb Dev Hynes co-write Long Time shows that their later tunes can match their classics, but it’s Heart of Glass that has this gigantic Pyramid crowd waving in unison – a truly awesome sight. By now Harry is dressed in a cowl made from shards of mirror, like a comic-book soothsayer stalking the mean streets of the Lower East Side. As she mellifluously sang earlier on, at age 77 she’s clearly not the kind of girl to give up just like that.” Full review:
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Keza’s now back from a brief queer-chaos Lil Nas X moment – just in time to share the Blondie review…
As we await Ben Beaumont-Thomas’ review of Lil Nas X, Keza reports back from the Pyramid stage with what sounds like a cracking show:
Lil Nas X is absolutely beautiful in a gold crop top and tight white jeans, festooned with fur and feathers – true to his hip-hop country roots. Call Me By Your Name is a walloping tune, even if it only lasts about 90 seconds before he launches into something else, demonstrating that short attention span that is well known by now of Lil Nas’s sets. His backing dancers, of all genders, are wearing white cut-out bodycon dresses – and for his breakout single, Old Town Road, Nas appears on a giant golden horse.
The Hu reviewed
West Holts, 5pm
It’s never dull on West Holts. Straight after the South London jazz fusion of Speakers Corner Quartet, we’re served up a substantial slab of Mongolian folk metal. The Hu are an Ulaanbaatar-based eight-piece – some of them in ceremonial dress, some in leather dusters – who play a mixture of modern and traditional instruments, guitars rubbing up against tovshuur horsehead fiddles. Their songs follow suit, resembling Black Album-era Metallica if James Hetfield had more of a penchant for Tuvan throat singing.
Mongolia has a robust rock scene, with bands exploring everything from garage psych to black metal. But The Hu are the rare band to have broken through internationally, attracting hundreds of millions of views of their videos and collaborating with Papa Roach and Halestorm. You suspect that has much to do with The Hu’s willingness to play up their heritage: the war cries and songs about Genghis Khan surely go down well with audiences familiar with only that surface-deep idea of Mongolia. It would be instructive to know just how they are viewed by other bands in the Mongolian music scene.
That’s not an issue for the here and now, though. At West Holts the crowd are thrilled by those deep riffs and deep Mongolian ululations. At times, when the riffs go from sludgy to galloping, with those bowed instruments screaming over the top they could almost be mistaken for the Dropkick Murphys. The riffs do tend to repeat themselves after a while but no matter: there’s always something to be engaged by here. It ends as the best metal concerts do: with a massive moshpit, something that tends to transcend race or nationality.
Good evening, Glastonbury crew – I’m taking over the live blog for a little while so that my colleague Keza, who’s been so wonderfully steering you through for the past few hours, may enjoy at least the first few songs of Lil Nas X. Having just returned to Guardian HQ (it’s less glamorous than you may imagine) after a day roaming the field, I can tell you that there’s that last-day-of-school vibe out there on Worthy Farm right now – plus the longest queues for the bar I’ve seen so far this weekend. The breeze, alleviating the heat of yesterday, has made a noticeable difference – everyone seems to be back on top and determined to see off the festival in high spirits.
While we’re in a between-sets lull: I think my favourite moment of this festival so far has been singing This Charming Man with Rick Astley. There’s more than one generation of Smiths fans now who’ve never seen these songs played live, and it really was moving. Also, Slash’s superb soaring performance of Sweet Child O’ Mine. That guitar tone was sweet enough to give me toothache.
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Becky Hill reviewed
Other Stage, 6pm
Clad in a neon smiley three-piece that absolutely screams Glastonbury raver, Becky Hill is making no bones about the specialness of her 11-year journey “to get to this exact place”: meaning not just the Other stage, but also her station as current reigning queen of chart-friendly dance. She throws out a plethora of Ibiza hun bops: Overdrive is a belter, while Same Old Story has some great dancers voguing, renaissance-style, in glittering silver. “I went to Arcadia to see Chemical Brothers, and now I fully get this place,” she says. “I’ll be coming back now as long as I can. Hopefully working, if I don’t screw this up.”
Illustrating the growing respect towards her genre, she’s brought along the Heritage Orchestra, making sure that their contributions to the canon of dance, house and electronic music are well known. A win for Becky, it appears, is a win for the whole team, and there’s something very endearing about the level of thought she’s put into this occasion: a career bucket-list item ticked.
Some appreciation in the comments for the energetic nu-metal-esque rockers Nova Twins, who played the Greenpeace Stage last year fresh off winning the Kerrang award for best newcomers and were upgraded to the Other stage this afternoon. They absolutely rock, all chugging guitars and deliciously spiteful lyrics delivered at lightning speed. Check ’em out if you can.
