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From Left Field to Shangri La : the real Glastonbury!
In the 21st century, fame is measured by the deluge of comments on social media, and I don’t mean ‘likes’. The one downside of achieving iconic status is that everyone thinks they own the icon and know better.
Everyone who has broken through to the rare ether of the mainstream is fair game for the naysayers and the keyboard worriers. For every Oasis fan, there are five haters, for every Coldplay lover, there is an army of angry typists who feel that their own record collection reflects their innate coolness, and YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT! they type in angry capital letters…
It’s the same for Glastonbury.
No other festival sits in the national psyche like Glasto, and the army of haters is out in force. Their assumptions are cranked by the BBC’s skewed coverage of the event. Like the Labour Party, it feels like everyone demands their own personal version of the festival with their own tailored lineup.
With steam coming out of their ears, the haters zone in on the headliners like Dua Lipa and yell at the passing clouds about the good old days of long-forgotten bedimmed droogs who used to play mid-bill back in the mid-seventies.
WHY CAN’T THINGS STAY THE SAME…they continue to type in angry capital letters…
The real Glastonbury is nothing like the roll call of soap stars, B list actors and obscure celebrities camping out in the triple AAA backstage. No one actually at Glastonbury gives a toss about that boring circus or even knows it exists. The real festival is found in a clutch of the 105 other stages that sprawl across the endless site. From Left Field to Shangri La : the real Glastonbury!
Of course, the big stage action is good as well. I like to check things I would never normally see, like Dua Lipa, whose choreographed pop workouts are a fascinating portal into the martial world of steroid pop. A mix of workout, costume and theatre, it’s a disciplined spectacle that underlines her muscular pop. Much is made of the lack of rock at the festival, but IDLES anthemic Ubermensch is highly effective, with added political slogans from the old punk playbook. The butt of other band’s missives, IDLES are still a powerful force and instinctively know how to detonate a stage. Future main stage headliners (along with my own wild card for ‘future headliner in the classic slot – Sex Pistols) Fontaines DC sound like a band on the cusp of being big to busting out supernova big. Their hints at the new album show a remarkable step forward and the band now dressed as a charity shop nu metal combo are readying for a potential 2025 Glastonbury Saturday night main stage rumpus.
Glastonbury is not just the big stages, though; it’s also about that heart of British pop culture experience – the stuff that engages everyone in some way on this rainy isle – the undercard of wild creativity and idiosyncratic madness that marks out the disunited kingdom as a pop culture powerhouse to this day.
My own Glastonbury journey is somewhere in this sprawl of creativity, from being the compere of Billy Bragg’s Left Field stage, to all-nighters in the wild madness of the rave black hole of Shangri La, or perched in outside the Crows Nest stage at the site’s highest point.
They are like two bookends of the same experience. Billy Bragg’s Left Field space mixes political debate and cutting edge bands and is perhaps the friendliest space on the site, oozing a warmth and bonhomie from backstage to its furthest corner. It’s about endless cups of tea, looking for solutions in the chaos of the world and an eclectic bill of bands, which are reviewed below. Shangri La is a wild rabbit hole, with 30 000 people raving all night in a festival within a festival, and a sci-fi set of stages that mix live bands like Bob Vylan playing their second gig of the day or Irish band The Scratch, whose mix of trad irish, anthemic rock, post-punk, electronica and dark drone make them a stunning and brilliantly oddball combo in the middle of the cranked dance records. Moments later, Kneecap burst the stage with their vicious and enthralling rap anthems delivered with a righteous yelp like the Beastie Boys once did back in the mists of time. Shangri La is pop culture immersive, the stage next door is cranking out really slow grime through the loudest and clearest PA I’ve ever heard and it sounds amazing.
The Left Field is at the heart of Glastonbury politically and spiritually. Friday opens with Trampoline, whose enthusiastic and energetic post-Libertines indie is full of those shenanigan melodies and tightrope walking structures that make Pete Doherty’s gang of Dickensian ragamuffins so alluring. Trampoline has less of a dark side than their pals, and the songs have a joyous rush instead of a dark heart and it is infectious stuff.
Big Special are already a firm LTW fave, and tonight’s show is a very big deal as a rammed tent cheers the Black Country duo to new heights. There is something life affirming about a band on the cusp of greatness and acceptance, and Big Special themselves look almost overwhelmed by the response. It’s deserved, though, and the songs are full of the ebb and flow of melody and switch from neo rap verses to huge singalong chorus that are a perfect tension and release. Joe Hicklin’s vocals are rich and commanding and Callum Moloney’s drums are powerhouse. You can dance, sing or just get immersed in Big Special who are about to break pretty big and this is a wonderful heart warming moment.
Seb Lowe is the edge of Manchester singer and poet with razor sharp lyrics and a fistfull of great tunes. A genuine talent his words detail the now and are underlined by the rousing songs.
Sprints are razor sharp post punk band from Dublin, whose sharp and angular garage songs hone down the beautiful tension of the form. There is a whiff of the Banshees classic debut album of groundbreaking stark post punk to their music, with its stark cut glass atmospheres and razor-tight dynamics that combine for an incendiary live set.
Billy Bragg tops of the first night in his little big top tent with a master class of the melodic nous that underlines his poignant lyrics of politics and the personal. Songs of love and songs of fury and songs of struggle and songs of poetic despair are played days before the dreaded Tories are finally dumped in the election.
Saturday sees the fields of England drenched in sunshine…that’s a sentence you don’t get to write often these days, and the sunshine dries out the innate dampness in our British souls and everyone is literally letting it all hang out.
