Goodnight
And that’s my lot for tonight. See you tomorrow for the Who and Weller. The daytime liveblog will be back on in the morning.
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Alexis Petridis on Kanye
Here’s what Mr Petridis had to say …
He tears compellingly through an opening brace of tracks: not even a stage invader during Black Skinhead seems to dull the track’s edge. But then he lets the energy level dramatically dip: the set moves into a protracted and meandering series of Auto-Tuned ballads, with a lengthy guest appearance from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver – “one of the baddest white boys on the planet” – a monologue about the songwriting processes behind Afterlife, from his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and a lot of shots on the huge stageside screens of West looking sad and pensive.
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Reaction
Kanye … the crowd reacts!
Well, a few of them. Our writers have been asking the people who were there what they thought …
And a man dressed as Kim Kardashian’s bum gives his view …
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George Clinton’s Mothership
Mark Beaumont was there to watch …
By rights, Kanye should be making the entire Pyramid Stage genuflect towards West Holts tonight. George Clinton’s Mothership beams down a cosmic party that, after an opening fiery-five minutes of Sly and the Family Stone’s wedding disco classics, sets about revelling in Clinton’s influence on hip-hop during its Parliament-Funkadelic phase. Alien-voiced raps and crunching G-Funk beats, originally nobbled by Dr Dre from Clinton’s empirical 70s era, smother a contemporary half hour designed to hoist Clinton as a rap forefather, before the loose-limbed funk-outs of Flash Light, (Not Just) Knee Deep and Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) kick in in earnest. An hour later the joint’s jumping so hard there’s a stage invasion led by a massive fish. Beam us up, George.
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And it’s over to former Spurs and England player Darren Anderton …
Sleaford Mods
Are on the red button now. Which is no less karaoke than Kanye, of course. I bumped into them outside the Guardian building yesterday. It would be fair to say the prospect of “the Glastonbury spirit” didn’t seem to be filling them with joy.
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Still to come …
We’ll have Alexis Petridis’s review of Kanye’s headlining set. And reaction from the crowd. I have no idea how people who were there will have reacted. I went the gamut from thinking it was a certain five stars five or six songs in to a possible two by the end.
Dear Kanye …
I feel fairly sure there are people who will disagree with your claim that the crowd have been watching “the greatest living rock star on the planet”. For the first third of the set you had a case. But then it fell apart. And for goodness sake, you do need to play the hits – not just give snippets of the hits. I’m interested to see what the people who were actually there made of it, but on TV it ended up being a failure – an at times glorious failure, but a failure nevertheless. When even Jo Whiley’s saying “there were bits that didn’t work so well”, then you know it hasn’t gone well. And apparently Gemma Cairney felt “literally” every emotion it was possible to feel.
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No dispute …
… that the snippet of Bohemian Rhapsody was a car crash. Not least for the transparent ruse of getting the audience to sing the lines West knew he wasn’t going to get within 15 miles of reaching.
Whatver Kanye just said is now the lyrics to bohemian rhapsody
— Jake (@macdemango) June 27, 2015
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Deadmau5
… has been headlining the Other stage. Kate Hutchinson was watching.
And so it is reluctantly that I trudge away from Kanye’s live music video over to Deadmau5’s EDM party palace. Or, as it happens, a half-full crowd and rave Crystal Maze-style contraptions that flash either side of his decks. If Kanye’s set was subdued and intimate, one man on an enormous stage, Deadmau5’s is the laser-blazing antithesis. After all, how engaging can one guy in a mouse mask with spotlights for eyes be? Despite the unfortunate billing, the Canadian DJ/producer whacks out his simplistic electro-house with as much vigour as you can muster with a giant pair of ears on your head. Sunglasses are fully on down the front, the flags are out in force, wellies are stomping to his reliable thud – it’s a decent warmup to Saturday night and endlessly euphoric. Yet there’s a lack of genuine surprises and intrigue to hold people’s attention, and it’s never been easier to get down the front. No, wait, here comes a “quirky” skit, in which Mau5 takes off his mask and reclines on a sofa at the front of the stage while someone in a hot dog suit and another dressed up like a shark dance either side of him to a more playful disco song. But the people don’t flock, many of them leave in search of other highs. Great for hardcore fans, perhaps, but Deadmau5 fails to ensnare Glasto’s rave masses in his trap.
