The festival reaches its final day, featuring a crowd-pleasing afternoon of legends on the Pyramid stage, with the likes of the Libertines and Celeste kicking things off
It is mercifully overcast at Worthy Farm today, without the heat that’s been oppressing festivalgoers so far this weekend. That makes for a pleasant setting at the Pyramid stage to see Mercury prize-nominated and Brit rising star award-winner Celeste. She is preparing to release her sophomore album Woman of Faces, nearly five years after her debut Not Your Muse instantly topped the UK album charts. She says that she did not expect it to take this long for her follow-up, but that“everything happens when it’s supposed to”.
With her brilliantly smoky, soulful vocals, Celeste invokes the likes of Billie Holiday, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, yet her distinctly English lilt provides a girl-next-door entry point to her magnificence. The emotion in her voice and in her songs is so overflowing that she repeatedly flaps her arms, as if shaking out the mood before it swallows her. On With the Show, a formidable, high-octane ballad, reaches big, orchestral moments of brilliance before Celeste transitions into more minimalist tracks with contemplative piano.
West Holts stage Theatrical, flirtatious and athletic, this debut UK festival performance from the US MC is unrelentingly brilliant
When Doechii takes the stage at West Holts on Saturday night, she is introduced to us as Doechii the don, the dean, the supreme. Before the hour is out, no one in the audience will be left in doubt as to the Grammy winner’s mastery of her craft, or how much work she has put in to achieve it. But at the same time as flaunting her natural ability, Doechii is also eager to show her working and the paths she used – and her debut UK festival appearance is all the more mesmerising for it. The 26-year-old performer’s schoolgirlish styling – giant lockers, rows of desks, Doechii’s long braids and exceedingly brief kilt – is immediately obvious as a feint: she may be a relative newcomer to the scene, but she is no rookie.
The videos playing either side of the stage bring the set’s concept into focus: Doechii (real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon) is leading us, step by step, through the steps necessary to become a hip-hop master – from how to distinguish between “good bars and GREAT bars”, to understanding “the aspect of flow” and the importance of genre.
Got something to say sorry for? Here are words that have no place in your apologies, according to those who have spent years analysing them: “It was not my intent”. “What I meant was”. “Sorry you misunderstood”. And any use of the word “obviously”.
Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy call it “bad apology bingo”. They have heard a lot of them as co-authors of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies and the blog Sorrywatch, where they critique public apologies. “We’ve looked at so many studies, from so many different fields, on what makes an effective apology,” Ingall says.
There’s a stacked bill on offer at Worthy Farm. We’ll be bringing reviews, news, pictures and more throughout the day, with Raye on the Pyramid and Skepta replacing Deftones
When Ichiko Aoba was a child, experiencing loneliness and isolation, she lost herself in the fantasy worlds created by animation studios such as Studio Ghibli and Disney. The Japanese folk singer-songwriter further nurtured that interest in intricate world building as a form of escapism through creating her music – and despite its niche and experimental composition, she has found global popular appeal built up from a significant cult following.
She sings entirely in Japanese so live I cannot dissect her lyrics, but you can parse her themes from the visuals and from her tone: the stage is draped with willows and Aoba’s airy vocals are atmospheric and expansive, bringing to mind the serene and tranquil ancient forests of Japan like Aokigahara or Yakushima. You half expect a deer to gallop on stage and be fed by her hand. Aoba certainly looks the part of a nature deity: she is donning a laurel crown and she wears a shimmering, long ruffled dress with iridescent and metallic colours. “That must be so warm,” says a woman sat next to me, and indeed Aoba acknowledges the “sunny day” and sips from her bottle.
Pyramid stage The Canadian singer’s pared-down set showcases an undiminished vocal talent and life-affirming energy
Alanis Morissette has landed the coveted pre-headliner “sundowner slot” on the Pyramid stage on Friday, and without any significant clashes, setting her up for a healthy crowd. Just in case you’re not familiar with who she is, her set opens with a helpful explanatory video emphasising her cultural impact with testimonials from Kelly Clarkson, Halsey and (actual Glastonbury headliner) Olivia Rodrigo, as well as clips from interviews giving a brief overview on her views (anti-war; “naturearchy” over patriarchy).
This brazen American narration letting you know that you’re about to see a seven-time Grammy award-winner and a Very Influential Artist strikes a slightly odd note (or maybe just an un-English one). The spirit of Glastonbury, after all, is one where even the biggest star in the world must profess earnest and heartfelt gratitude for having been permitted to so much as cross the threshold of this holy ground; Morissette’s video intro, emphasising her importance – under-acknowledged as it may be – risks setting expectations unattainably high.
