Glastonbury 2024 reviewed: the extremely unofficial festival awards ceremony returns
The Worthys are back: the made-up award ceremony that celebrates all that was great from another five days of peaceful anarchy down on Somerset’s premier dairy farm/pop concert venue. The non-coveted prizes are ready to be dished out, shall we see who’s won this year?
Most improved stage: Pyramid stage
Potentially a controversial one, this. If you have internet access you may have noticed some people complaining about the lineup this year.
Let’s take a look at it though. I’ve long used a shorthand for describing Glastonbury’s main stages: aside from the headliners (who tend to be their own beast), you should think of the Pyramid stage as kind of like a Radio 2 stage (which isn’t necessarily a criticism). Basically, if you wanted to see Texas, Lewis Capaldi, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Rick Astley, the Pyramid was absolutely the festival stage for you.
Similarly, the Other Stage has long felt like the Radio 1 stage, with West Holts and The Park then splitting 6 Music acts between them.
So while there was plenty of criticism levelled at the headliners this year, it feels as though a significant shift in the booking policy has taken place on the Pyramid this year, towards more 6 Music-leaning acts.
To some extent, you hope the festival aren’t having any regrets about the strategy. There’s the slightest hint of self-indulgence about LCD Soundsystem’s setlist. The crowd size for PJ Harvey’s set is very small, as is Janelle Monae’s on Sunday (who, in fairness, had the misfortune to clash with both Avril Lavigne and some English guys kicking a ball around in Europe somewhere). Everybody else missed out — Monae feels truly like one of the most talented performers we have: everything about her just seems formidable: vocal skill, songcraft, style, dancing, versatility, scale of performance ambition…
Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz also seem like the kind of acts that would’ve previously been booked on West Holts or The Park stage. In fairness, they both fare better. Kiwanuka is charm personified during his set, whereas Little Simz feels like she has a real moment, commandingly taking full advantage of what is presumably the biggest gig of her career to date.
It’s moving to see thrilling talent elevated in this way. You have to hope it continues.
Best flag: this legend
Best headliner: Coldplay
So Dua Lipa’s set was a slick, highly-considered, joyful party. You could hardly accuse her of not putting the effort in, or failing to thank the festival/audience for the opportunity — it definitely still feels as though she’s overcompensating for originating the “go girl give us nothing” meme.
Obviously the festival failed to book Madonna this year, and rumours suggest they asked Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder too. SZA obviously doesn’t have the same number of field-uniting classics (although let’s be clear: her albums are exceptional). Her set certainly doesn’t lack creative ambition. It won’t enter the history books as one of the classics, but for those willing, it was easy to get lost in its beauty.
By this point though, Coldplay just operate on a whole other level. And frankly, they’ve got the financial resources to lose a huge wad of money on their Glastonbury headline slots. So there’s lasers, inflatables, fireworks, all the usual accompaniments. Down the front, the audience get showered with confetti so many times that eventually, nobody is even remotely reacting to it.
Still though, a question hangs over Coldplay’s record-breaking fifth Glastonbury headline set: why now?
Ostensibly they’re still touring their last album, Music of the Spheres, although you doubt there’s many undecided voters out there that make it worthwhile promoting that album’s slender virtues. Meanwhile, they’re releasing a new album, but not until October. It’s a bit early to hit us with a wave of new music. It feels like they don’t have all that much to gain from putting on this show, at this moment.
What the performance does do, however, is reaffirm many things that people have perhaps forgotten about the band. They operate in a space whereby they sell out seven nights at London’s Wembley Stadium, but neither get revered as one of the great British bands, nor attract nearly the same media or public attention as, say, Taylor Swift (number of nights sold out at Wembley Stadium: eight). Perhaps this headline set, then, is about them attempting to reestablish themselves as A Culturally Important British Band. Remains to be seen if they’ll be successful, but they barely put a foot wrong during this performance.
Best vibes: Glastonbury festival
Back in May, I was heading into my office, on my day off, in order to pick up my bag. The night before, I’d been to one of those increasing number of major venues that don’t let you bring a bag ‘bigger than A4 size’ into gigs, and now I had to face the logistical consequences. Inside the venue, I paid £17.90 for two pints of Budweiser. The morning after, during that journey, I thought “god I’m looking forward to Glastonbury”.
