That’s it from me
A very good night to all. And I’ll see you tomorrow.
I just realised …
I was desk-dancing really quite vigorously while sitting at the table watching that from Hot Chip.
Great bit of scheduling
I dropped by BBC2 to follow Florence with this magnetic performance of Over and Over by Hot Chip. This must have been such fun to be at. And then into Dancing in the Dark. Oh, Hot Chip. Motorik Boss. It’s a great pop song, and they’re doing it perfect justice. That’s why they are such a wonderful group.
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Alexis Petridis’s verdict on Florence
In a shock night of middle-aged white male music writers being blown away by something they had tended to give slightly short thrift to previously, here’s Alexis Petridis’s full verdict on her performance…
There’s a grand tradition, stretching back to the mid-90s, when Pulp filled in at short notice for the Stone Roses, of artists suddenly promoted to the headline slot winning the crowd’s affection, and so it proves here. It helps that Welch has a store of undeniably great songs to draw upon
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Anyone touches my face, I’ll swing for them
OK, too far. Don’t get preachy. Don’t tell people to take their clothes off. It’s embarrassing. It’s a great show, not a bacchanal. But once she stops and goes back to singing, she’s magnificent. Oh. I was going to say “don’t tell people to take your clothes off unless you’re willing to do it yourself”, but then thought that was a bit unnecessary. She was one step beyond me.
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More is more
We knew that was Florence’s modus operandi, and I’m keener when she takes things a little lower key – after a while at least – You Got the Love comes as a result. And whoever would have thought, in when The Source revived it in 1991, that Candi Staton’s You Got the Love would ever become the signature song for a Glastonbury headliner playing epic gothic-influenced pop? Even when Florence calms down, she’s still blowing in from the north at gale force, so when she really rouses herself you do slightly feel the urge to step behind the corner lest you get blown away. Still, you’d have to have a harp of stone not to think she’s done well.
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Florence Welch’s histrionic heartbreak
I was reminded of this great line from Alexis’s recent Florence album review:
There are occasions on which heartbreak seems to have made her voice more histrionic than ever, as evidenced by What Kind of Man, a bug-eyed performance with lyrics to match: “You inspired a fire of devotion that lasted 20 years … Oh mercy, I implore.” “What kind of man,” she keeps demanding to know, “loves like THEEEEEEEES?” Occasionally you start sympathising with the man who loves like theeeeees. “You’re driving me away!” she roars on Queen of Peace, and you think: I’m not surprised, he’s probably worried about getting a perforated eardrum.
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Rudimental smash it
365-day carnival
Kate Hutchinson went to see Rudimental. Read the full review here.
It’s right around this time that I’ve started to regret not wearing wellies: the Other stage is a slopfest. The warm-up DJ plays a Foo Fighters track and you’re reminded just how massive it would have been if they’d have played on the Pyramid stage tonight. But instead we have Rudimental and a mass of people slipping and sliding to their drum’n’bass drops. For this sound system, however, it’s carnival 365 days a year. Their set is a constant shape shifting coterie of guest singers, jumping hype men, pogoing brass players and anthems that pump harder than a Fitness First at peak time. In fact, watching them bound across the stage is enough to convince you to sign up to one on Monday.
Not Giving In, dedicated to DJ Locksmith’s five year old son, is a singalong high as is when they trot out funk hero George Clinton for their “soul” moment, to sing their motto “spread love, go far” and blast peace signs from the screens. A bit over-egged, perhaps, but then Rudimental aren’t usually ones for subtlety. Their best moments are when they ditch the gym tunes and go deeper and smoother, such as their newer material like Bloodstream. Clinton aside, they don’t rely on guests to hype the crowd – they can do that all on their own. When they play Waiting All Night, thousands of hands in the air singing along and lads hugging each other, swinging their bottles of hooch, you know they’ve smashed it.
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Bringing the soca sound at the Gully
Caspar Llewellyn-Smith has been having a carnival …
The crowd before Bunji Garlin took the stage to headline the Gully stage in the Silver Hayes dance area could have fitted in Florence Welch’s bathroom, but undeterred, the serial winner of Trinidad’s International Soca Monarch contest did not disappoint. Sparse though it might have remained, the audience did swell, and included Chronixx, a fellow Caribbean star. The high energy antics that followed and the nuts reaction from those there to witness them put to shame most everything on the larger stages as the sky turned pink and darkness descended. Good times? And then some.
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This is the first time I have ever uttered these words …
I really want to go to see Florence + the Machine next time they come to London.
