Key events
Jessie Ware reviewed!
Jason Okundaye
West Holts, 10.15pm
Overheard at Glastonbury “Jessie Ware? She’s Jessie everywhere!” Ouch – although it’s not a sentiment shared by the enthused fans who flock to the West Holt stage for the popstar-cum-podcaster-cum-author’s set, opting for Ware over Disclosure and headline set Coldplay. These schedule clashes mean that the crowd for Ware isn’t enormous, but that’s no dampener on the spirits of a singer who has fully embraced a shift in her audience demographic following a departure from more soulful, R&B tracks to the funky, disco, house grooves of 2020 album What’s Your Pleasure, and 2023’s Mercury-prize nominated That! Feels Good!
Stepping out by welcoming the audience to “the Pearl”, Ware performs the title track of her last album wearing a sparkling, caped red jumpsuit that lends a luxurious showbiz vibe to proceedings. She announces herself as “mother of pearl” – in tribute to voguing culture – and this is her house. The show has an unapologetically sexy, hot-blooded vibe. Two flamboyant male dancers in tank tops accompany Ware while carrying trumpets, one of them placing the instrument to his crotch and thrusting as she sings: “Sugar and salt and then lick that lime / A lick, lick, lick, lick, then get in line.” The cheeky, innuendo-laden songs come back-to-back with Shake the Bottle, Ooh La La, and Pearls, and in seasoned diva mode Ware describes her philosophy as “pleasure is a right”.
There’s no doubt that Ware’s disco reinvention has earned her a strong queer following. Behind me a man ix carrying a flag pole which is lit up with all the colours of the rainbow. There’s space made for queer culture on stage too: those tank topped dancers gyrate with each other, and there’s a dance break for voguing. Ware brings a high camp energy too, telling the crowd: “I believe the Pearl can do this, let me have a quick swig of a drink!”
For Ware, performing on the West Holts stage is a victory built on a long relationship with the festival. She digs into her own personal lore of sneaking off backstage to meet Beth Ditto, and being a backing singer for her best friend Jack Peñate. She expresses repeated gratitude for making her way up to top of the West Holts stage. It’s a sweet moment, then, when she brings out friend Romy for a “Glastonbury exclusive”, a debut of their brand new track Lift Me Up and the two look enamoured with one another (the song isn’t very good, but that feels by the by in this celebratory context). The crowd are enamoured with Ware too. She doesn’t forget the music she made her name on, telling us that before she became a disco diva she “used to be the fucking mid-tempo queen” and belting out ballad Say You Love Me.
Ware’s performances have the feeling of a residency: you can imagine her doing this night and night again because she’s so comfortable. The audience hang on to her every word and instruction too – when she sings Beautiful People and tells the crowd to “stand up, turn, take a bow” the whole field moves in unison. She knows her references, too – playing C’hantal’s house classic The Realm before a costume change and rounding off the set with a cover of Cher’s Believe, followed by her own banger Free Yourself, and then exiting on Candi Stanton’s Young Hearts Run Free. It exudes feel-good warmth: Ware has clearly had the time of her life, and her well-earned ubiquity conjures a vision of a world it would be quite lovely to live in.
As Alexis writes his Coldplay review next to me, some visions from the past few hours, including Romy appearing with Jessie Ware during her West Holts headline set to perform their new song, Lift You Up, and Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg watching Coldplay. Really wonder what they talked about.
Elle Hunt marches into the cabin: “FIVE STARS! WHAT A SHOW! I BELIEVE IN HUMANITY!”
Ben Beaumomt-Thomas: “Reminder: this is a work environment! Keep your effusive Coldplay enthusiasms to yourself!”
Disclosure reviewed!
Safi Bugel
Other, 10.30pm
When Disclosure last took on Glastonbury’s Other stage it was 2015, they had just put out two chart-topping records, which bridged the gap between the underground and the mainstream with a winning blend of pumping live electronics and big name vocal features. Though they’ve released much of the same ilk in the time since, the duo have struggled to uphold that initial impact.
