The political climate at Glastonbury was not especially febrile
But that's just the tabloid hysteria talking – betraying also maybe a hint of envy towards those lucky enough to have bagged one of the £400 tickets. The truth is, the political climate was not especially febrile. Sure, the jaunty red, white, green and black of the Palestinian flag was very en vogue, but a few years back it was the blue and yellow of Ukraine and the EU. A few decades before that it was free Tibet. Flags of various communist regimes with questionable human rights records, meanwhile, dip in and out. Glastonbury is after all stuck in a time loop (they'll still be cursing Thatcher in 2050), and any chants and slogans are said more in provocation and out of a sense of mischief than bloodthirstiness. Scratch beneath the agitprop and all you'll find is a few Deloitte ESG consultants worried they might have misplaced their bag of MDMA on the day that Michael Bibi plays in Arcadia. The upper middle class yearn for a cause to salve that year's guilt about their lack of real-life anxieties. Remember that on Sunday Rod Stewart played to a huge crowd the day after endorsing Nigel Farage; tune-seeking minds are fickle.
Admittedly, the explicit on-stage rejection of politics from the 1975 singer Matty Healy provoked a curled lip from some fans: everyone who's used a dating app knows 'non-political' is code for secretly rightwing. Half their songs sound much the same, lapped up by teenage girls. But on the sadder ones – such as the internal rhyme-heavy 'Part of the Band' – Healy comes into his own, asking: 'Am I ironically woke? The butt of my joke?/ Or am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke/ Calling his ego imagination?' At the end of the set, we're left just as he wants us: uncertain whether his feline sexiness belies a wise tomcat impersonating a lapcat, or the other way around.
Playing a main stage at Glastonbury comes with pitfalls. Like gladiators in the Colosseum, it's not just about surviving, but getting a mass thumbs-up from the implacable mob. Some fall at the we-know-better hurdle (Guns N' Roses notably played lengthy deep cuts in 2023 that even diehard fans didn't know). Others never engage with the crowd besides the obligatory 'hello Glaston-berry'. Lorde's secret set was a bit of both, announcing to the crowd she would play the entirety of her new album (released that day) to the politest of polite whoops. With no one knowing the lyrics, the set fell flat until the final two songs, when we were rewarded for having eaten our broccoli.
To those who do the opposite, large dividends are paid. Pulp's (worst-kept) secret set saw their triumphant welcome back after years of rumours with a slew of hits and Jarvis Cocker squirming his way around the audience's hearts. British people like tea and dad dancing so why not throw teabags at them while writhing about? Charli XCX meanwhile managed to hoover up most of Saturday's punters. Turns out Brits also like party drugs and sex and songs about party drugs and sex. As she tore through Brat at breakneck speed, Charli's only crime was leaving those yearning for a special guest unsatisfied.
Yet the festival's most joyous set came from Nile Rodgers and Chic (I say this as someone who recoils from the word 'disco'). Imagine witnessing the best covers set you've ever seen ('We Are Family', 'Like A Virgin', 'Get Lucky', 'Let's Dance'), then realising they're not covers, and that seemingly every hit you know is written by the supremely cool man playing in front of you. The crowd was filled with those who knew how good they were having seen them before, and those who couldn't help but hear about it. If they were to play the same set every year, no one would complain.
Glastonbury is always derided for becoming too commercial, but where else would you be able to see members of former headlining legends such as the Chemical Brothers and Orbital play sets in the small hours so intimate I could stand right in front of them? (For the record, Phil Hartnoll sweats gallons). In the end the festival's most special moments and its fabled spirit come from an abundance of people working for the love of the game. 'Twas ever thus.
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