It’s the Foo Fighters cover now on BBC2
… if you haven’t already seen it on iPlayer. Which I haven’t, damn it. She has, as I would say if I were an X Factor judge, made Times Like These her own. Though to be honest, it was just “Yeah, that Foo Fighters song you hear” until the title flashed up on screen. Guilty.
But that’s the way to win goodwill from a crowd. Lovely.
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Hot Chip make the hits work
Tshepo Mokoena went to see Hot Chip
It isn’t easy being a band best-known for a couple of indie-disco hits, but Hot Chip know how to make it work. The dance-pop group turn their grab-bag of funk and electronic influences into a combination of nostalgic magic and new material that triumphantly wins over the post-Caribou punters at the West Holts stage. Hot Chip understand how to please a crowd, dropping singalong-ready Over and Over into their set a few songs in, but also balance the process of teasing and rewarding the audience with slow-burning tracks and the odd banger. They closed with a Dancing in the Dark cover, replete with flashing multi-coloured lights and the crowd singing. Overall, it’s a blissful, thumping return to Worthy Farm’s sprawl, finished off with a Dancing in the Dark cover starring members of Caribou and Sinkane. And indie discos, be damned.
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Florence – in pictures
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You know what?
I wish I hadn’t made the mistake of waiting to watch this on TV, even if big screen HD is more to the point of this than a laptop screen.
So …
I think this is great fun. The songs will never be my favourite, but Florence’s performance has been spectacular. Crowning herself queen of the festival with a daisy chain from the crowd, while being held aloft on the barrier, was magnificent theatre. Could this set be “a moment”? And it makes you wonder: we treasure as fans the idea of a moment being something that is granted – by the combination of us and performer – as if to affirm our role in the rapture. That’s what makes it feel special. But it’s never an accident – whether it be Springsteen or Florence – they create the moment, not us. Without their supplication we’d just have a good time. And you can feel her will bending the audience to this being a moment. Well, we’ll see what those who were there report back. Alexis Petridis will be be writing on it soon.
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No!
Not a human pyramid! Thousands of people in a state of refreshment being exhorted to construct unsteady groups in the dark? It’s a health and safety nightmare!
Rebecca Nicholson really, really loved Mark Ronson
If Ronson had simply played it to a track of Bruno Mars’ vocal, the audience would have gone wild, given that it is undeniably an irresistible tune. Instead, he went above and beyond. It was, frankly, ridiculously good, an imaginary dinner-party band line-up, the stuff of music dreams
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Bravo, Flo!
I’m watching Florence on BBC2, having been following Hot Chip on iPlayer, and that was a fantastic opening. I’ve never been fussed one way or the other – like others, I find her act a bit overwhelming on record – but Welch certainly came out way on top there. Stirring and vivid, and pouring energy out. And I’m a sucker for seeing groups backlit starkly in white – I was bowled over when I saw the Pixies do that with Into the White, I think, at Kilburn decades ago – which worked perfectly. Bravo.
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Florence headlines the Pyramid stage
Florence!
To get you in the mood (if you’re not already watching on iPlayer), Sophie Heawood interviewed Ms Welch for the paper today …
“It’s the broken hearts and broken limbs that led to Glastonbury,” she says. “It’s a strange and quite cracked way to get there. Literally. If I’d had six months knowing that I was going to do this [headline slot], I think I would have slowly descended into madness. But Glastonbury is such a powerful place that I feel we should get everyone in the crowd to use their healing powers – utilise the ley lines – to help Dave’s leg. Maybe I should hold a ceremony in the healing fields for him.”
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Oh, this is excellent …
Hot Chip is the first thing I’ve seen so far that makes me wish I was in the crowd watching, listening, maybe even dancing a little bit (God forbid). I love groups who manage to combine that incredibly hard trick of keeping a youthful enthusiasm for the music they love with managing to grow old – with lyrics that address families and parenthood. Just terrific.
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And so does Jamie xx …
Tim Jonze writes …
Never let it be said that the weather doesn’t know what it’s doing at Glastonbury. From the sun coming out during Brian Wilson’s appearance in 2005 to the rain quite rightly deciding to ruin Catfish and the Bottlemen’s Other stage set this year. Never have the gods been so on their game as during Jamie xx’s Park stage set. An artist whose DJ set doesn’t extremely scream visually engaging, he’s fortunate enough to play to a beautiful orange-pink sunset backdrop. As for the rest, he lets the music do the talking: geeing-up the crowd with opener I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times), and letting the remainder of the set propel itself on a bass sound so hearty you worry about impending queues for the long drops.
