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

Kendrick Lamar performs at Glastonbury

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.

Billie Eilish at Glastonbury 2022 (Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

…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:

Glastonbury 2022 talking points

• Everything that went down at Glastonbury 2022
• Kendrick Lamar closes Glastonbury with powerful call for women’s rights
• Paul McCartney – the best Glastonbury has ever seen? The Independent’s review
• Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds review – Pyramid Stage
• Olivia Rodrigo and Lily Allen say ‘F*** You’ to the Supreme Court in smashing Other Stage performance

[27 June 2022 00:00 · Mark Beaumont]

George Ezra secret set – review

“I asked them, ‘can it not be completely secret? Can we tell them at some point?’,” George Ezra tells a crowd stretching several football-pitch lengths outside the John Peel tent.

Secret? Until the Avalon stage makes a big deal of having booked The Joshua Trees, there can’t be a more obvious secret set than Gold Rush Kid on the John Peel Stage. His official announcement a few hours ago was a bit like a governmental press release declaring Brexit rubbish – the Ezra-ites have been camping out all morning for a set of sun-kissed Sunday vibes that, considering the crush, is about as laid-back as the only sunny lockdown bank holiday on Bournemouth beach.

Ezra – an unpretentious and genuinely endearing purveyor of vaguely soulful and tropical Radio 2 pleasantness – nonetheless makes the entire field, inside and out, feel part of his beach-side barbecue of song. “Cassy O” is a hearty country pop jig, “Listen to the Man” the softest of soft reggae and “Hold My Girl” a stirring glower ballad. The shimmer of “Barcelona” sounds like Hertford flesh sizzling gently in the Catalonian sun, while “Green Green Grass” even comes with a story of stumbling across a funeral party in St Lucia, so close is Ezra to becoming the soft pop Judith Chalmers.

The much anticipated party really kicks off with “Paradise” and the crowd groove gently through the closing third, relishing the steel drum carnival that breaks out during “Blame it on Me” – otherwise a less corny Mumford & Sons – and probably breaking records for mass yodelling on “Budapest”.

“Shotgun”, dedicated to the people under rocks on Mars who “didn’t get the memo” about Ezra’s appearance, sends us drifting cheerily off towards Diana Ross feeling, a little smugly, like someones.

[27 June 2022 00:07 · Annabel Nugent]

Everything that happened at Glastonbury 2022

And that’s that! There you have it people, Glastonbury 2022 is over... (officially at least; unofficially, the after-party is only just getting started over at Worthy Farm).

We’ll soon be heading off but we’ll keep the live blog ticking along with all the unmissable stories from this year’s Glasto.

As Roisin O’Connor writes: “The glorious and long-awaited return to Worthy Farm proved to be one of the most colourful, eclectic and apparently crime-free events we’d ever seen.”

See our round-up of unmissable moments frm this year’s festival below...

[27 June 2022 00:08 · Annabel Nugent]

Kendrick Lamar review incoming...

Plus, we’ve got our Kendrick Lamar review on the way so you’ll want to stick around...

[27 June 2022 00:30 · Annabel Nugent]

Herbie Hancock – review

Proving that not every 80-something at Glastonbury needs to look like they might dissolve in the rain, jazz-fusion legend Herbie Hancock takes the stage on Sunday afternoon, with a performance so joyful and effortless it’s as welcome as a burst of sunshine.

The largely reclining Pyramid stage crowd, fanned by a cool breeze, stretches up to the tent line for the veteran virtuoso. Today, Hancock and his band stay away from his electronic-leaning Eighties material, choosing instead to lean into jazz-funk numbers such as “Actual Proof”, from 1974 album Thrust.

A glimpse of “Chameleon”, from classic album Headhunters is folded in early on, the distinctive popping bass collapsing into a series of extended solos. “Footprints” is dedicated to Hancock’s friend, 88-year-old saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who also co-founded the Seventies jazz-fusion band Weather Report.

“Cantaloupe Island”, with its rolling piano chords and sparky trumpet line, comes next, ahead of set closer “Chameleon” – the whole track this time – for which Hancock takes on a dazzling keytar solo that ripples right across the field. It’s going to be a great Sunday.

