Coldplay headlined this weekend after a day full of the most promising talents on the music scene. ‘Euronews Culture’ was on the ground to bring you all the information about Glastonbury.
The sun was shining in the sky as Saturday began in Glastonbury. If the previous day was an ode to pop stardom, Saturday offered a more eclectic variety of musicians with a lush, colorful finale. However, despite all the fireworks and confetti, we remain unconvinced by the choice of Coldplay as headliner for the fifth time. This is everything we learned from Saturday at the Festival de Glastonbury 2024.
Good taste at Glastonbury
While we soaked up the rays under the blazing sun, we also needed some food to soak up last night’s party. Dua Lipa. Walking through the colossal festival grounds, one of the highlights is the huge variety of dining options from which to choose. Tip: For free eating, there is a Hare Krishna tent at the Healing Fields offering delicious vegan dishes. If you know how to name a world cuisine, you will find it here.
For example, for our first meal of the day, we stopped at a poke restaurant for a bowl of salmon sashimi with vegetables over rice. After assuring ourselves of the quality of the food vendor’s refrigeration in this Somerset field, we sat down with Factory To as a backdrop to the ‘Pyramid Stage’.
And what a backdrop. He son of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, Femi, 62, brought her own brand of her father’s musical style to Glastonbury. It’s a joyous and festive performance in which Femi recalls that his father brought him to the same stage 40 years ago, before inviting his own son, Made Kuti, to the stage, who plays an incredibly long continuous note during an alto saxophone solo.
More than music
As always, Glastonbury fans will say that the “real” festival experience is far from the main stages and, as we explored, we found our share of fun. First, with a band of ‘kazoos’ parading through the fields. Of course, we couldn’t resist and participated. They even let us have a ‘kazoo’, and I may have spent the rest of the day chanting ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ with mine, much to the dismay of everyone around me.
Another fun aspect of the festival is the different types of artists that can be seen. We could see a woman doing juggling with his feet, an escape artist doing balances at the top of a staircase and, in the small ‘Poetry&Words’ tent, located in the Cabaret field, we even had time to see Glastonbury visitors taking their first steps in a section of open microphone.
Cyndi Lauper, struggling
Dressed in a baby blue leather jacket and looking like the icon she always was, at 71 years old, Cyndi Lauper She wore a powerful outfit. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for her voice. Time and time again, Lauper struggled to hit the notes of her ’80s classics, sometimes even missing keys.
However, as legend at noon on Saturday, the public turned with Lauper. Singing with her whenever he needed it. There was also a touching moment when Lauper reflected on how her song ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ inspired the feminist slogan ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights’ (Girls just want to have fundamental rights), which inspired her to create her own charity for women’s health and rights.
Glastonbury is the pinnacle
The main stage at Glastonbury is shaped like a pyramid. A performance at this festival usually represents the high point of an artist’s career till the date. Thanks to the enormous influx of public, the power of attraction of the United Kingdom in the music scene and the performances televised around the world by the ‘BBC’, a good performance at Glastonbury can take an artist’s career to the next level, as we saw with Dua Lipa on Friday.
The Last Dinner Party He clearly felt that powerful effect. We loved his performance last month at the Primavera Sound of Barcelonabut after their whirlwind year following their debut album ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, this was the moment they’ve been waiting for.
And what if they succeeded. Before a packed ‘Other Stage’, the band put aside any doubt to show that they are one of the freshest voices in indie rock. Singer Abigail Morris dominated the stage dressed in ruffles and attitude. If they are able to follow up with an equally impressive second album, it won’t be long before we see them at the top of the Pyramid.
Likewise, the rapper Little Simzwinner of the Mercury Prize, was the secondary headliner this Saturday on the ‘Pyramid Stage’, representing a new milestone in his acclaimed career. In a really interesting choice for that slot on the bill, Little Simz have made an impressive leap into the mainstream without sacrificing artistry after their fourth album ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’ broke ground.
With the entire ‘Pyramid Stage’ singing along, Little Simz’s sunset performance acted as a coronation for her like british rap queen. “You are witnessing greatness,” she joked at one point. It’s hard to disagree.
A repeated show: between the power of the classics and the lack of success of their most recent songs
for the fifth timemore than any other group, Coldplay was headliner from Glastonbury this Saturday. Before they were in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2016. Since last timeThey have published three albums. But while his work in the first decade of this century still includes some of the indie genre’s most elegant tracks, the last three albums have largely been insipid parades of empty platitudes.
Entering their fifth headlining show, it’s hard to know exactly why they’re here, other than a music scene that lacks bands capable of playing at this level. However, when they take the stage, they put aside any doubts and demonstrate how effective they are as artists. With a sea of luminous bracelets that they distribute before the concert, the thousands of spectators immerse themselves in a spectacle of songs, corny jokes and guest stars, from elegant musical nods (Femi Kuti, Laura Mvula and Little Simz) to authentic emotional moments (Michael J. Fox and Michael Eavis himself).
On an emotional level, it is a high quality show. It’s a fun walk through the countryside with a band that everyone has always secretly loved, even if they don’t admit it. But on a critical level, it seems like a missed opportunity. Glastonbury is the pinnacle and a headlining spot on the ‘Pyramid Stage’ works best when the artist has something to prove. We saw it yesterday with Dua Lipa and we will check it out today with SZA. For Coldplay it was routine.
Of course, it was pleasant, but artistically it represented nothing more than a repetition of previous performances with some new flourishes. The glow bracelets may be a cool move for the band, but they pulled the exact same trick at their 2016 performance. All the pyrotechnics, fireworks, and confetti are fun, but in the end you realize they’re just using them to give flavor of post-2011 songs that no one really likes.
However, one cannot deny the power of its classics. And a passionate interpretation of ‘Fix You’ At the end of the performance, the entire audience gathers together in a beautiful moment singing the chorus a cappella. If only the energetic Chris Martin could have left it there. Instead, always trying to go one step further, he makes his band end with their completely inconsequential new single ‘feelslikeimfallinginlove’. It may have been fun, but like the final song, this performance was a step too far.