However, when Morissette takes the stage, she is very quick to show that she deserves them. After a little trill on her harmonica, she introduces One Hand in My Pocket, one of her best-known songs. It’s a smart move, not only inviting the audience to join in with its built-in choreography (one hand making a peace sign, one hand holding a cigarette – good luck hailing that taxi cab!) but also signalling that she’s setting out to play a crowd-pleasing set, and not planning to hold back on the hits.
For anyone who has cared to see beyond her reputation as the Canadian singer of Ironic and/or an angry man-hating feminist – as she was persistently dismissed, even at her career peak – Morissette has always been defined by her voice. It’s both incredibly powerful, capable of the octave-jumping acrobatics that define pop’s most lauded singers, but also – more unusually – idiosyncratic: you don’t have to be very familiar with her back catalogue to be able to do a quickly guessable impression.
Thirty years on from her album Jagged Little Pill, no one would fault Morissette if she wasn’t able to summon the raw power that made that album so enduring. It’s defined of course by You Oughta Know, a song that makes every other song subsequently described as having been “inspired by female rage” (and there have been many!) sound as if they were written by ChatGPT. But if there were any doubts about her voice among the crowd, Morissette dispels them instantly, really putting some welly into her trademark warble, even for One Hand in My Pocket – one of her lower-intensity hit songs.
“Got some pipes on her, eh,” my sister messages me from elsewhere in the field and I can only agree. The focus of this set is on Morissette as a singer, as much as a songwriter, and it’s refreshing – after a decade now of whisperpop, and even the angriest young feminists in pop seemingly struggling to actually raise their voices – to hear what a well-trained diaphragm is capable of.
Perhaps relatedly, Morissette keeps the chat between songs to a minimum, thanking the crowd with an ear-to-ear smile then launching into Right Through You. On the screen behind her, a series of stats scroll through highlighting the multi-faceted grim reality for women today, still – from higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, to a tiny share of the world’s total wealth, to dismal stats of partner violence. It makes explicit the sexism and disrespect that has dogged Morissette through her career and brings it into the anniversary set, concluding the song with the question: “Why are we afraid of the divine feminine?”
Woodsies Lorde resembles Patti Smith as she introduces her entire new album, Virgin, but the lack of well-known hits lets the energy drop
It would be misleading to call Lorde’s performance at Glastonbury a “secret set”. Though listed on the schedule only as the mysterious “TBA”, playing the Woodsie stage for an hour shortly after the festival’s kick-off on Friday morning, the anonymous artist’s identity was seemingly widely known weeks before.
Ella Yelich-O’Connor herself had not been exactly subtle, meaningfully flashing her eyes at Radio 1’s Greg James when he pointed out that the release of her fourth album, Virgin, coincided with Glastonbury’s first day. On Thursday, ahead of Virgin’s release, she provided confirmation by posting an aerial photo of the Woodsies tent on Instagram.
It’s a bold move, to debut a new album to a crowd who won’t yet have had a chance to listen to it, let alone form any impressions – but Lorde has that kind of clout. Since her precocious debut, Pure Heroine, she has enjoyed a devout fanbase, many of whom look on her as a big sister figure: worldly and warm, but only intermittently available. With 2017’s critically acclaimed Melodrama, too, she secured her status as a pop star who is only more attention-grabbing for having only sporadic releases.
With Virgin – it’s been made clear, from the three singles and pre-album press – Yelich O’Connor is taking a different tack to music, attempting something looser, more immediate and more off-the-cuff. She debuted first single What Was That with a guerilla performance in New York City’s Washington Square Park, and has since played a series of small pop-up gigs to only the most connected fans. Second single Man of the Year and opening track Hammer both have a suggestive, half-finished yet considered quality, as though Lorde was gently attempting to warn fans: she is not the same star that they remember.
Arriving on stage to strobe lighting and a huge cheer, Lorde is dressed simply in a white baby tee and cargo pants, resembling, with her shock of dark hair, Patti Smith – and also her younger self. For Solar Power – her uncharacteristically sunny third album, which received faltering reviews – Lorde experimented with bleach-blond hair and variously sexy and/or smooth brain’d personae. Today, accompanied by a low-profile band, she appears minimalistic, uncomplicated, direct: recognisable as the teenager who burst out of nowhere with a sharp-eyed satire of celebrity excess, known for her big hair and idiosyncratic dance moves. And the crowd is glad to be reunited.
But when it becomes clear Lorde is playing the new album in full, with a seamless transition from What Was That into a new song, Shape Shifter, the crowd’s energy visibly begins to flag. Yelich-O’Connor has always been a fully fledged performer; here, she kneels on the stage, hoiks up her T-shirt to caress her stomach, and plays to the camera with her face, smizing and snarling to impress upon us the personal nature of the lyrics. Like many songs on the album, Shape Shifter deals with Lorde’s desire not to be pinned on to any one evolution or identity, and reflects on those she’s lived so far: the siren, the saint. “I’ve been up on the pedestal, but tonight I just wanna fall.”
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