[27 June 2022 01:00 · Mark Beaumont]

Diana Ross review – Sunday Legends slot

Come back Paul McCartney’s voice, all is forgiven. In the weekend’s grand parade of Sixties hitmakers, Diana Ross’s pipes are most definitely the rustier. “There’s a great power in determination,” she wisely imparts, speaking of her struggles to make her Thank You tour and this Legends slot appearance happen, but also of her great epiglottal strain.

The Queen of Motown might appear from the wings in a flume of bubbles to a fanfare of “I’m Coming Out” – looking like she’s materialised direct from a dimension populated by glamorous snowflake people – but at times, over the coming 75 minutes, she sounds as though she’s doing disco karaoke after four heavy nights at Shangri-La. “Chain Reaction”, in particular, is flatter than a landslide hitting Ian Brown’s house.

The effect is a set that’s as much a 100,000-strong support group as celebratory sing-along. There’s still a magical frisson to being in the presence of such a supernaturally famous and universally beloved pop icon, and Glastonbury’s perm-wigged masses are not letting this one get away without a fight. They help carry her initial rush of Supremes hits – “Baby Love”, “Stop! In The Name of Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” – which are chucked away early like a Legends slot death-wish. They even will on Ross’s failed attempt to start a singalong coda to gentle soul ballad “I’m Still Waiting”. The star and her songs get all the love; the performance itself is of secondary concern.

Until, that is, Ross commits the cardinal Legends slot sin and plugs her new album Thank You too hard to the watching wallets at home. “Tomorrow” is lively disco fare and the title track a marvellous throwback to her Seventies disco soul period, but the last thing we’re here for is a sales pitch, no matter how sweet. The tropical modern pop of “If the World Just Danced” suggests that all of our problems might be solved with a vigorous conga. Presumably down Club ExxonMobile.

From there it takes a cry of “I feel 47!” midway through a fabulous “Upside Down”, with the front-row security doing their customary dance routine, and her Dolly Parton country pop moment “Ease on Down the Road” to claw the set back, despite a frankly awful “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”. It’s something of a shame that Ross feels that songs like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “I Will Survive” are her go-to showstoppers, tracks she’s had hits with but doesn’t entirely own. “I Will Survive” even gets segued into “Billie Jean” and DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win”. But by now the crowd are singing for themselves, just happy to have such a ravishing ringleader.

[27 June 2022 01:30 · Patrick Smith]

Sports Team – review

Sports Team, playing the 12.15pm slot at the John Peel Stage, draw in a huge crowd, their post-punk giving CPR to those (the band included) who were down at Block9 and Shangri-la till the early hours. It’s a set full of energy, as is typically, with frontman Alex Rice a ball of charisma. Their new album is out in August. Expect big things.

[27 June 2022 02:00 · Serena Kutchinsky]

DakhaBrakha – review

Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha started life as a theatre project, rooted in an avant-garde scene that was burgeoning in Kyiv until Putin’s war put it on indefinite pause. For years, the band have served as representatives of their nation’s music and culture, typically ending shows chanting: “Stop Putin! No war!” Today, they’ve brought their anti-war message to the world’s biggest festival, in triumphant and defiant form.

Visually striking, they step out on to the Pyramid Stage, resplendent in towering black lamb’s wool hats, crimson beads and other finery. The crowd – themselves festooned in yellow and blue facepaint, floral headdresses and Ukrainian flags – cheer back at them.

Despite their traditional folk heritage, DhakaBrakha are as contemporary as they come. The whole experience is a riotous explosion of colour; hypnotic harmonies blend seamlessly with African rhythms and heavy percussive bass lines. Never losing sight of their political message, the band show footage of the destruction Russia’s war has wreaked on their homeland during the performance. As they reach their exhilarating climax, the words “Arm Ukraine now” shine out behind them. A reminder for us all of the unifying power of this festival.

As Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his pre-recorded message broadcast on the Other Stage on Friday morning: “Glastonbury is the greatest concentration of freedom these days and I ask you to share this feeling with everyone whose freedom is under attack.”

Today, on the Pyramid stage DhakaBrakha did exactly that.