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The verdict of a bloke who used to be in Westlife is in
I now fear …
That Kanye is doing his best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Why has he just stopped? It’s not the very best way to keep the momentum going, is it?
And then he makes me look foolish by reappearing in the cherry picker at the top of the crane for Touch the Sky. I suppose if you’re going to play Touch the Sky, then you may as well actually try to do so. High-class showmanship. Wonder what the camera operator’s thinking. And I wonder what his tour insurer is thinking. Maybe he has a clause for “Injury sustained by falling from broadcaster’s mobile platform during live performance”.
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He really is reading this …
No sooner do I suggest the set has started flagging than he starts pulling out the big numbers. Although these truncated versions are getting a bit irritating. Has he not cleared the samples for more than 30 seconds of usage? And look – now he’s playing something! See, it’s not just karaoke – it’s pressing buttons, too.
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Stage invasion news …
Yes, we all knew from Twitter and that, but Josh Halliday updates:
Lee Nelson, the comedian turned prankster, ran on to the Pyramid stage during the American rapper’s fourth song before being quickly wrestled off by a security guard.
West attempted to continue with the song, Black Skinhead, but a few seconds later called a halt and restarted the performance.
The interruption is not the first high-profile prank by Nelson, whose real name is Simon Brodkin. He managed to sneak into a photograph with the England football team before last year’s World Cup in Brazil.
Some people were saying Kanye shouldn't headline Glastonbury so I thought I'd give him a hand. pic.twitter.com/7KFk2kgjsM
— Lee Nelson (@RealLeeNelson) June 27, 2015
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Mid-set sag …
Yes, I admit it. The last 15 minutes have not been wildly exciting. But I really think the first 40 were great. I thought maybe it needed a change of pace after that frenetic start, but instead the set seems to have become disjointed, stop-start, and a bit directionless.
Hang on, I’ve just noticed “Nikki Sixx” is scrawled on Kanye’s jacket. Why? Will he be covering Kickstart My Heart later?
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You all owe me a fiver
Because I predicted on the liveblog this afternoon that Justin Vernon would be a special guest with Kanye this evening. Just send the money to me c/o The Guardian. Notes rather than coins, please.
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Lou Reed and Kanye
My colleague Alex Needham reminds me that the man whose obnoxiousness I mentioned earlier, Lou Reed, loved Kanye …
It works because it’s beautiful – you either like it or you don’t – there’s no reason why it’s beautiful. I don’t know any musician who sits down and thinks about this. He feels it, and either it moves you too, or it doesn’t, and that’s that. You can analyse it all you want.
Twitter news
Kanye is the No 1 trending term. No 2 is Kayne, for people who can’t spell.
Uncompromising stuff
I’m also pleased, given the protests against him and what’s been happening in the States, that he’s not watering things down – New Slaves seems a perfectly apt response to those who think there’s no place for a black man to say exactly what he wants. Lou Reed said any number of completely obnoxious and dickheaded things – in fact, he might have the highest ratio of obnoxious and dickheaded things to normal speech in human history – but he was always “Just Lou”.
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Do you want to see the stage invader again?
You do, don’t you?
What do you think of it so far?
I’m not quite sure I get the complaints about it being one bloke. After all, there’s nothing intrinsically entertaining about five blokes just standing there playing their instruments, is there? The setlist appears to have been composed with a view to keeping a big audience onside, rather than with self-indulgence in mind. The lights are spectacular, even if they don’t “do” a lot. And there was a stage invader! This is action packed – I wish I Don’t Like had been more than a verse, though. Anyone who would rather watch, say, Foo Fighters than this is surely bonkers.
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Seen that lighting rig before?
David Arnold has …
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One of tomorrow night’s headliners is watching
Ed Simons from Chemical Brothers tweets
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Kanye’s been reading this blog
That’ll be why he asked for the rig to be lifted up. Obviously. And come on, Black Skinhead is just an absolutely thrilling piece of music: this is someone at the centre of the mainstream making music that if it came out by some US noiseniks on Head Rupturing Noise Records would have the doubters hailing it as genius.
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Those lights …
I wonder how it looks from the back of the crowd, with the rig just inches about West’s head. Can the people at the back see anything other than glare? It’s causing the camera operators some problems, too – seem to be some issues with pulling focus.
Kanye starts his set
And we’re off!