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Here’s a wee roundup of some of the most memorable moments of this year’s festival. Somewhat premature, some might say – we have a full seven hours to go! Anything could happen.
Hey folks! Keza taking over from Laura here on the liveblog – I’ve just sprinted back from Blondie, which was one of the most heartening performances I’ve seen in a while. It doesn’t matter if you get old! Just keep rocking!
While we await Ben’s review of Blondie, here are a couple of snaps of Debbie Harry apparently having a whale of a time on the Pyramid stage.
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Viagra Boys reviewed!
Park stage, 4pm
“None of you hippies better be sitting down out there … I know it’s 4.30, but this is your last chance to have fun, unless you want to see Elton John choke on a prawn … ”
The prawn is somewhat inexplicable, but this kind of surrealist specificity is what Viagra Boys do well. With singer Sebastian Murphy introducing them tonight as “Scandinavia’s worst band”, they approach the art of dance-post-punk with vim and vigour, lacking in the kind of self-seriousness that has sometimes held similar-sounding bands back.
Ain’t No Thief, Slow Learner and Punk Rock Loser are kitsch in their bawdiness, driving grooves that mimic the glory years of Skins parties and indie discos, but with a steelier political edge. With 2022 album Cave World taking on broad themes of pandemic-era vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theory, they dedicate Troglodyte to “the fucking right wing, fucking everything up”, drawing enormous cheers. With a ch-ch-ch-ch hook that echoes that of My Sharona, it ignites the masses and everything from here in on is an easy win.
Sports is still their best known banger – chanting through the mundanities of chest-puffed toxic masculinity as Murphy delivers illustrative wheezing press ups – but they close on a version of Research Chemicals which quickly turns so feral that half the band are in the crowd, a dustbowl cloud forms from all the dancing, and one particular lad down the front starts throwing his own toddler high in the air, health and safety protocols be damned. As chants of “one more song, one more song” are bellowed but ultimately not met, the energy is, quite frankly, insatiable.
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Yusuf/Cat Stevens reviewed
Alexis Petridis’s review of Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ ‘Sunday legend’ performance is in, and he found it quite the tonic …
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Speakers Corner Quartet reviewed!
West Holts, 4pm
For an hour or so this afternoon the West Holts stage is transformed into the dimly lit bar in Brixton where Speakers Corner Quartet hold court, inviting jazz, soul and spoken word artists to follow them down the rabbit hole. The quartet’s debut album, 17 years in the making, is followed here by a victory lap performance where many of their long term collaborators – Tirzah, Shabaka Hutchings, Kae Tempest, Joe-Armon Jones – make an appearance in an unceasing conveyor belt of British talent.
Befitting this assemblage of characters is a wildly varied set, each song generously deferring to the characteristics of its collaborator. Hutchings’ propulsive free jazz saxophone is backed by a swirling, hypnotic composition, while Tirzah’s unconventionally accented, whispered alt-soul vocals are given a delicate, respectful backing and Coby Sey’s barked spoken word is supported by a doomy repeated riff.
But it’s the track featuring Tempest, Geronimo Blues, that truly spellbinds, the swirl of strings and flutes building alongside the rise and fall of their stirring spoken word pronouncements. Afterwards Tempest, in a rousing speech, underlined the importance of music and community in fractious times. Speakers Corner Quartet are surely proof of that.
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Toyah and Robert Fripp reviewed!
Acoustic stage, 4.10pm
Fresh from their popular pandemic covers series, husband-and-wife duo Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp appear on the misleadingly named Acoustic stage for a set of songs by artists that either the pop star or the King Crimson guitarist have worked with. Willcox, 65 and lithe in a glossy red catsuit, beckons their six-piece, besuited band (with Fripp front and center) to open with a fiery version of her hit Thunder in the Mountains. “We thought we were in the heavy metal tent, I’m really sorry,” she says afterwards, before shouting out her Birmingham hometown and fellow Brummies Black Sabbath. “This is our acoustic version,” she jokes of the next track, jerking and twisting her body as the band launch into a pummelling, and very much electric, rendition of Paranoid.
The set is unambiguously geared towards members of their generation, with rock sing-a-long standards paired with entreaties to remember one’s first detention or first kiss. Often Willcox plays up to her rock-chick status, making explicit her own active sex life. “I’ve been married to this hunk for 37 years; in fact he’s 77’ years of pure rock sex,” she says of Fripp, who is in headphones, seated on a black block beside her, with a tablet presumably displaying his guitar tablature. He smiles benignly. “Now going to the other side of the spectrum, let’s go to my pop career.”
