Glastonbury 2022: Six of the biggest talking points from the Worthy Farm festival
US rapper Kendrick Lamar’s headline set closed an impressive weekend of live music
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Your support makes all the difference.The final day at Glastonbury ended with a jaw-dropping performance by American rapper Kendrick Lamar.
Over the course of five days, fans had danced to performances by top artists such as Paul McCartney, Little Simz, Pet Shop Boys, Sam Fender, and Billie Eilish.
On the last day of the festival, George Ezra turned up at the John Peel stage in what was possibly the worst-kept secret set in Glastonbury history, while jazz-fusion legend Herbie Hancock delighted crowds relaxing at the Pyramid stage with a virtuosic performance.
Here’s a look back at six of the biggest talking points from the entire Glastonbury 2022 festival...
Roe v Wade
News of the US Supreme Court’s highly controversial legal ruling broke on Friday, and it was clearly on a lot of people’s minds at Glastonbury. It certainly didn’t escape the attention of the artists, many of whom were American. From Billie Eilish, to Phoebe Bridgers, to Olivia Rodrigo, to Kendrick Lamar, lots of the performers included powerful statements about abortion rights in their sets.
From the youngest ever headliner…
Eilish made history with her Friday night headline slot, delighting fans with an intimate but lively set of songs from the 20-year-old’s two albums. As the festival’s youngest ever solo headliner, the pressure was certainly on Eilish’s shoulders, but as Mark Beaumont’s five-star review attests, she pulled it off with aplomb.
…to the oldest
On the other end of the spectrum, we had Paul McCartney, who delivered an absolute barnstormer of a set on Saturday. Performing a range of hits from his Beatles and Wings repertoires, as well as his solo career (and a couple of covers), Macca delivered a Glastonbury experience for the ages. At 80 years old, he became the festival’s oldest ever headliner.
Kendrick Lamar
Closing the festival on Sunday was Kendrick Lamar, who held the Pyramid Stage in the palm of his hand from the start of his electrifying, career-spanning set to the end. The stunning climax of his set – a rendition of “saviour” performed while blood dripped from his diamond crown of thorns, before he began a furious chant about women’s rights – was pure chills-down-the-spine stuff.
Ukraine
The ongoing war in Ukraine was also a core political issue for many of the festival’s acts and attendees. Ukrainian flags were spotted commonly around the festival site, with McCartney holding one aloft in solidarity as he took the stage for his encore. The Pyramid Stage also played host to Ukrainian band Dakhabrakha on Sunday, one of several Ukrainian artists the festival championed.
A little help from my friends…
While Kendrick’s set may have been all him, many of the festival’s other acts deployed some heavyweight guest stars. McCartney brought Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl on stage towards the end. Olivia Rodrigo welcomed Lily Allen for a duet of “F*** You”. Phoebe Bridges joined forces with Arlo Parks (who had her own full set at the festival) for a couple of numbers. Pete Doherty even showed up on stage during Hak Baker’s performance, having performed with the Libertines shortly before. It was a festival chock-full of unexpected – but thoroughly enjoyed – cameos.
Look back at our live blog below:
Ghetts dominates the John Peel Stage
Over on John Peel, my fave Ghetts is coming to the end of a phenomenal, energy-driven set. I’m honestly still a little gutted that he didn’t win the Mercury Prize last year for his astonishing, career-best, Conflict of Interest. But you’ll never catch him chasing industry approval, ever. He’s always done his own thing. And it’s gratifying to see how far that’s taken him, with such a great crowd at Glastonbury today.
Olivia Rodrigo review – Other Stage
★★★★★
Anyone who tells you that this year’s Glastonbury is trapped in the 1970s clearly hasn’t been to Olivia Rodrigo’s show, where the highest concentration of screaming teenage girls outside of TikTok can be found.
Warm afternoon sunlight gleaming off her knee-high DMs, mirror-mosaic piano, and purple electro-acoustic guitar, this is one of the most iridescent – and sweetest – shows of Saturday at Worthy Farm.
Although she’s best known for her grungy hit “good 4 u”, Rodrigo has a back catalogue full of ballads about heartbreak. Today her performance includes “happier”, “hope ur ok”, and a song she says is from her childhood acting career that she introduces as “Iowa”, She breaks out her breakthrough, “drivers license”, early on.
A surprise cover of Avril Lavigne’s 2003 grunge hit “Complicated” comes next, during which Rodrigo kicks her heels up on the piano. This alone would have been enough to leave this doe-eyed crowd charmed. But then Rodrigo announces that she’s going to bring out a special guest. At first, it sounds like the words “Billie Eilish” have left her lips. And it would make sense – the Pyramid Stage headliner played the night before. But it turns out it’s just her accent – because it’s Lily Allen who takes the stage, and sets the scene for one big festival moment.
“Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided to overturn the law permitting safe abortion,” says Rodrigo. “I’m devastated and terrified and so many women and girls are going to die because of this.
“I’m going to dedicate this song to the Supreme Court justices. I hate you.”
And with that, Allen, Rodrigo and what feels like the whole of Glastonbury sing along to Lily Allen’s 2009 hit “F*** You”, from her second album It’s Not Me, It’s You.