Much to the delight of tonight’s sprawling crowd of sequin-adorned, bucket-hat wearing millennials, their return show is a high-energy tour through their glory days, from the groovy deep house banger F for You and matey-boy anthem When Fire Starts to Burn to the dreamy, bubbling White Noise, all of which is given an extra punch with live percussion, swirling synthesisers and a bit of boisterous hosting. Up on stage, Disclosure seem to be just as thrilled: “We’re absolutely fucking hyped to be back! Couldn’t be fucking happier.”
In true headliner fashion, they pack in a few surprises throughout the set: a rendition of Faithless’s big room classic Insomnia goes down a treat, as does a guest appearance from Sam Smith. It may all lean hard on the nostalgia factor, but sometimes in a big, cold field surrounded by all your mates that’s exactly what you want.
Gossip reviewed!
Tim Jonze
Woodsies, 10.30pm
“I’m Chris Martin,” announces a woman who looks decidedly not like Chris Martin, before launching into a quick burst of Yellow.
Maybe the Coldplay frontman has a radical new look – black leotard, heels and a bright orange hairdo – or perhaps this is just Gossip acknowledging the reality here. “I know y’all had a choice of acts to see tonight,” says singer Beth Ditto to what is still a fairly sizeable crowd. “I’m actually surprised you came here!”
Gossip are here to reward the dedicated hardcore with a set that fizzes with disco-punk energy from the moment they open with Listen Up, through the uplifting piano soul of Love Long Distance and the wiry riffs of Your Mangled Heart. The latter song ends with a special Glastonbury-appropriate coda: “There’s more of us than there is of them.”
Between each song Ditto embarks on endearingly long anecdotes, spinning her delightful southern belle accent around stories about the length of her tits (yes really), her snotty cold and how she met guitarist Nathan Howdeshell when she was an uncool 13-year-old.
It’s almost 20 years since Gossip made an unlikely crossover into the mainstream with their hit Standing in the Way of Control. Back then it was utterly radical for a self professed “fat, feminist lesbian” from the punk underground to be appearing on the Jonathan Ross show and gatecrashing the charts. But even two decades later, with their punkier edges sanded down a little and more emphasis placed on Ditto’s soulful pipes, the band still seem unlike anyone else (unless Coldplay’s drummer is also currently topless save for some tit tape?).
Their signature song brings the house down and an overwhelmed Ditto – who one song previously was in floods of tears – is in her element, additionally screaming the lyrics of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and raising her middle finger to oppressive governments. The crowd remain long after she’s gone, singing the refrain to Standing in the Way of Control. There’s nowhere else they’d sooner be.
And the conclusion is brand new single Feelslikeimfallinginlove, a classic slab of latter-day Coldplay (meets producer Max Martin) euphoria that’s rich with bonhomie and optimism, while the performance ends with a blast of fireworks and the words “believe in love” projected on the sides of the Pyramid stage. Depending on your levels of cynicism your mileage may have varied on Coldplay’s headline set – the generalities of their humanist sentiment might seem a little imprecise for this particularly acute moment in history – but their guests and now decades-old hits undeniably met the headliner brief.
From the field, Elle Hunt says: “I am in fact now fixed.” Get Coldplay on prescription, stat.
Chris Martin and Michael J Fox are doing Fix You together, Fox sitting in a wheelchair and playing a peach-coloured guitar, while the audience’s wristbands flash golden. What a gorgeous, heartstring-tugging moment.
Orbital reviewed!
Gwilym Mumford
Park stage, 9.15pm
Orbital’s seventh appearance at Glastonbury was always going to be a biggie, marking the 30th anniversary of their first appearance at the festival, when they bashed the walls down between dance and guitar music by playing at an otherwise rock-focused event. A straight DJ set was never going to quite cut the mustard on such a grand occasion. Luckily though they had some starry help.
First up was Tilda Swinton, following up last year’s Park appearance in Max Richter’s devastating live reimagining Blue Notebooks suite. As with that performance, this was spoken word, with Swinton cooing mantras over early track Deeper. That though was merely a throat-clearer for the main event, as Mel C joined Orbital to perform vocals for Wannabe remix Spicy. Sporty, sporting the same torch spectacles as the dance duo as well as an oversized tracksuit, engaged in her own solo exercise class, practically somersaulting across the stage.