She flings herself into Martha and the Muffins’ Echo Beach, and the mostly pentagenarian or over crowd ramp up from swaying hips to appreciative bobs, holding aloft phones in card-wallet cases. It is swiftly followed by her own It’s a Mystery, which she heralds as having soundtracked everything from detentions to conceptions. “Oh my God, this man is so cool,” gushes Willcox again of her impassive husband. “And I made him breakfast this morning. I’m so glad I slept with a guitarist!” The gusto and energy of her performance unsettlingly contrast the brisk and functional band, like she’s hogging the mic at karaoke for rock hits from Metallica to Neil Young – but the crowd reciprocate her energy with equal enthusiasm.
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Here’s the view from Blondie from two different angles, down at the Pyramid stage…
And from the Park stage.
Up at Blondie, they’ve done a keytar-centric rendition of Call Me, Debbie has now removed her visor, and given some insight on putting the setlist together. “We gotta get those phone songs outta the way early, because none of it is relevant today.”
Jury’s still out on Britney appearing with Elton, but …
Elton John's team just performed a soundcheck at Glastonbury. As one mic was being tested, a member of the crew said: "One, two, one two. Rina mic, one, two."
— Mark Savage (@mrdiscopop) June 25, 2023
So is that @rinasawayama confirmed for the Pyramid Stage tonight?
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We try to plan our reviews and editing shifts so no one has to miss anything they’re desperate to see, though there’s usually one casualty of the schedule. For me it’s Blondie, who sound great even coming through the cabin window.
Inevitably, it’s even better out there, says Keza: “Debbie Harry ROCKING IT in thigh highs and a kind of RoboCop visor. Hangin’ on the Telephone sounds huge even from the top of the hill.”
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And here’s Dylan B Jones’s account of his attempts to face off against the inevitable Glastonbury filth. Years ago a friend told me to always shower before bed, no matter if it’s 6am and you’re feeling somewhat “refreshed”, which has always served me well. Saying that, I just touched the back of my head and realised there’s a bird’s nest going on back there, so who knows how aesthetically effective it is …
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Ahead of Elton John later, here’s Rich Pelley’s attempt to live like him at Glastonbury …
And here’s the view from the front of the Pyramid stage as people camp out waiting for John to play …
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A few updates from the field: Viagra Boys just dedicated their song Troglodyte to the “fucking right wing, fucking everything up, especially here in Europe”. Very different to the vibes at Cat Stevens’ legends slot, where Father and Son set off a lot of happy-sad tears. Meanwhile during Speakers Corner Quartet, Kae Tempest called for everyone to hold onto community, music and Glastonbury. “This is a special place, hallowed ground, we used to break into this fucking place,” they say.
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Cat Burns reviewed!
Woodsies, 3.30pm
Buzzy TikTok-famous singer-songwriter Cat Burns has a pretty fanatical young fanbase, but it doesn’t look like much of it is here for her heartfelt bedroom-pop songs today. There’s a decent-sized crowd but you can hear them chattering over her sparse, emotive guitar and emotionally naked lyrics. She sings about young-people stuff – breakups of all kinds from toxic to healthy, romantic to friendship; jealousy; mental health; finding yourself – in a way that is universally relatable but oddly non-specific.
Halfway through the set she does a cover medley of Ed Sheeran’s A Team and Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself, which makes me feel 1,000 years old. She channels those artists a bit on a new song about “not being chosen”, and suddenly we get a much bigger sound from her: “I’m entering my pop-rock era,” she tells us. “Just once every so often, when I’m feeling a bit different.”
She’s super confident up there in a slouchy blazer with rolled-up sleeves and shorts, chatting breezily, totally unfazed by the occasion. People Pleaser is an easy clappable singalong; Love More serves up anthemic if bland positivity (“If there’s something you want to do, just do it – don’t let your head stop your heart from moving”); and her giant slow-burn hit Go closes the set. Only now, for these final songs, do the audience feel truly enthused. “Four years ago I was busking on the South Bank, singing for my supper, and now I’m here,” she says. She seems determined to go further.
