There are more than 3,000 performances to choose between at this year’s giant pan-genre jamboree. From pop A-listers to underground ones-to-watch, here are our picks
‘N
ot a vintage year,” came the usual grumbles about the Glastonbury lineup when it was announced in March – and it’s perhaps only in England where people would moan about the lack of quality on offer at a festival with more than 3,000 performances across five days. In reality, Glastonbury remains stacked with varied, progressive, boundlessly vital artists, and the real challenge is picking your way through them: here are some of our tips.
At 79, Neil Young is as irascible and fired-up as a man a quarter of his age, and seems to steel-tip his laurels so he doesn’t rest on them: after reuniting with Crazy Horse in 2024, he’s swapped them out again for new backing band the Chrome Hearts (featuring 81-year-old legend Spooner Oldham on organ). You rather hope Young will get the same memo Elton John did in 2023, stating that the Pyramid crowds need more hits than most, though he may well ignore it. Even if he does, an ornery and obscure Neil Young set is still a thrill.
Olivia Rodrigo delivered a bracing set on the Other stage in 2022, naming the supreme court justices who overturned Roe v Wade that weekend and telling them “we hate you, we hate you” – and she has splenetic pop-punk and heart-rending balladry to match that venom. And kicking off these three Pyramid headliners on Friday night, there’s no doubting the pop heft of the 1975’s quite considerable catalogue, their lyrics rooted in the weirdness of the way we live now.