Well, that’s the way to make an entrance isn’t it? And contrary to rumours that everyone would be boycotting Kanye to go and watch “proper rock music”, there are loads and loads of people there, and they all appear to know the words to Stronger.
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Are you looking forward to it?
I am. Very much, even though I’m not much of a fan. If nothing else, this is going to be a spectacular. I’ve never seen a Kanye solo show, but Watch the Throne was a fantastic live experience. And, even from the back of the room at the Brits, he stole the show. It didn’t matter that a) all you could hear was a big boom of noise (I had no idea that he was swearing all over the place until I got home) or that b) I couldn’t pick out which of the dozens of people on stage was Kanye. It was an event. And that’s what a festival headline slot should be. That’s what he’ll deliver.
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Pharrell on the Pyramid stage – in pictures
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Spiritualized …
Are on the iPlayer right now, sounding gorgeous, for everyone who wants to play bingo with references to heroin and Jesus. They’ve just finished Shine a Light (“Lord, shine a light on me”). Will they now follow that with Lord, Let It Rain on Me? And then Lord, Get Me Some Falafels and Lord, Help Me With These Guyropes, Will You?
Something really good about Kanye
Is this piece by Ben Westhoff, which really is worth a read.
Understanding why Kanye is Kanye first requires understanding what worldwide popularity does to people. To paraphrase an expression, fame crazies, absolute fame crazies absolutely.
Skepta!
Rebecca Nicholson loved his set …
If you’re going to offer up one of the world’s biggest rappers as Glastonbury headliner, then sticking the UK’s best MC on just before him is the least you can do, even if it fills the stupidly tiny Wow tent to capacity and then some. Sweatiest crowd? Rowdiest crowd? Most dangerous crowd? Skepta’s audience ticked off all three, as he shut down Glastonbury on his first time at the festival. He opened with That’s Not Me which instantly worked the audience to a frenzy. “Where’s the Boy Better Know supporters in the building?” he yelled, to a furious response. (Later, he added “I’ve said building twice. It’s a fucking tent, not a building.”) In fact, one audience member got so into it that he chucked a firework onstage, narrowly missing Skepta’s head and only just avoiding taking out half of the side-of-stage viewers. “Have we still got energy in here?” he asked, just before the final track. “I need it, man never been to Glastonbury and it’s Shut Down,” he yelled. In a festival that’s been criticised so far for its somewhat gentle choices, there was no doubt that this was one of its liveliest moments by far.
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Gemma Cairney appearing on BBC2
Why? What have we done to deserve it?
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17 facts about Kanye
I’ve been doing my research in preparation for his set, and I have discovered the following …
1 Kanye West was born on 8 June 1977. The day before, in preparation for his birth, Britain hosted a series of street parties and festivals, in which the Queen – who, coincidentally, was celebrating her silver jubilee that day – gave thanks for the imminent coming of Kanye.
2 West was raised in Chicago, which was a little-known village in Illinois at that point. West’s presence caused it to grow into the mighty city we know today. Though known as America’s “second city”, it is actually the first city – it is typical of West’s modesty that he insists on it being known as the second.
3 As a child, he lived for a spell in China with his mother. During that time he invented martial arts.
4 In 1990, aged 13, he wrote a rap song called Green Eggs and Ham, thereby both inventing hip-hop and giving Dr Seuss the inspiration for his series of books.
5 Also in 1990, under his pseudonym Andreas Brehme, he scored the winning goal for West Germany in the World Cup final.
6 Although he only attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago for one semester, West became the world’s pre-eminent artist in that time, during which he painted both the Mona Lisa and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
7 He transferred to Chicago State University to read English, but dropped out because none of the books he was studying were as good as anything he had written. By that time, West had written such classic American novels as Moby-Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby.
8 West’s first album, as part of the group the Go-Getters, was called World Record Holders. It was named after West’s world records in the 100m, 400m, shot put, and what was at that point his most recent world record, for most beer mats flipped (a record he has since broken three times).
9 West made a name as a producer for Roc-A-Fella records in 2000. His production work provided valuable pointers to Rick Rubin and Phil Spector, who credited West with inventing the “wall of sound”
10 The song that made West’s name was Through the Wire, which popular myth holds was recorded after West’s jaw was broken and wired closed following a car crash. In fact, in a supreme feat of method preparation, he had broken his own jaw in order to put himself in the mind of someone who had broken their jaw in a car crash.