Allen, dressed in monochrome with a Chanel hair clip, looks a little shy, a little deliriously happy, as she duets with an exuberant Rodrigo. “deja vu” follows, and for a moment it feels as though Rodrigo’s not going to drop her biggest hit. But she belts out “good 4 u” into her purple microphone, with plenty of backing from a crowd who sound louder than ever. Yes, it might be true that Paul McCartney’s playing later – but for now the zoomers are taking the wheel.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds review, Glastonbury 2022: The band that latter-era Oasis could have been
★★★★☆
“What’s gonna happen here now,” says Noel Gallagher, stepping gafferly up to the microphone halfway through his set, exuding Mike Lynch energy, “is I’m gonna play you a couple more tunes you don’t give a s*** about, they’re for me. But if you stick around after that, woo, there’s gonna be a lot of very happy people in bucket hats…”
Could the gloves be coming off in the world’s most infamous sibling rivalry? After several years in the dramatic doldrums, reduced to a one-way caps-lock slanging match on Twitter, the latest season of Gallagher v Gallagher has picked up substantially. Cocky young battler Liam has become the surprise stadium-level success of the pair, by dint of playing a fair old whack of major Oasis hits in his solo sets (who knew?). Elder brother – and one-time guardian of Glastonbury from the scourge of hip-hop – Noel, meanwhile, continues his creative renaissance with the High Flying Birds, only kept from a Knebworth of his own by playing fair. His bursts of Oasis tunes have largely been songs he sang on record, packing sets with mid-paced acoustic led singalongs but lacking the punch of a “Supersonic” or “Rock’n’Roll Star”.
The High Flying Birds are (non-accidental Partridge) the band that latter-era Oasis could have been. Oasis’s Noughties decline, after all, was largely down to Noel farming out album track filler slots to his bandmates. Now fully back at the song-writing helm and with an exploratory psych-rock mindset, over twelve years he’s produced three increasingly impressive and imaginative albums of galactic glam, motoric rock and some of the most phenomenal scissor playing you’ll ever have seen on an international stage.
Percussionist Charlotte Marionneau’s famous clippers come out again during “She Taught Me How to Fly”, and she also adds a phone call solo to the stratospheric “It’s a Beautiful World”. No mere gimmicks, but oddities indicative of Gallagher’s willingness to follow friend and mentor Paul Weller into more exploratory sonic territories. “Fort Knox” is a hypnotic dance rock firestorm, “Black Star Dancing” a psychedelic groove worthy of Jungle. “Holy Mountain” sounds, brilliantly, like Wizzard covering Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on penny whistle. The first half of the set, even if it is just for Noel, is easily the most exciting.
Not that the Oasis half isn’t heart-warming business. “You’ve made it,” Noel says as he launches into “Little By Little” and the field erupts. Keeping the brotherly feud above-the-belt he concedes the rock’n’roll ground to Liam and sticks to the acoustic singalongs and soaring anthems – “Wonderwall”, “Whatever”, “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”, “Half the World Away”.
“Let the dogging commence,” he quips ahead of “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, a crowd-pleaser to worry “Hey Jude”. It’s a smart, conciliatory move; all the best soap operas need a clash of character.
Paul McCartney headlining the Pyramid Stage!
We’re a bit flummoxed here at home, because it seems like the BBC’s broadcast of Paul McCartney isn’t starting until an hour after he comes on the Pyramid Stage for his Saturday headline slot!
Olivia Rodrigo review, Glastonbury 2022: Gen-Z star delivers one of the most iridescent shows of the day
Olivia Rodrigo delivers one of Glastonbury weekend’s most iridescent sets – review
Yes, it might be true that Paul McCartney’s playing later – but for now the zoomers are taking the wheel
All You Need Is...
A livestream that starts at the same time as Macca’s set, ideally.
Paul McCartney at Glastonbury: BBC viewers complain as Beatles legend not shown for an hour after set time – report
BBC viewers confused over why Paul McCartney set is not being aired in real time
Viewers at home have been left confused as to why Paul McCartney’s set at Glastonbury is not being shown on BBC in real time.
More on the McCartney BBC chaos
Viewers at home have been left confused as to why Paul McCartney’s set at Glastonbury is not being shown on BBC in real time.
The Beatles legend has already taken the stage for his headline performance, which was scheduled to begin at 9.30pm. Fans at home, however, have not been able to tune in.
Currently, BBC is still airing Noel Gallagher’s set. You can read The Independent’s four-star review of the Oasis star’s performance here.
McCartney will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer’s Glastonbury channels at 10.30pm, an hour later than when he took the stage.
“I’m totally confused how are you can watch Paul McCartney 9:30 and I can’t see anything but bloody Liam Gallagher on the Glastonbury channel on iPlayer,” wrote one person on Twitter.
Another added: “No cuz why is Paul McCartney’s glasto set not being shown live when everyone else’s is.”
“Why do we have to wait an hour to watch Paul McCartney? Every single other performance has been live on iplayer [...] yet you have delayed this for an hour as far as I can tell. Click on Pyramid stage live stream and it says [it] starts in an hour. Really annoying!” said someone else.
A fourth person wrote: “I hope there’s a really good reason why we can’t watch Paul McCartney live as it happens.”
The Independent has contacted a representative of BBC for comment over the delay in coverage specifically for McCartney’s set.
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