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The site is abuzz with people convinced that Elton John will be bringing out Britney Spears later to perform their updated club version of Tiny Dancer. Shaad spoke to some people camped out at the main stage who swore blind she was coming; there are already any number of clickbait articles piecing together “clues” from Spears’ Instagram, where she recently mentioned coming to London to go shopping and shared images of [checks notes] an apple that may or may not be cut into the shape of the St George’s flag? A painting of a McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish next to a rose captioned with three Union Jacks??? Plus there are the entirely unconfirmed “reports” of her being spotted at Bristol airport doing the rounds. Personally I think it’s really unlikely – Spears was anxious enough about the recording of Tiny Dancer coming out and hasn’t performed live since 2018 – much as I’d love to see it.
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Black Country, New Road reviewed!
West Holts, 2pm
It’s testament to the originality, musicianship and emotional wallop of Black Country, New Road that they can draw a crowd this big for a set of what is essentially long-form prog-folk songs, without any of the tracks that made them famous.
They play the whole of the set that features in their recent live album Live at Bush Hall, plus a couple of new songs: one a rather meandering one helmed by Georgia Ellery (also of Jockstrap) singing and playing mandolin, the other absolutely terrific, based around a fiendishly intricate and beautiful melody and a vocal from bassist Tyler Hyde.
In the wake of vocalist Isaac Wood leaving, the singing is split between four members and each has their appeal – but it’s Hyde who has the most affecting moments. On this new song she creates the sense of coming to terms with something in real time, while on Laughing Song she sings “I have accepted that no one else will make me laugh like that”, adding a crushed little “ever again” after the band has gone silent. The weather broods and fusses, unsure of whether to rain.
Dressed in the manner of every generation of art student – clothes so rejected and uncool that they go round the other side and become cool again – the band has some hideous ties and three-quarter length shorts on display here. There’s also a lovely sense of camaraderie as four of them huddle together, hug and chat while Ellery and pianist-vocalist May Kershaw perform pristine ballad Turbines/Pigs.
It’s also wonderful to see them moving around masterfully between vocal duties and instruments: drummer Charlie Wayne picks up a banjo, say, while singer Lewis Evans toggles between sax and flute. Songs will drift or waltz around before ramping into crescendoes, some of them violently intense. Dancers ends with Wayne screaming down his mic, and he gives Turbines/Pigs a pummelling climax totally at odds with the delicacy of Kershaw and Ellery’s earlier passages, while I Won’t Always Love You goes almost math-rock in its colliding banks of noise. There’s room, though, for some traditional festival fist-pumping on Across the Pond Friend. The large audience – who have been almost silent during the quietest moments, amazing for a crowd of this size – seem totally beguiled by this singular band.
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Keza is up at Cat Burns, who “has just covered Ed Sheeran’s A Team into Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself – really baiting gen Z here.”
The Chicks reviewed!
Pyramid stage, 1.30pm
The Chicks (FKA the Dixie Chicks) filled my own personal legends slot, no disrespect to Blondie. They haven’t played the UK since 2016 and had to delay the tour for their 2020 comeback album Gaslighter for obvious reasons. During that time they’ve also been reclaimed by a generation who were kids in 2003 when the band were blacklisted and pilloried by the US country industry, and had protestors burning their CDs outside their shows, after singer Natalie Maines said the Texan trio were ashamed to be from the same state as George W Bush following the invasion of Iraq. Beyoncé invited them to perform her song Daddy Lessons live at the Country Music awards in 2016, and in-demand pop whisperer Jack Antonoff produced their brilliant comeback record, which assessed Maines’s divorce in cutting detail. In hindsight, that blacklisting was evidently nothing other than rank misogyny by an industry keen to cut some exceedingly powerful women off at the knees – before they come on, the compere reminds us they’re the biggest-selling all-women band ever – and the Chicks’ return to their rightful stature validates the message that courses through their music about women’s righteous (and often deliciously vengeful) pursuit of freedom.
Maines and sisters Emily Strayer on banjo and Martie Maguire on fiddle absolutely blaze on with Sin Wagon (“He pushed me around / Now I’m drawin’ the line”), a baller, blaring workout that blows your hair back and shakes out the Sunday cobwebs. It’s an epic in five minutes, the trio backed by a crack six-piece band who ground them so that their radiant vocal harmonies and intricate musicianship can fly. In this heat, you’d pass out if you kept playing at that pace, and they cool the tempo for the poppy Gaslighter, one of several shots at Maines’ ex-husband delivered with tartness and no small enduring amount of rage: “Boy, I know exactly what you did on my boat,” she sasses, a detail that’s only more delicious when you know that she gave him the boat as a present … and it’s called the Natalie Maines. (The song has a wider resonance, too: one woman near us waves a homemade banner that reads “Rishi Sunak is a gaslighter.”)
