Headliners: The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo
Festival dates: Wednesday, June 25 - Sunday, June 29
UK coverage - free on BBC iPlayer
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Heartbroken greebos around Glasto have just found out that Deftones have been forced to pull their much-anticipated Other Stage set at short notice. It robs the UK’s biggest festival of a potentially iconic set - metal and hard rock is often a little underrepresented here, and the weekend’s mosh pit quota has surely just fallen off a cliff.
Thank fuck for Amyl and the Sniffers. From the second the rowdy Aussie four-piece bound out on stage and launch into an hour-long set of punk ‘n’ roll ragers, the crowd in front of the Other Stage is a bubbling sea of pits, dancing, headbanging and fist-pumping. Melding the raw, old school punk of the Stooges with the chunky, raucous rock of AC/DC and Rose Tattoo, the Melbourne crew have Glasto by the baps and balls.
At the centre of it all is Amy Taylor, as oddly magnetic a singer as punk rock has produced in quite some time. Sliding across the stage, pogoing past Bryce Wilson’s drum kit, skipping down the centre ramp, she’s like a marching, dancing, twerking, demented cheerleader for her own band, her wide-eyed stare and big grin as contagious as it is terrifying.
“Where are all the bikinis?!” she beams before the band rip through Tiny Bikini. By this point there are people on shoulders all over the place, everyone else in the field merrily bouncing around them. It’s no exaggeration: at one point Louder strolls round the back of the Other Stage area and is struggling to see a single body not moving - even the sign language interpreter is rocking out so hard she looks like she might take off as she mimics Declan Mehrtens peeling off a guitar solo.
Midway through the set, Amy gets serious: “What an honour it is to be here. And because I got that honour I want to take the time to say something political.”
What follows is a bit of a freewheeling speech that references Palestine, right and left wing political parties, colonialism, ineffective governments and aboriginal rights in Australia.
“It’s not perfect," she says, “but I think it’s better to say anything than say nothing at all.”
It’s chaotic, but it’s earnest and is received rapturously by the Glasto faithful. Much like Amyl and the Sniffers themselves, then. Deftones may have gone AWOL, but anyone doubting that hard and heavy rock music belongs at Glasto has been put firmly in their place by one of the most vital bands in the game right now.
