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Crying Lightning just now from the Monkeys which – whisper it – I think is a shade overrated. Keen liveblog followers will know that Mary who I spoke to earlier on the front row will be actually crying at her favourite song being played. The front row of the Pyramid stage during the day is the place to be if you want to be reminded of the sheer intensity of fandom: people settling in for a 12-hour marathon of sunburn, dehydration and having to watch all of Royal Blood to make it to the promised land. We salute you.
Laura is over at Kelis on West Holts, which she said started a little slow with generic dance (that was Benny Benassi’s Spaceship, generic dance fans) but now she’s doing Caught Out There and it’s all going off.
Meekz review
Gwilym Mumford
It’s been a close and clammy Friday at Worthy Farm. So probably not the best day to rock up on stage wearing a ski mask. Might this finally be the moment that Manchester rapper Meekz removes his defining prop? For a moment it looks like he might – he even teases that he’ll take it off … once he gets backstage after the gig. Ski mask remaining stubbornly on, Meekz launches into an energised set of minimalist drill, swaggering around the stage confidently during his Dave collab Fresh Out the Bank and raining invisible bills on the crowd during More Money. An exciting new face in UK rap – even if he’s unlikely to ever let us see it.
Brianstorm now for Arctic Monkeys, the song which rightly condemned the T-shirt and tie combination to the bin of history’s greatest mistakes – I’ve worn some crap in my time but at least I never went there – and then it’s time for some shoulder shimmying to the pounding piano of Snap Out of It. After that deliberate wrongfooting of the audience with one of their stranger new songs, they’re now waist deep in anthem zone. Our Jenessa is in the crowd and says she thinks she can detect a touch of vocal reticence to Alex’s delivery, but that he’s essentially going full tilt already.
Young Fathers apparently drew an ever growing crowd for their West Holts set – and our Josh Halliday says they ended it with a chant of “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here. Fuck the Tories!” That’s the ticket!
Arctic Monkeys begin their headline slot
I can hear Arctic Monkeys sparking into life on the Pyramid about 100m away from where we’re sat. They’ve started up with Sculptures of Anything Goes, which for me vaulted straight into a personal band Top 5 – a kind of malevolent Bond theme full of dreamscape drama and those wonderful particular Turner details: “Village coffee mornings with not long since retired spies / Now that’s my idea of a good time”. I can’t hear a trace of laryngitis, meanwhile.
A big spark of joy every festival season is a sign language interpreter going viral for their sheer rizz, and this year it’s the turn of this woman on the BBC:
The BBC have laudably got an entire dedicated stream on iPlayer with BSL interpretation, running all weekend.
Russell Mael is still in wonderful voice on the Park stage, strident but made slightly fragile with vibrato; All That, from 2020, feels very much a classic to stand alongside their big well-known numbers, and is a fitting closer to their show.
Fred Again reviewed
Shaad D'Souza
Here’s the thing about Fred Again: he should have been playing on the Pyramid stage. The London-based songwriter, producer and vocalist has been slowly building his fanbase over several years, playing to increasingly huge crowds at increasingly huge festivals; I had a feeling his Friday evening Glastonbury set would be massive, but I clearly underestimated his grip on the millennial market right now. Fred’s crowd was absolutely insane; although he was playing on the Other Stage, Glastonbury’s second biggest, his crowd felt like it belonged at the main stage given how sprawling and excited it was.
But therein lies the paradox: even though he is one of the most popular artists performing at this year’s Glastonbury, he remains profoundly dull, an artist with narrow emotional bandwidth and – with his guest vocalists, remixes of big stars, samples and voice notes – no real perspective of his own. Fred is a bona fide runaway sensation but his music is so intensely neutral and mass-market that, after watching his set, you come away feeling like you know nothing about him. I watched the show with Alexis Petridis, the Guardian’s pop critic, and we both left with the same takeaway: although the show was purely enjoyable it was also strangely anaemic, so mercenary in its pursuit of broad popularity that it forgot to be, like, good. (To be fair, Alexis really enjoyed the show – it was me who found it uncomfortable and weird.)
Still, it’s hard to deny that Fred is basically the headliner of the weekend: he’s the only artist I’ve heard people talking about and his crowd was ridiculously huge. He is perhaps the most significant British breakout of the past 10 years, and the sheer enthusiasm of his crowd confirmed it – even if his music is lowest common denominator.
Let me take a moment to reflect on last night and one of the most fun things I’ve ever seen at Glastonbury: Jyoty DJing at Lonely Hearts Club. A little selection of her selections: Wifey by Next, Gimme More by Britney, Premier Gaou by Magic System, Exceeder by Mason, plus Short Dick Man and WAP in cosmic unalignment. There was amapiano, baile funk, reggaeton, UKG … like being led around a world of music by the most enthusiastic but easily distracted tour guide. We appreciate you Jyoty!
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