You have to be a phenomenally tight unit to be this versatile, and the Chicks’ wistful older songs – Wide Open Spaces, Cowboy Take Me Away, both longing for opportunity of different kinds – sound gorgeous, prompting mass singalongs. And the crowd is impressively huge, given the UK’s long antipathy towards country music.
The end of the set skews spikier: Tights on My Boat is another comic shot at Maines’ ex that comes with visuals of a naked Putin riding a unicorn; White Trash Wedding is a ferocious hootenanny; and their cover of Daddy Lessons is a cool flex, backed by intimate visuals of the band rehearsing the song with Beyoncé.
The closing run threatens to undersell the Chicks’ innate power by being over literal. For Pride month, they cover Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus’s Rainbowland – a nice gesture but a terrible track. March March works better live than on record, where it’s a well-meaning but all-purpose protest song; live, there are powerful visuals of historic freedom fighters, at one point overlaid by the names of hundreds of Black people killed by police, and the performance is all the better for how sombrely the group play it. More striking is the winking subtext in going from the flagrantly political March March to Not Ready to Make Nice, their original refusal to apologise for the Bush fallout. Rain clouds close in overnight, accentuating its message of wounded pride. The message is clear: you can’t keep the Chicks down. Their closing song, the gleefully taunting Goodbye Earl – about a woman killing her cheating husband by poisoning his beans – suggests you’d be very silly to try.
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CMAT reviewed!
Woodsies, 12.30pm
All across the weekend, mysterious stickers have been appearing in the longdrops, promising the rather iconic pairing of CMAT and BRITNEY SPEARS. Spears does not actually show up (maybe she’s saving it for Elton, as is the rumour on site), but it’s solid promo for an impressive showcase of the Irish singer’s playful humour and hearty affection for a cowboy motif.
While her music is entirely different to that of Self Esteem, there’s a similar feeling of communal giddiness in the tent as there was for Rebecca Taylor’s set in here last year: working-class guys, gals and non-binary pals who are thrilled to have found an artist who properly feels like one of them, revelling in all the same pop culture references and self-deprecation. “I’ve been here since Tuesday! And I don’t have a UTI! Here’s a fucking banger!”
CMAT was raised on a diet of Dolly and Dolores O’Riordan, and her vocal trills sound excellent, rarely faltering in spite of all the horseplay: a snatch of ballroom dancing with her bandmates; sliding into the splits on Peter Bogdanovich; a slow-tease removal of her tasselled sequin jacket to reveal a bold vest with another slogan: “CMAT IS A SILLY BITCH”.
The older material makes for a happy bob-along but the double-header of No More Virgos and rooting-tooting new single Have Fun! are the real gems, and a brilliant indicator of her knack for raunchy alt-pop that still feels fit for daytime radio. “I bet some of youse are like ‘Nah, I only came here cos the Guardian told us to,’” she quips, when asking the crowd if they have another singalong in them. She’ll likely be too busy celebrating her biggest set to date to check in on this liveblog, but if she does, count this as a double dose of approval.
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The Guardian’s Glastonbury group chat just exploded with messages: “RAIN”, “THE RAIN IS COMING DOWN”, “THANK YOU JESUS”. Not sure if rain’s ever got a cheer at Glastonbury before, but it’s a relief after the beating heat (and may also help wash some of those gross little dusty suncream clods off our skin…).
Also hello, it’s Laura taking over from Gwilym for the afternoon.
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As promised, here’s that writeup of Mel C’s in convo with Laura Snapes earlier today. Lots of juicy tidbits here: she’s pushing hard for a Spice Girls Glastonbury appearance:
It’s a seriously stacked Pyramid stage lineup today. Yusuf/Cat Stevens next, then Blondie, then Lil Nas X and then, of course, Elton. Not bad for what was being framed as a quiet year after 2022’s 50th anniversary bonanza.
Earlier today Japanese Breakfast were supposed to play the Other stage, but a Trains, Planes and Automobiles-style misadventure meant that they didn’t make it in time. You have to feel for them:
Well Glasto… we hustled out of Luxembourg at 9 pm, woke for customs at 3 am, and again for a 6 am ferry, hired an additional driver to floor it for our 12:30 set and due to various travel delays out of our control we are just not able to make it in time. We are devastated.
— Japanese Breakfast (@Jbrekkie) June 25, 2023
I’ve always wanted to play Glastonbury and we did everything we could to be there. Hopefully we will be back for another year 💔
— Japanese Breakfast (@Jbrekkie) June 25, 2023
At Woodsies The Big Moon are having a lot of fun blasting through their 2016 single Cupid. Absolute belter of a chorus on that one.