Yes, Glastonbury: for so many people the version of live music we first fell in love with. Everybody and all music is welcome. Bring your own alcohol with you and carry it right down the front for Shania Twain. Large corporate branding supposedly isn’t allowed. Everybody on-site seems invested in making sure everybody else has as good a time as possible. There are countless funny anonymous micro-interactions with strangers. The audience atmosphere during performances is often exquisite (particular shout out to everyone at Nia Archives this year). It all adds up to a festival that isn’t just a place to see your favourite artists, but the best possible place to see your favourite artists.
Funniest tweet: Patrick Hinton
Best misinterpreted stage patter: Shania Twain
Glastonbury-goers don’t tend to want for musicians expressing gratitude during their sets. But even by those standards, Shania Twain didn’t exactly play it coy on Sunday afternoon, regularly showering the audience in compliments about how she’ll never forget this moment, just how moving it is to see so many people stretching right up the hill etc. Particular kudos to her, however, when she exclaimed “you people are country music fanatics”. Our neighbours in the crowd burst out laughing, absolutely convinced that she was about to shout “you people are c**ts”.
Best comedian DJ duo: James Acaster and Nish Kumar
After midnight in the Cabaret tent, comedians James Acaster and Nish Kumar did a joint DJ set. It’s perfectly judged and extremely good fun. By way of evidence, here’s a screengrab of all the songs my phone was automatically tracking over one section of their set.
Festival with plenty to enjoy on the smaller stages: Glastonbury
It’s been noted elsewhere that this year features more global acts than ever before. Amongst them are The Ayoub Sisters, who play a stirring set of Arab classical music on Sunday morning in the Avalon tent. It’s a pretty phenomenal start to the day. They can also lay claim to performing the first part-Orthodox Christian prayer and part-Islamic prayer I’ve ever heard at Glastonbury.
Full disclosure: I put them through as one of my favourite acts whilst helping to judge Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition this year. At the other end of the scale there’s Maruja, who were my favourite act I heard whilst judging the competition in 2023. They’ve since built up an impressive armoury of hype, which will hardly be a surprise to anybody who caught their set on the BBC Introducing stage. Theirs is an extremely aggressive sound, but the creative jazz-punk direction they’ve taken means the music also succeeds in being truly artful. You’d also do well to pay attention to another act affiliated with this competition, Sabiyha, who has transformed into a fearless, gutsy performer. They mix standout vocals with adventurous musicality and bold lyrics, and the effect, live, is inarguably impressive.
Best new venue/art installation: Terminal 1
I was online on Thursday, speculating that the new Terminal 1 venue might be a large-scale Banksy installation. That doesn’t appear to be the case, but it sure as hell feels strongly influenced by his best work.
Anybody could get into the main bit of the venue for a bit of a dance, but if you wanted to queue for the full experience, you’d first get asked questions from the UK citizenship test, and risked being denied entry if you performed badly. Then, you had to take off your shoes to pass through ‘security checks’. Immediately afterwards, small stones covered the ground and security would randomly toss some people’s shoes across the room, forcing them to walk uncomfortably over the stones to retrieve them. On the walls, adverts parodied exactly the kind of HSBC-style advertising you get at airports, in order to classily highlight a few differences between the Global North and Global South. It was great art making a great point. (more photos here)
24 Glastonbury sets ranked from best to worst
Here’s the final rankings. As nobody was anything less than a 7/10, I’ve also grouped the shows describing exactly how good they were. Just so you don’t consider there to be any shade aimed at those lower down the list.
Phenomenal:
1. Coldplay
2. Janelle Monae
3. The Ayoub Sisters
4. Little Simz
5. Maruja
Superb:
6. Dua Lipa
7. Nia Archives
8. Eric Prydz
9. James Acaster & Nish Kumar DJ set
10. Michael Kiwanuka
11. Mannequin Pussy
Great:
12. Kneecap
13. Sabiyha
14. LCD Soundsystem
15. Bombay Bicycle Club
16. Confidence Man
17. Shania Twain
18. PJ Harvey
19. Lynks
20. Cerian
21. Annie Mac
Good:
22. SZA
23. The Last Dinner Party
24. Jalen Ngonda
Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter. Once, on a night out, he took the UK Citizenship test for a laugh and failed miserably, so it was a considerable relief to not repeat the same mistake this time.