Orbital were always going to close with Chime, their breakthrough single and a landmark moment for UK dance when it was released in 1990. All that was left was for Swinton to end the show by telling the audience that she was going to “count down from five to 1, and you will awaken”. The spell was broken, but the dream was nice while it lasted.
Over at Disclosure on the Other stage, Sam Smith has come out to perform their 2013 collaboration Latch, says Safi Bugel (and I feel incredibly old, realising that was 11 years ago); meanwhile on the Park, Peggy Gou has brought Sophie Ellis-Bextor out for a remix of Murder on the Dancefloor.
Here’s the big thanks to their crew “and all the crews that have made all this possible”, Chris Martin says, as well as a crowd who have given him faith that “different humans can gather together”. He offers “five seconds of Glastonbury love” that the crowd can send to “Israel, you can send it to Palestine, you can send it to Ukraine, you can send it to peaceful Russia”, and the fireworks explode.
Then he hymns the band and the crowd in an ad-libbed song, riffing off the images of audience members that the camera alights on, such as a “bearded young fellow” – and then Michael Eavis, sitting under a blanket at the side of the stage, a “total 100% legend”, says Martin, before embarking on his brand new song: “Sir Michael, we just want to thank you, as humans go you’re the best of all sorts, you’re a musical charmer, you’re the world’s greatest farmer, and you do it all wearing shorts”.
Next up is another “legendary Michael” and it’s Michael J Fox, playing the guitar to a huge cheer (Fox recently released a documentary about living with Parkinson’s disease since he was 29 years old.) What started out as a little crowdpleasing and cheesy becomes unarguably profound.
Oh, take me back to the start: here’s the “where it all started” moment, as the band gathers around tight to play Sparks from their 2000 debut Parachutes. “Some of us are from around here,” says Chris Martin – West Country incest joke clearly forgotten!!! – and Glastonbury, which they’ve now headlined a record-breaking five times, has always represented “how we want to go out into the world”.
I think this is what they call “a bit”. During A Sky Full of Stars, Chris Martin stops the song to “have a quick meeting”, then addresses the audience: “My brothers, my sisters – actually, ‘cos we’re in the West Country, I should say my cousins” – as a west country native, I take exception to this incest joke – and then talks about getting us on each other’s shoulders so we can get as jacked as Peter Andre (???) and then encourages the audience to put their phones away as they restart the song. I would be enjoying this very pure moment were it not for the profound slight against my countrymen.
OH NO THE FIREWORKS ARE GOING OFF AGAIN! ARGH!
Here’s their 2021 collaboration with K-pop superstars BTS, in absentia: as Chris says, “they’re in the army right now [albeit still managing an impressive amount of solo careers] so we’re gonna sing all the way to Korea” – meanwhile images of the band are projected on the exterior of the Pyramid. “You are my universe” is a pretty straightforward – some might say bland – sentiment, but I can fully imagine that caught up in the euphoria of the field, combined with a few refreshments, stood next to the one you love, it suddenly sounds like the most profound revelation on earth.
“Everyone is an alien somewhere”, reads Chris Martin’s T-shirt, seemingly in a show of display for refugees; meanwhile the band’s very literal, very goofy goofy alien-come-robot masks and the jellyfish hanging from the rafters for their Chainsmokers collaboration Something Just Like This are quite Daft Punk meets seapunk. It’s easy to lampoon Coldplay for selling out to the EDM cheap seats with this chuntering 2017 track, but … I can’t claim I wouldn’t have wept, impromptu, were I in the audience (massive pop moments have an inexplicable propensity to make me burst into tears).
Here’s a gorgeous review of Little Simz’s majestic-sounding Pyramid stage set from Safi Bugel.
Stuart Godwin from our sport desk is in the crowd and has become acutely aware of the generational differences in the crowd for Coldplay: “I’ve now overheard two different people in separate bits of the Pyramid crowd say Paradise” – released in 2011 – “was the first song they ever downloaded. Just embalm me now, FFS.”