On the Park, Belgian duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul are getting their outsider electropop thing on. One song just seems to be Adigéry maniacally cackling over a thudding beat … and I must say, I’m into it.
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Dark clouds over Worthy Farm: are we finally going to experience the first rain of the weekend? Whisper it, but a few of us wouldn’t mind a bit of the clear stuff to break up this stiflingly humid weather.
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Over at West Holts, Black Country, New Road are making a right old avant garde racket. For my money, they’re the lesser of the oddball Brit newcomer bands with Black in their name – losing out, just about, to Black Midi – but never a dull proposition.
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When he’s not blasting out sick beats on the Park stage (see 12.17pm), Fatboy Slim is busy taking aim at the government’s ban of onsite festival drugs testing, reports Home affairs editor Rajeev Syal:
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Coming soon is our report on Mel C in conversation with the Guardian’s Laura Snapes, but here’s a juicy morsel to get you going:
Mel is still insanely active – she tells us she busted out eight pull-ups at the gym the other day (close-grip, fitness enthusiasts). Around the time she released her first solo album, she wanted to distance herself from the idea of Sporty Spice – but lately she has come to realise that it’s just who she is. “I was always dressing in sportswear… a lot of girl bands had co-ordinated outfits for everyone, but for us, someone always looked and felt uncomfy,” she says. “At rehearsal Emma was always in a babydoll dress, I was in tracksuits, Victoria was more posh … we looked in the mirror and thought, why don’t we just wear what we wear? I realised before our 2019 tour, I am Sporty Spice! It’s not something I become, or something I put on. It’s who I am. Not my entire self, but part of it.”
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Spotted during the Chicks’ performance of Gaslighter:
Beth Orton reviewed
West Holts, 12.30pm
Her fame may have waned since she was the music most reached for during mid-late 90s comedowns, but Beth Orton commands a large crowd early in the day. Her set is built around cuts from excellent recent album Weather Alive, its dark mood lifted a little in the sunshine by a five-piece backing band that includes Portishead’s Adrian Utley guesting on guitar.
The title track is just as moonlit and dramatic as on record, played slightly slower but with an almost malevolent forward motion: a river at night with a cold current surging in its depths. But other songs from it are more buoyant – Fractals has an Afrobeat groove decorated with cute high-pitched plucked guitar - and she adds well-chosen highlights from what is now a large catalogue. Shopping Trolley has driving garage rock guitars, Central Reservation is done as ambient jazz, Someone’s Daughter gets a lilting reggae arrangement that perfectly fits West Holts, and a closing Stolen Car demonstrates how she so cleverly situates English folk in the uncaring bustle of contemporary life.
Throughout, she sings with a jazzy, conversational bent, letting ends of lines lapse into amused or bruised speech, and she still cuts through today’s generically lovely pop voices with her variously hurt, quizzical and naive cadences. You imagine there’ll be plenty trekking up the hill to the Crows Nest for a second set at 4pm.
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Over on the Other stage, pop-metal duo Nova Twins are delivering some rather more brutal riffs than The Chicks. It’s a joyful noise, and a deserved nudge up the lineup for the pair, after they ripped the roofs off a host of smaller venues at last year’s festival.
The Elton baseball jumpsuit is Sunday’s must-have Glasto fashion item. Here’s Laura Snapes with another sighting:
This gang of friends bought their outfits online, and point out that they’re very unofficial – rather than Dodgers, it says Dedgers on the front. They insist it’s not that hot in there (“it’s very reflective!”); what really was murder was dressing as Kylie for her legends slot, in gold hot pants, crop top and wig.
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Correction: The Chicks are on the iPlayer, and are indeed rocking insanely hard.
Still no live Sunday coverage on iPlayer, but Laura Snapes is currently watching The Chicks on the Pyramid and reports that “they rock insanely hard … blowing my hair back”
Understandably, there has been a lot of focus on the male-heavy Pyramid headliners this year. But female musicians at the festival have been defending Emily Eavis for her bookings this year, reports Josh Halliday:
Skinny Pelembe reviewed
West Holts, 11am
Predictably enough, with his heritage spanning Johannesburg and Doncaster, you can’t plot singer-songwriter Skinny Pelembe on to the genre map – one minute he’s recalling the gooseflesh trip-hop of Tricky, the next the performance poetry of Kae Tempest, the next the groovy, bluesy alt-rock of Spoon.