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Sharon van Etten thrills
Some readers were raving below the line about Sharon van Etten. Well, Ben Beaumont-Thomas was there …
On the Park stage as the sun gets ever milkier is Sharon Van Etten, turning introspection into something universal. Dressed in a drape of psychedelic colour, she opens with the stern Serpents, an exacting and determined song that lays out her stall. There’s a bit of a shimmy to later numbers though, but still with heart bleeding on sleeve. On Your Love Is Killing Me, a song about abuse, she holds her axe in a defensive position, head craned forward as if giving testimony in the dock. But somehow it still works as a sunset set, proud, swaying and with its chin up. Proper nourishment for the soul before the night ahead.
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Over to iPlayer
I’m saving Florence until the TV showing, though it’s live on iPlayer now. Instead I’ve put on one of Britain’s very best pop groups – Hot Chip, who’ve just come on stage to the sound of the Beach Boys’ wonderful ‘Til I Die. And the crowd seem up for them.
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Cariboooooou … Caribooooooou!
Gwilym Mumford’s back from seeing Caribou. And this is what he thought of it.
There’s sound logic in the selection of Dan Snaith’s stylish electronic project as support for tonight’s West Holts headliners, Hot Chip: both are practitioners of versatile and unabashedly clever dance music. But while Hot Chip have a back catalogue full of ready-made pop bangers to dispense at will, Caribou’s charms are lower key, built around the sort of percussive rises and falls more commonly found in the Dance Village than on one of the main stages.
When Snaith and his live band are in full flight, as on the anthemic Our Love and the limpid Odessa, it’s a marvellous sight, but too often here, they follow up those euphoric highs with studied slow-builders, and in those moments you can see the crowd’s enthusiasm visibly sag. One for the heads only.
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Dinner time!
Rachel Aroesti continues to document her Glastonbury gourmet journey. And what delights does she have for us this time?
Ronson picks it up …
First it’s Valerie. He’s decided it’s time for the party. And this is poignant, given the UK premiere of the excellent documentary Amy at Glastonbury on Thursday. Do go to see it when it comes out: it’s heartbreaking and revealing. And now it’s Uptown Funk, with a Double Dutch skipping display on stage. Anyone who doesn’t like this song – even secretly – has no joy in them. And he’s got Bruno Mars to come and visit. Fair play to him. And now Mary J Blige. Decent effort for his first show in an age. Hang on. Where’s Bruno Mars? I’m sure he exhorted everyone to welcome to Bruno Mars. Maybe I’m going mad. But he has got George Clinton in an admirable red suit.
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If you’re not finding Mark Ronson that thrilling …
I would recommend you go to the iPlayer to watch Jamie xx. Except it’s a DJ set, and it’s not exactly a televisual spectacular. This, after all, is a man dedicated to making himself as unspectacular as possible, as Alexis Petridis discovered when he met him earlier this year.
There is little eye contact, some awkward silences, and a lot of terse answers: a question usually yields a couple of sentences in response, rephrasing it gets you a few more words. His manner isn’t in any way surly, rude or difficult. I can’t work out whether he’s incredibly shy, a bit diffident, or just really doesn’t like talking about himself. Ironically, when trying to explain how he makes music, he occasionally sounds not unlike the sampled voice you hear at the end of SeeSaw, a track from his album: “I just … the world just …” it stammers, before lapsing into silence.
Maybe stick with Mark, because Boy George is doing Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
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The Libertines and lad rock
Lots of people think I was saying they invented lad rock. Clearly not. But they spawned a load of pallid imitators who did. Bands who do something new often spawn imitators – and sometimes they are imitators who copy all the worst bits. Which is what happened by the score with the Libertines.
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Mark Beaumont reports from the Libertines
“One of them’s wearing a trilby,” says a craner at the back of the crowd, “it must be them.” Everyone from Foals to Bastille were tipped to fill Florence’s vacant slot at one point, but a tweet from a Worthy-bound helicopter confirmed it would be the Libertines. Unfortunately, they don’t exactly pull a Pulp. Ramshackle and underwhelming, they stagger through muted takes on Horrorshow and Can’t Stand Me Now like it’s a stoned 11am rehearsal, dropping lines, plodding lazily through some of their liveliest choruses and generally treating their legend like yesterday’s papers. Time For Heroes, The Boys in the Band, Death on the Stairs and I Get Along stoke the pace and ballads Music When the Lights Go Out and You’re My Waterloo far decently well, but it’s only the late one-two of What a Waster and Don’t Look Back Into the Sun that unite the crowd and justify the copter fee. What could have been the year’s biggest “I was there” moment feels squandered.
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Come on …
If we’re honest, we just want him to play Uptown Funk again and again, don’t we? Or is that just me? Much as I like Tame Impala (and Tame Impala-related Aussies Blank Realm have got an excellent new album coming that I was sent today), this stuff with Kevin Parker is a bit dull for this time of the evening, innit?
