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Festival Review Glastonbury never better

WILL STONE reports on an outstanding festival at Pilton Farm

CLIMATE change dominated the politics at this year’s Glastonbury, where the ubiquitous Extinction Rebellion kicked off proceedings with a march and stone-circle rally, with participants joining the impromptu protest and forming a human hourglass.

It was refreshing to see the festival start in this spirit of protest and a reminder that Glastonbury was rooted in left-wing activism, being co-organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for a time in the 1980s.

And Glastonbury is making a renewed effort to bolster its green credentials. This year was plastic-free with the Eavis family banning all single-use plastic bottles and cups. Good on ‘em— seeing a mountain of plastic after every Pyramid stage headliner was not a pretty site, environmental issues aside.

This year also saw a number of spectacular new creative additions. Gone was the giant 50-tonne fire-breathing Arcadia spider and in its place was a huge 140-tonne fire-breathing crane, created by the same collective.

It was a much-needed change. The spider was launched at Glastonbury a decade ago and many have seen the show umpteenth times at other festivals, including last year’s appearance at a show in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

While not as scary as the spider and looking more like a construction site, the crane did have its charm as it spun 360 degrees amid flames, torches and lighting effects. Performing in its globular centre were the likes of Carl Cox, Bicep, Charlotte De Witte and Andy C.

Then there was Glastonbury-on-Sea, a purpose-built pier complete with a Punch and Judy show, fortune telling, candy floss, an arcade, a band stand full of android robots, a shooting range, bumper cars, deck chairs and swarms of seagulls.

Music-wise, headline acts at West Holts stage Jon Hopkins, Wu Tang Clan and Janelle Monae arguably trumped those at the Pyramid with Stormzy, The Killers and The Cure, although the latter was the perfect wind-down Sunday headliner.

Perennial goth Robert Smith rattled out everything from the sombre Plainsong and Pictures Of You from classic album Disintegration to singalong hits Friday I’m In Love, The Caterpillar and Boys Don’t Cry.

The pop acts included Mo, Sigrid and Janet Jackson as well as Sunday afternoon megastars Kylie, followed by Mylie Cyrus, who played covers of Metallica and Nine Inch Nails before finishing with Wrecking Ball.

As always, it's the moments when you’re not rushing to see x, y and z band that are often the most memorable and special. The festival’s opening ceremony, at the stone circle on Wednesday night, saw fire performers before a wonderful display of fireworks and burning phoenixes.

And a redesigned Block 9 and Shangri-la had new stages including the impressive Icon, dedicated to noise techno. But the jewel in the crown, as always, was the mysterious underground jazz bar/piano bar/hobbit hole next to the stone circle, where the edgy drunken improvised immersive theatre and performance is so on point you can’t tell the actors from the punters.

No Glastonbury report is complete without mentioning the weather. There was the usual hilarious spate of doom-mongering with forecasts of thunderstorms and a mud bath. But in the end it proved to be quite the opposite.

The heatwave set the scene for festival founder Michael Eavis’s declaration that “it has never been better, it has never been as good as this one,” as he greeted revellers at the opening.

He was not wrong.

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