There are moments where his songwriting lapses into mood music, without hooks to anchor the ruminating craft. But a central solo section of that rhythmic spoken-word flows, is riveting, and out the other side comes a series of superb tracks from recent album Hardly the Same Snake. Charabanc has his finest melody, searching up and down like a curious bird, paired with spaghetti western guitar; should-be-hit Like a Heart Won’t Beat is powered by the pounding chords of two backup pianists (a man in the crowd starts enthusiastically air-drumming with a kitchen whisk). Pelembe’s voice contains multitudes: sexily resonant depth but also a baleful bark, and he bitterly rants “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish” again and again for an impressively anti-feelgood ending.
When we interviewed him earlier this year he proudly showed our writer his name on the Glasto lineup on his phone, and he looks moved to be finally stood on this stage; his magnetic presence pins to the turf everyone who wanders up.
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The latest of our rather dashing Glastonbury picture essays is all about Saturday at the festival, featuring streakers, rappers, rockers, Maggie Rogers and Roses (of the Guns N’ variety):
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Sophie Ellis-Bextor reviewed
Pyramid stage, 12.15pm
It’s a breezy start to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s set, shimmying on to the Pyramid stage in an elaborately fringed golden leotard to sing Take Me Home. She understands her position on the bill as effectively the warm-up for Glastonbury day three, easing the crowd into the final day of music: “Let’s just have the best day ever, shall we?”
Before her third song, Ellis-Bextor reveals it’s an auspicious day for herself: her wedding anniversary. Her husband Richard is in fact playing bass on stage today: “I have been married for 18 years today, and he’s pretty amazing.” She got him a nice card, he got her a ring, and so she dedicates the song Young Blood to him. It’s clearly a bit slow for the audience, but they permit her the sentimental moment in exchange for Get Over You with its memorable refrain of “eye-eye-eye”.
Ellis-Bextor goes from nearly two decades happily married to coquettish, coaxing more energy out of the faded audience: “I’ve been very seduced by you this morning … Let’s have a romantic time away?” And with that she launches into a stripped-back version of Lady and then the classic Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) by Spiller. Having properly warmed up, we’re into dance-medley mode, leading into a brief cover of Moloko’s Sing It Back and “straight to the flippin’ discotheque” with another cover, of Crying at the Discotheque by Alcazar. These songs are familiar and midtempo, but kindly not asking too much of us in the audience as we slide and maybe shimmy gingerly, into the rest of the day.
SEB then reveals it’s even more of a family affair for her on stage today: her brother is also playing in her band and one of her five kids is pictured on the screen behind her. (“FIVE kids?” I hear at least three people behind exclaim.) Ellis-Bextor’s musical family was a key part in her success through lockdown with her weekly virtual Kitchen Discos, which she references both on her bass drum (where ordinarily her name might be) and a “love letter” to the audience: a laidback but welcome Like a Prayer. Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer) is the most-electrified, high-energy part of Ellis-Bextor’s set, by which point she’s woken the crowd up, even getting them to jump for the finale.
“Glastonbury: have I done my job?” she says winningly. “Are you ready for the last day of the best festival on earth? My boobs haven’t popped out, so that’s a bonus!” (This prompts some boos.) Of course the final song is the gorgeously shimmery, aloof Murder on the Dancefloor: we might just be ready to burn this goddamn house right down.
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Juicy secret set revealed: Beth Orton is playing the glorious Crow’s Nest at 4pm. Don’t all head there at once: our sub-editor John-Paul wants to get a good spot.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Pyramid stage set sounds like it is going down a storm, mainly because she’s wisely peppered it with other people’s songs. We’ve just had Moloko’s Sing it Back and Madonna’s Like a Prayer, along with an obligatory Groovejet. Annoyingly the BBC have decided against livestreaming it on the iPlayer, so you’ll just have to trust us on this one. Amazing oufit too!
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Elton mania!
Armed with sun cream, glitter and sequins, Elton John superfans have camped out in front of the Pyramid stage for a prime position – 11 hours before the star is due to perform.
Thomas Lewis, 22, had bought a replica of Elton’s famous 1970s baseball jumpsuit from Amazon for the occasion. “I’m a massive fan. I’ve grown up with his music because my parents always had him on and I’ve never seen him before,” he said.
Lewis, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, had secured a prime spot at the front barriers of the famous Pyramid stage by 10am – a position he was determined to keep for the rest of the day.
“I was very committed once I found out he was playing. I’m going to drink just enough to stay hydrated but not so much that I keep having to go to the toilet. It’s gonna be tough but I’m sure it will be worth it.”
Temperatures at Worthy Farm were already a balmy 25C by midday after one of the hottest Glastonbury festivals of recent years.
