Glastonbury 2025 reviews, Sunday: The Libertines, The Maccabees, Wolf Alice, Turnstile and Joy Crookes
★★☆☆☆
The Libertines, once the fumey and bromantic rebels of the Noughties indie-rock scene, step onto Glastonbury's Pyramid stage in their own little world. Doherty, shorn of both his former bad-boy image and (wisely) the moustache he'd been sporting earlier this year, looks characteristically ramshackle at least, while Carl Barât, the band's other vocalist, is faintly preposterous in a wide-brimmed hat and rhinestoned jacket.
It's a breezy set, and noticeably better when they're pulling from their early catalogue. The material Doherty and co have released since the band's 2014 reunion is patchier, and draws a more muted reaction from the crowd. 'Night of the Hunter', and 'Shiver' from last year's All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, for instance, pass by rather forgettably.
When The Libertines oblige the audience with a look back into the long-set sun – wheeling out classics such as 'What Became of the Likely Lads', or 'Time for Heroes' – it's with mixed results.
'Can't Stand Me Now', often a highlight, gets a rather anaemic outing here. I'll say this, at least: I've seen The Libertines be far, far worse. Louis Chilton
★★★★☆
There is making a Glastonbury effort, and then there is coming dressed as a roadside flag up to the Sacred Space. Joy Crookes's spectral, sumptuous soul vocal drifts across some laid back trip-hop and the south London songbird emerges draped in pink and green scarves, here to add some vivid colour to a typically hazy Sunday.
If a loping 'Carmen' and'Feet Don't Fail Me Now' pander to sore heads and tender hearts, a sizzle-heavy 'Pass the Salt' is out to induce psychedelic flashbacks to the wild West Holts night before.
Once we're suitably roused, 'Perfect Crime' raises the pop pace and 'Don't Let Me Down', largely solo and soulful on guitar, and a devastatingly stark 'Forever' – dedicated to 'the people of Palestine in this moment of genocide' – prove that any New Amy plaudits are well deserved. A Joy indeed. Mark Beaumont
★★★★★
With exactly the right energy for a Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury when crowds are starting to wilt, Turnstile show a raucous Other Stage why they deserve their current success.
Hardcore bands rarely cross over but 2025's NEVER ENOUGH has seen Turnstile catapulted from niche interest to chart-bothering somebodies and TikTok trend-setters.
Frontman Brendan Yates oozes charisma while the sea of bodies who jump, leap on each other's shoulders and rock out on command do so with reverent but chaotic fervour.
Turnstile's music is tender but somewhere between powerful and violent, clearly a feeling that some people have been crying out for: the faces in the crowd caught on camera are by turns sad, thrilled and furious. A chaotic, emotional and unbelievably fun set that leaves the crowd reenergised and ready for a final night of fun. Kate Solomon
★★★★☆
A huge moment for London's favourite indie darlings Wolf Alice in the last of the Glastonbury sunshine. Since they signed to a major label for their forthcoming album, The Clearing, the styling, sound and energy of the band has had a leg up.
Has frontwoman Ellie Rowsell's been having lessons in frontwomaning? She's electric as she strikes a pose with a megaphone, belts out the rockier songs like she's furious at you specifically and even as she takes a tearful second during 2021 fave 'How Can I Make It Ok?' to process the size of the crowd (massive) and the moment (huge).
Wolf Alice shine on their ballads – the rockier songs come with a lot of energy but they lack something the slower ones effortlessly have. But the band clearly understand the Glastonbury assignment and deliver a set brimming with star power. KS
★★★★★
'We never thought we'd be playing these songs again to anybody,' says Felix White as the reformed Maccabees make a long-wished-for and highly emotional return to Avalon.
It's like no time has passed; they pile into 'Latchmere', 'X-Ray' and 'Precious Time' with every gigawatt of their formative electricity still pulsing, and return to headline status just as the febrile atmospherics of 'No Kind Words' and 'Pelican' become the alt-rock standard.
A celebratory night is capped by Florence Welch's appearance for 'Dog Days are Over', but The Maccabees' dog days might just have arrived. MB
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