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Pussy Riot gatecrash Glastonbury
Strictly speaking, that’s probably not accurate. They were almost certainly invited. But here’s a video of it anyway.
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Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson is here!
And he’s on BBC4. He’s got Kyle Falconer from the View – no relation to former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton – on stage with him. And a bloke doing tricks on a bike. Let’s hope he doesn’t have to bring on everyone with a songwriting credit for Uptown Funk, otherwise there’s isn’t going to be any room on stage for him to stay there.
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Of course …
Whatever you think of the Libertines, they’re responsible for a whole load of geezer-rock, indie landfill-dross, complete with Boys in the Band aesthetic, even if their own version of it was rather more complicated than their lagered-up copyists. Basically, to oversimplify massively, they’re responsible for the “Bros not hoes” attitude that has characterised the worst of British indie rock for the last 15 years.
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New song!
The Libs just played a new song! And Carl Barât rapped during it! And it was exactly as good as that description suggests.
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Why festivals are the same as football
TV festival coverage and TV sports coverage are pretty much exactly the same, with the slight difference that one features 22 people kicking a ball around and one features groups playing pop songs. But consider this:
- Presenters who have to blandly insist everything is brilliant, regardless of how rubbish it really is
- Presenters who hand over to reporters/pundits who are even worse
- Regular shots of attractive young women in the stands/on their boyfriends’ shoulders
- Fat Bloke crying when his team loses/weeping in the front row because someone’s just played the anthem of his youth
- The good bits being a few goals/a few songs punctuated by a fair amount of tedium
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Libertines spring their surprise
The surprise Pyramid stage act are on RIGHT NOW
And it is, indeed, the Libertines. You can watch them on iPlayer if you so desire. The crowd appears to be pretty vast – it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole generation out there for whom they are touchstones of brilliance, since there’s an equally large number of people for whom they are touchstones of sleazy unpleasantness, combined with rickety incompetence. I’m somewhere between the two camps.
But – any excuse to bring QPR into it – when the band were first springing to fame, I recall reading any number of features that mentioned Pete Doherty’s fanzine All Quiet on the Western Avenue, suggesting it was an incredible, poetic sprawl of love about the Rs. It wasn’t. It was awful. I’d really admire the Libertines right now if they refused to play any of the crowd favourites and insisted on previewing their new album in its entirety.
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Result!
Out of duty to you, dear reader, I just flicked over to iPlayer to see if the Courteeners have fans outside Manchester, where they are bigger than the Beatles, Elvis and Frank Sidebottom put together (turns out they had a very healthy crowd, moshing and singing along). And, lo, I managed to catch the final 30 seconds of their set. Which was enough, to be honest. Though since I like the Vaccines, you are welcome to accuse me of hypocrisy vis-a-vis guitar bands.
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Run the Jewels are a diamond
Tshepo Mokoena’s back from watching Killer Mike and El-P …
“We spent our entire stage production budget on making the sun come out for you,” shouts El-P, of Run the Jewels. And the cost must have been worth it. El-P and his rapid-fire rap cohort Killer Mike proceed to pogo and bellow through an electrifying set that covers police brutality, crowd chants of “RTJ” and an El-P introduction to the song Lie, Cheat, Steal that likens unnamed politicians to paedophiles.
The fiery energy that blazes through both the duo’s albums is on full display, and even when making themselves the butts of jokes about being “two fat motherfuckers” sweating their way through the sunny set, they’re both passionate and joyful.
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James Bay – slight return
Rock critic legend Ian Penman makes an interesting point about the behatted one …
Leon Bridges in the best male clothing of the weekend
Having a look at him via the Red Button now. What do you all reckon to him? At this point, I think the songs aren’t quite as great as the aesthetic, but I must say he’s terrific fun live – his band are great, he’s charming, and he dresses like a superstar. In fact, he must have been terrified when it started raining, because he risked ending up with the kind of dry cleaning bill that would bankrupt a Premier League footballer.
If you like that kind of retro classic soul, let me also point you in the way of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. You may recall Rateliff as one of the large band of fine-if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing bearded American troubadours. Now he and his soul band have got an album coming out on 21 August with the Stax logo on it, and his show in London on Monday was an absolute joy. It’s one of the best reinventions I’ve seen in a long time.
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Back to BBC2
I know everyone in the world seems to hate the Vaccines. I know you do. And I don’t understand why. I like them. They’ve got tunes, which is an awful lot more than so many guitar bands can say at the moment. I see from their performance, which is being shown on BBC2 at the moment, that they’ve rearranged their old songs a bit, and nicely done, too.