[27 June 2022 02:30 · Mark Beaumont]

Billie Eilish – five-star review

On Friday, Billie Eilish became the youngest ever solo headliner at Glastonbury. The 20-year-old certainly lived up to expectations – even though, the much-rumoured Harry Styles cameo never came to fruition...

Welcome to the red room. With flames bursting like panic attacks and lasers slashing across the sky, Billie Eilish bounces down a huge ramp lit blood-crimson, and sets about inhabiting a Pyramid-sized metaphor for her internal turmoil.

“Are you ready to have some fun?” she asks, between songs about suicide (muted, tribal opener “bury a friend”) and obsession (spook-disco track “my strange addiction”). Yet she’s soon asking us to scream at “whatever’s p***ing you off” during a compulsive rendition of “you should see me in a crown”. What we should really prepare for is 90 minutes of noir-pop catharsis.

In its way, Eilish’s headline set is just as significant as Jay-Z’s or Stormzy’s. Not because she’s the festival’s youngest ever bill-topper, although it certainly lifts the roof off every bedroom Tik-Tokker’s teenage dreams of glory. But because it marks the ascendence of alternative pop: a home-made, personalised imitation of the mainstream that speaks far closer to the actual teenage experience of 2022. Certainly more than any amount of ultraconfident, oversexualised break-up bird-flips written by long-in-the-tooth Swedish production teams. Alternative pop tones are dark and downbeat, its emotions raw and broken, its concerns doom-laden. Fame is wrought with insecurities, sex is regretful and drugs, when any are mentioned, are generally prescribed for anxiety.

True to form, there’s plenty of angst and insecurity running through Eilish’s set, from the crepuscular mambo of “GOLDWING” to superb nocturnal groover “Therefore I Am”. Midway through, she mourns the overturning of Roe vs Wade (“a dark day for women in the US”) ahead of an acoustic duet with her songwriting brother Finneas on “Your Power”. Ahead of “everything I wanted”, a track about the hassles of fame, she references climate anxiety, the subject of her new film Overheated and the theme of her recent six-night run at the O2.

But while stylistic forebears such as Frank Ocean and The xx have delivered subdued, glowering festival headline shows building to one dramatic crescendo, Eilish skilfully conducts a deeper and more dynamic experience. Blessed with a debut album of dank pop bangers and a richer, more introspective follow-up – last year’s Happier Than Ever – she skips easily between starting visceral pity parties with “bellyache” and a fantastic “bad guy”, charming us with her childhood home videos on “Getting Older”, and pausing the show for a self-help therapy session.

The much rumoured guest appearance from Harry Styles doesn’t happen, but it probably would have been overshadowed by the all-out rock’n’roll climax of “Happier Than Ever”. Alternative pop has arrived, with an almighty bang.

[27 June 2022 03:00 · Mark Beaumont]

Paul McCartney Saturday headliner – review

Following on from Billie Eilish’s stellar set on Friday, Paul McCartney had big shoes to fill come Saturday.

The Beatles legend managed to do just that, though, with just a little help from his friends Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen.

“Like any communal dig through a crate of unlimited treasures, the show takes turns into fond reminiscence. McCartney recalls making the debut Beatles demo – the country tumble “In Spite of All the Danger”, played beautifully – for a pound each then having to buy it back from their old bassist who made “a considerable profit”. The tale flows naturally into a reverent “Love Me Do”, then an emotion-wracked “Here Today”, his undelivered open letter to John Lennon.

Once the big showstoppers start coming, they don’t stop. “Lady Madonna” on a Pepperesque piano. “Something” expanding from his solo ukulele rendition into full majestic flow. “Get Back” accompanied by archive visuals specially compiled by Jackson. All of McCartney’s bits from the Abbey Road medley scattered across the set. You might query the inclusion of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, but for the Mike-wide skank the breadth of the field.”

[27 June 2022 03:30 · Ben Bryant]

Olivia Rodrigo – Saturday review

She may not have been a headliner, but Olivia Rodrigo delivered one of the festival’s most iridescent and blistering performances on Saturday afternoon.

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, “all i want”, 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.