Kerry Robinson, 53, and her husband, Dean Robinson, 60, had planted their camping chairs and coolbag in front of the Pyramid stage by 11am and had a carefully devised strategy for keeping their spot.
“We’ve both taken an Imodium so we don’t need to go to the toilet,” said Kerry. “But if we do need the toilet we’ll go in a relay.”
The pair said they had a plentiful supply of drinks to keep them going, but only limited food to avoid a trip to the putrid-smelling long drops.
“I’m a bit apprehensive because of the weather but we’ve got suncream, hats, drinks, cool bag,” said Kerry, from Sheffield. “I’d rather hydrate and starve.”
A capacity crowd of more than 100,000 people will see what is billed as Elton’s last UK live show on Sunday night. He had promised four special guests, with rumours of appearances by Britney Spears, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles and Dua Lipa.
You can’t accuse Glasto of being slow on the hot cinema releases; a showing of Wes Anderson’s new one Asteroid City has just begun at Pilton Palais, while there’s a cheeky preview of the Wham film before it comes to Netflix on 5 July.
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In Broken Bloody Britain news, Tobi Thomas reports that Glastogoers have been seeking out dental appointments at the festival because they’re unable to get them at home.
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Last night’s most dramatic moment came when Lana Del Rey’s Other stage headline set was abruptly cut off after the pop eccentric turned up half an hour late. It prompted boos from the audience and Lana to attempt an a capella performance to the front row of the crowd. You can read all about that wild moment here, and a five-star review of her performance from Shaad D’Souza here.
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Angeline Morrison reviewed
Acoustic stage, 11.30am
It’s a little late in the weekend to be discovering hidden gems, but the Acoustic tent (tucked up right behind the kids field) is an absolute revelation, the perfect space to zen out. Angeline Morrison is an equally delightful discovery; folk songs that strike a balance between gentle encouragement and thoughtful catharsis. In her own words: “If you’re feeling tired or worn out or fragile or in need of a good cry, I can help you with that.”
She begins with an a capella lullaby, which she explains was sung by enslaved African women, soothing their white masters’ children. It sets the tone for her set, decolonising the white-washed literature of the genre by taking us back through the annals of musical history and illuminating untold stories.
Clouds Never Move – written after George Floyd’s murder, and in defiance against the stubborn ignorances of the world – is played on a gorgeous kalimba, while Cruel Mother Country tells a story of Queen Charlotte (a la Bridgerton), fabled to have once been the Queen of England. It’s a haunting country ballad of the families that might have been, the black bodies lost to war over centuries of unrest. It would be a mistake to call this easy listening, but in her academic approach, Morrison proves that racial education and musical activism can come in many elegant forms.
Our Simon Hattenstone has been spending the last few days chinwagging with Glasto’s great and good, to hear about their most surprising festival moments. Read these juicy insights from Debbie Harry, Billy Bragg and the always-quotable Alison Goldfrapp:
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Fatboy Slim reviewed
Before we get to today’s performers, here’s a late review from last night: Norman Cook tearing up The Park …
The Park, Saturday 11pm
Norman Cook has long since become an institution at Worthy Farm, always popping up on some far-flung stage at the festival every year (he was over on the Levels stage on Friday night). It’s less common for him to play one of the traditional Big Five stages, so this Park headline slot feels like an event. That’s evidenced by the gigantic crowd that has formed around the undulating hills of the Park area, craning to get a look at their returning hero. In truth it’s a little too busy, and you wonder whether in future organisers might consider putting him somewhere bigger.
Still, that discomfort aside, Cook’s set proves a crowd-pleaser. This was his chance to celebrate his own storied career, not to mention the history of dance music at the festival. So along with clever twists on Right Here, Right Now and Cook’s remix of Brimful of Asha, there are nods to old school classics like Wildchild’s Renegade Master and a lovely tribute to Faithless’s late singer Maxi Jazz. Playfulness is the name of the game here, with cheeky splicings together of The Rockafeller Skank and Eminem’s My Name Is, and Cook at one point donning an inflatable fat suit in the manner of his You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby cover.
The undoubted showstopper though is a reworked Praise You, slowed down and made somehow more soulful, with a special guest turn from Rita Ora. It underlines Cook’s ability once again to make something fresh from vintage parts. It’s what makes him No 1 – because he tries harder.
The last dance
Good afternoon from Worthy Farm, where we’re readying ourselves for the final day of Glastonbury 2023. It’s a scorcher once again, but our reviewers have slapped on some factor 30 and are out in the field ready to bring you reviews of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Beth Orton, Japanese Breakfast and much more besides. Let’s gooooo!