In the Left Field tent, the first band is 47Soul, a trio of musicians from Jordan who drench the stage with Palestinian flags and infectious songs that create itchy dancing feet and are drenched with the melodies and the rhythms of the Middle East. They are a wonderful, captivating group, and their mix of drum pads, keyboards, electronic instruments and a fluid guitar captures the essence of an ancient music and cranks it into the modern times, without losing any of its glorious terrain or potency.
Ireland’s Pillow Queens deliver a taut and thrilling set of post shoegaze guitar dynamics that are full of tension and release and soaring soundscapes. Delivered with an off kilter punkish rush. It’s glorious stuff topped off with compelling vocals that doing of sexual identity, love and loss.
Popping down from Aberdeen, Calum Bowie has became a Tik Tok sensation with a collection of plaintive heartfelt songs on his acoustic guitar. Now armed with a band, he really connects with his audience in real time as well.
Louis Dunford makes his return to the live arena after some time out of action dealing with a bout of depression, which he talks about during his joyous set. These are important and empowering words that add clout to a set that is full of the arms aloft community of football and, in this case, Arsenal FC, whose shirt he wears on stage. His songs, though, are universal in melody and content and it’s a cup final atmosphere and a reminder of the rich seam of song that sits between football and pop culture – the key drivers of street culture in the UK. The audience sings the songs back so loudly that it threatens to drown out the band, and the sound of 1500 voices in harmony is heartwarming in these times of discord.
There is a lot of talk at the moment about English Teacher and it’s all justified. The Leeds-based band have somehow managed to find their own unique space in a cluttered and overcrowded music scene with their unique take on pastoral prog, post rock and post punk. The band’s music, though complex, also drips melody, with the guitar and the bass both taking the lead as they entwine around each other and the poly-rhythmic drumming. The cool trick with complicated time shifting music is to keep it engaging, and the intensity and energy combine to make this a danceable experience for your head and for your feet, along with charismatic stinger Lily Fontaine’s engrossing lyrics and short stories, make this band that is thrilling to unpack especially live.
The last time Billy Nomates played this stage it gave the aforementioned armchair keyboard warriors, who were already typing furiously about how ‘Glastonbury isn’t what it used to be despite the fact I’ve never been there’, licence to pick on her performance because, apparently, it’s not real music because the singer was not backed by a herd of bored looking session players.
The single greatest thing about Billy Nomates is her shape-shifting performance on that empty stage with her backing tracks created by her, cranked through a hidden laptop that adds to her energetic and charismatic stage moves of ninja dance moves. Her crafted lyrics and melodies are delivered by her distinctive and brilliant voices that are part pop and part underground.
It’s a potent and thrilling combination.
Her return show is part solidarity for an extraordinary performer and part celebration of special talent, topped off with a duet of New England with Billy Bragg deliberately dad dancing next to Billy’s elastic moves.
Part of the Left Field tradition has been celebrating the triumph of the underdog – the musicians who exist outside the narrative and have carved out spaces by their own idiosyncratic attitude.
Sunday sees The Lottery Winners who have turned ‘unlikely’ into an art form. The band who hail from the sprawl of old towns at the edge of Manchester have built up an army of fans that makes them a true bunch of cults. Their recent album was number one, and the adoration that is showered on them is deserved, with the band’s self-deprecating banter and insanely catchy songs captivating the throng. One of the wonders of Glastonbury is how eclectic the music is, with the huge pop behemoths strutting the main stage, like Dua Lipa, and round the corner this band from Leigh who scored a UK number album because they are adored by their fans, who sing along with gusto to one anthem after the other of the band’s guitar driven songs that are laced with humour and a certain kitchen sink poignancy.
The same could be said for The Farm, the Liverpool group who were formed at the tail end of punk and were pioneers of the casual styled bands that boomed and blossomed in the Manchester period, who have never really had their media appreciation despite scoring a number one album decades ago.
These days, the reformed Farm could be forgiven for pottering around festivals like a last of the summer wine jaunt with real ale and punk lunches involved, and they probably do. What they have also done is somehow powerhouse their set, and I’ve never heard the band sounding so vital and so urgent. The drums are explosive, and the back catalogue is still hot, with the set ending All Together Now bringing the house down with its emotional chordal descent – the song that is so loved that it has somehow been unattached from the band and given a life of its own. Tonight The Farm reclaim their song with a beautiful version of the classic that has the whole tent singing in a display of the kind of communality that makes music and football terraces special places.
The whole gig is a real triumph for the band that is often somehow overlooked. Somehow, they are, at the age of 60, in their pomp. The rhythm section is a powerhouse, and the grooves have a swagger, whilst Peter Hooton’s voice has never sounded better. The two guitar engine rooms decorate the songs, and the songs are full of the twists and turns of life and the beauty of comradeship of lifelong friendships. The new songs in the set could be the best in their decades long career, and there is talk of a new album. It somehow looks like the unlikely likely lads will be staging an unlikely comeback that perfectly breaks the tired old rules of rock ‘n’ roll.
Headliner Bob Vylan are a very different proposition. Championed from the start by Louder Than War, the duo are now firm festival favourites, with their powerhouse set that combines powerful drumming with the perfectly sculpted backing tracks of grime/punk/rap riff grenades that gives the lord of charisma, Bob Vylan, plenty of space to front with his larger than life presence and lyrics of anger and oppression and righteousness. There is also a humour and spirituality sprinkled on top, and the anger makes an energy for the set that is triumphant in its message and the fact you can dance to it.
Bob Vylan has the crowd in his snazzy tracksuit back pocket as his precise punkoid raps hit their targets, powered to the back of the tent by their band’s freshly seasoned cricket bat that makes an appearance mid set.
The outspoken Bobs have recently scored a top 20 album on their own DIY label and lost none of their combative commentary. It’s powerful stuff and a reminder of the potent electric shock of telling it as it is especially by someone who commands the room.
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