Here’s another reason to think well of them: Justin Young played on the excellent album House Music by Steven James Adams. Adams had never met him, just asked him, saying he wanted “a bit of starpower” on his album. A few months later, Young turned up at Adams’s house and recorded with him. What a nice thing to do.
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Motörheadbanging!
Mark Beaumont reports from the Pyramid Stage:
So can Glastonbury rock? Surprisingly few of Mary J Blige’s crowd stick around for Motörhead, but that doesn’t stop Lemmy, everyone’s favourite iron cross-toting biker bass bulldog, from pumping the state full of smoke and the speakers full of sludge for an hour that sounds exactly how most of the site’s major junctions are starting to look – filthy, sodden and full of forgotten booze.
Through Metropolis, Over the Top and Rock It they pound the Pyramid stage to scrap, the formula deeply embedded and the pedal only losing contact with the metal for the “nice slow blues” of Lost Woman Blues from 2013’s Aftershock album. Ace of Spades sparks Glastonbury’s gentle form of moshing – let’s call it a mulch – and has Florence quaking in the wings. Can Glastonbury rock? Is Billy Bragg onsite?
You can read Mark’s full review here.
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What’s on right now
It’s Alabama Shakes on BBC2, James Bay and that bloody hat on BBC3 (followed by Catfish and the Bottlemen). And the BBC are live-streaming from assorted stages – Motörhead have just finished, and you can choose from Circa Waves, Run the Jewels and Benjamin Booker. I’m going to go for a bit of Run the Jewels.
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Mark Ronson reveals his special guests
He will be joined onstage tonight by Boy George, Kevin Parker from Tame Impala and Mary J Blige. And on that bombshell they switch to James Bay and His Trademark Hat playing Hold Back the River live. So I’ve muted the TV and switched to the iPlayer, where Motörhead have just run through a bracing Ace of Spades. I’m off to meet Lemmy next week, which should be interesting. And if you need a quick guide to his life and works, here it is.
And now they’re doing Overkill! The song that invented thrash metal. But Lemmy forgot he was doing Overkill and started singing the chorus to Ace of Spades in the middle. To be fair, the two songs are not entirely dissimilar.
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The Who on The One Show
They just played a little film about Quadrophenia, which concluded “I don’t think I’ll ever understand Quadrophenia.” Mate, it’s a concept album. No one understands concept albums. And now Mary J Blige says she’s like to see Disclosure, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran headlining Glastonbury. Just imagine the delights.
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Jog on
We can’t help wondering if these people will be getting up to do this tomorrow morning …
True love stories
The One Show have just shown a quick film about people having babies and getting married and all that stuff at Glastonbury. They never talk about the milestones that take place during the Glastonbury TV liveblog, do they? Did you know that during last year’s TV liveblogs …
- 19,274 people got married
- 356,000 babies were conceived
- Enough pizza was eaten that if you placed them end to end they would stretch three times around the world
- These may not be true.
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Don’t watch that, watch this
If The One Show is not to your taste, why not have a look at Tim Jonze running through the entire history of Glastonbury in less than three minutes.
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Fact check
However, Chris Evans did just offer a good fact (if it’s true). Sharleen Spiteri out of Texas has told him that every available tour bus in Europe is at Glastonbury this weekend.
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The One Show has started!
Mary J Blige! Mark Ronson! And James Bay! And His Trademark Hat! Mary loved playing Glastonbury, you’ll be surprised to hear. James Bay finds being asked whether playing last year for the first time or today on the Pyramid stage made him more nervous to be “a hard question”.
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Welcome to Friday evening!
It’s the first night in front of the television, and that means kicking off the action with The One Show – followed by all the music I can handle for several hours across multiple television channels, red buttons and iPlayers, culminating in Florence + the Machine headlining the Pyramid stage. We’ll also be bringing you updates from the various sets around the site, as our writers watch them. You can tweet me @MichaelAHann (the “A” stands for “All Bloody Night”) with your observations, or post them in the comments thread below.
Back to The One Show: I can tell you that Chris Evans arrived on site – in a feat of extreme optimisim – in his vintage Aston Martin convertible (I saw it on Instagram earlier, but on a private account, so there’s no point posting a link). It was a beautiful car, but let me make it clear that no one would be pointing and laughing if he couldn’t get enough traction in the mud to get it off-site tonight. Oh no.
We’ve been preparing for the momentousness of The One Show all day with a variety of things, and I would particularly like to point you in the direction of this fantastic interactive series Glastonbury Stories photos. Do have a look – they’re fantastic.
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