11 He invented chewing gum. And gravity.
12 When West incorporated string arrangements into his recordings on The College Dropout, he became the first person ever to use violins in music. This inspired composers, including Mozart and Beethoven, to follow suit.
13 In the run-up to his Graduation album, West listened to music by Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. He was the first person ever to have listened to them.
14 In 2008, West revealed his plans to open a chain of Fatburger restaurants. This followed his invention of the burger, the french fry and the cooker earlier that year.
15 Since 2008, West has been president of the United States, under the pseudonym Barack Obama.
16 Also that year, after being arrested following a scuffle outside a nghtclub in Newcastle Upon Tyne, West invented a new accent, which he called “Geordie”, and which has since been widely adopted in the area.
17 West’s leather jogging pants are now the most widely worn item of clothing in the world. It is estimated that 92.4% of the world’s population own a pair.
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Rumour time
One thing all young journalists are taught is that stories must be properly sourced. You should hear them from two reputable sources. Or you should just report what you heard in the toliet queue. Well, we’ve heard that Beyoncé will be appearing with Kanye. Guess which of the two schools of sourcing that comes from.
Todd Terje touched down
Mark Beaumont joined the carnival at the West Holts stage …
As George Clinton’s Mothership enters a holding pattern over the West Holts stage, Norwegian DJ mainstay Todd Terje (pronounced Ter-hey, in homage to Todd Terry) warms the field with an hour of space house enhanced by live band the Olsons, garish cartoon visuals and a troupe of fluffy aerobic dancers reeling in some pretty big fish. If last year’s It’s Album Time debut sounded drone-guided at a Yates’s Wine Lodge on a Friday night, live, he builds tracks that are eight parts 60s robot spy movie theme to two parts Jean Michel Jarre into a real carnival dynamic. And unless you’ve seen him unleash his spicy Latino house numbers on West Holts, chances are you’ve never seen a Minion samba.
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Pharrell Williams has left the stage …
… and Ben Beaumont-Thomas was watching him
Pharrell’s astonishing catalogue of work gets aired out, its nails and hair done, and all buffed to a sheen. Opening with versions of recent Girl album tracks given heft by wads of synthetic strings, he shows off his new-school persona: winking sauciness and wedding-band funk. But then there’s a section that shows off his incredible contribution to rap: Pass the Couvoisier, Nothin’, Hot in Herre et al. Then a reversion to his horndog cock-rock image in a NERD section stolen by a Brit girl on stage walking on her hands. Raunch over – and “motherfuckers” excised from lyrics – it’s back to family territory. Get Lucky and Happy provide a euphoric, cross-cultural, all ages release; faces erupt in dumb dopamine goofiness. A grand tour of a tour de force in modern pop.
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Good evening! It's nearly Kanye time!
Not long to go now until what’s certain to be the most talked about appearance of this year’s Glastonbury. The exciting news, of course, is that Kanye flew in by helicopter. Though given that the Libertines flew in by helicopter, you’d think he could have found some way to up the ante. Maybe fly in by stealth bomber. Or transporter beam. Or just levitate his way in. Either way I’ll be watching it on the iPlayer (and other things that pop on the TV) and making asinine observations, and bringing you reports from our team of writers around the site. We’ll also have Alexis Petridis’s verdict on Kanye later on.
But there’s more to Glastonbury than Kanye West, apparently. Like the angry men Mark Beaumont went to see earlier …
For the uninitiated, they comprise one bloke (Andrew Fearn) who presses play on some laptop Batman beats and then just stands there swigging lager, and a second bloke (Williamson) who rants very sweary and often incomprehensible social and cultural grievances like Mark E Smith going berserk in a post office, while manically batting invisible flies from his ears. Every song ends with a furious final slogan – “Smash the fucking window!”, “Sack the manager!” – or a lusty raspberry, and involves a torrent of abuse hurled at everyone from patronising middle managers to Johnny Borrell.
Read Mark’s review of Slaves, Sleaford Mods and the Pop Group here.
Harriet Gibsone wouldn’t stand for any of that, and went to see Burt Bacharach instead.
There is little to dislike about the 87-year-old’s performance: the sun is blazing, the picnic carpets are covered in lazy-limbed families who’ve plonked themselves down for the rest of the day, bathing in the romantic, rose-tinted glow of the easy-listening king.
Read Harriet’s full review here.
