Saturday at Glastonbury 2024: Coldplay, special guests, and mixed-bag sets

Posted On June 30, 2024June 30, 2024

Saturday at Glastonbury Festival 2024 was an unexpected scorcher as the sun beat down across the expansive site. With slots of mainstays like Bloc Party, hot ones to watch like Mary In The Junkyard, The Last Dinner Party and Liz Lawrence, and then a historic headline from Coldplay – all there was to do was slap on some suncream and hit the ground running.

One thing that always catches Glastonbury newbies out is the sheer size and scale of the site. Worthy Farm is unlike any other festival ground as its numerous stages are not only spread far and wide but sometimes include a hike up and down rolling hills. From Woodies to The Park, you’re looking at a half an hour’s walk, even longer if you’re tired or hungover. Places like Strummerville are buried deep in the woods, while other, smaller stages are purposefully hard to find to keep the site as a font of discovery. That’s what makes it all so exciting but also makes it utterly exhausting.

However, with so many incredible acts on, the trek is always worth it. On Saturday, the race from the Other Stage up to The Park was motivated by a desire to see both future headliners The Last Dinner Party and the hauntingly beautiful sound of left-field Irish folk troupe Lankum. Elsewhere, Gossip delivered a headline slot that blew Coldplay out of the water, while Dr John Cooper Clarke offered up a moment of calm in case it all got too much.

Like every other day, it was a multi-genre, multi-cultural, multi-stage affair with an overflowing wealth of greatness to see. While Coldplay felt limp with a tired headline slot that didn’t feel representative of Glastonbury’s buzzy excitement, there was plenty more going on that did. 

The Last Dinner Party put in their future headliner bids

The rise and rise of The Last Dinner Party is something that should be studied. In 2023, their mid-day Woodsies slot solidified the bubbling hype that was building around their first singles. A year on, with their debut album out, the band continue to prove exactly why all the noise around their name is more than deserved as they prove their journey to the top is still underway.

From the opening orchestral intro, launching them right into ‘Burn Alive’, through to the taster of a new track, ‘Second Best’, the band’s set is a perfected tour de force of their work. Even slower cuts like ‘On My Side’ or ‘Beautiful Boy’ are delivered with such stunning vocals, tight harmonies and stirring instrumentation that they kept the crowd hooked in. As ‘Nothing Matters’ finally boomed out of the speakers, following a powerful political statement, the band had most certainly converted new fans but put in their bid for a future headline slot, proving at any and all live performances just how strong and real their star power is. 

Lankum have The Park stage hypnotised

2023 Mercury Prize-nominated Irish folk troupe Lankum had the whole Park Stage crowd in a state of total, captivated hypnosis for their Saturday afternoon set. With the sun beaming down, their contemporary take on tradition was the perfect soundtrack and a stunning addition to the stage’s amazing lineup not only across the day but across the whole weekend.

The band also made one of the most outright and impactful statements of the weekend as they made a speech sending their full love and solidarity to Palestinians. Amongst their set of traditional Irish folk songs and originals, they performed a hauntingly beautiful track titled ‘The Rocks of Palestine’ while flags blew in the wind. Solemn and reflective, this avant-folk offering felt aligned with the origins of the festival. Thus, it was telling that it now teetered on being out of place with Coldplay signifying a bent towards commercialism.

John Cooper Clarke provides a moment of humorous calm

Glastonbury days can get a little overwhelming. Okay, that’s an understatement, as the average afternoon at the festival sees ticket holders attempting to make their way around the site amongst hundreds of thousands of others. With music blasting from each stage and very few moments of quiet or stillness amidst a busy schedule, it’s easy to get totally and completely overstimulated and stressed out.

But in the Cabaret tent, Dr John Cooper Clarke offered a brief escape. With dimmed lighting and just a singular spotlight on the poet, he delivered silly limericks and rhythmic spoken word slams to a sea of viewers sat down for a moment of rest. But respite doesn’t have to be boring. As the crowd routinely erupted into belly laughs or rapturous applause, Clarke’s appeal is as strong as ever. 

Coldplay prove pleasent but platitudinal in record-breaking set

Coldplay headlining Glastonbury for a record-breaking fifth time is a fact that must be carefully reconciled. Pleasent but unprogressive, a massive crowd but not much to say, hits but each of them dated: all of these and more feel like signifiers for where the lauded festival is headed, and they should be seen as portents rather than signs of the time.

Of course, as this piece proves, with so many sets going on simultaneously, there is surely space for a family-friendly set that was undoubtedly impressive but you’ve got more up-and-coming acts than anywhere making huge statements on the other stages? Well yes, but more firmly, no. Posters can say a lot, that thousands of hand-crafted ones around Glastonbury prove that, and Coldplay headlining yet again – failing to do anything daring as they did so – on a bill that also had Keane on the main stage on the same day, speaks quite displeasing volumes.

The Streets muster their own legends slot

While it wasn’t an official legends slot, The Streets over on the Other Stage had all the feel of one. Mike Skinner and his band honoured fellow hometown heroes Black Sabbath with one stirring riff of many as they blended genres and became bizarrely obsessed with orchestrating a particular flag waving routine with the audience. All of which signified a band intent with connecting with a loving audience, and a comically insistent bid to plug a late night DJ set following their main show.

There’s nothing quite like Glastonbury for prompting reaffirmations like, ‘You know what, The Streets are a truly great band’, and ‘You know what, The Streets have truly released some of the greatest bangers of this century’. In a set of shimmering hits and glowing authenticity, they proved in their latter years, that even with a mellower energy, they can still serve up arm-in-arm euphoria.

Otoboke Beaver gets the adrenaline pumping

Even for the most ‘vegetable rights and peace’ person out there, the endless onslaught of hippie rhetoric at Glastonbury can become somewhat draining. As such, it is important to catch defiant punk rock outfits like Japan’s Otoboke Beaver to remind yourselves that anger is just as powerful a force as peace and love. In the blistering early-afternoon sunshine of the Park Stage, the four-piece played an uncompromisingly assaulting set, turning the hippies of Glastonbury into headbangers.

Known for their awe-inspiringly fast and furious performances, Otoboke Beaver waste no time in delivering a plethora of their greatest tracks, including the likes of ‘Don’t Light My Fire’ and ‘S’il vous plait’. Bedecked in bright 1960s-style dresses, the power and anger in Beaver’s performance was truly something to behold. The Kyoto group were clearly enjoying their time on stage, with guitarist Yoyoyoshie particularly energetic in her performance, and that energy did not take long to bleed into the sweat-drenched crowd.

Much like their records, Otoboke Beaver’s set at Glastonbury was a unique experience, blending garage rock with hardcore punk and pop sensibilities  to create something infectious and endlessly original. A particular highlight of the performance came at the end, when Yoyoyoshie took to the crowd, surfing on top of the audience in an inflatable beaver while performing a rendition of Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’ altered to reflect the title of Otoboke Beaver’s new album Super Champon.

Kasabian surprise the Woodsies tent

At this point, Glastonbury is as sought-after for its legendary secret sets as it is the announced line-up. At six o’clock at the Woodsies tent, crowds gathered in their thousands to discover the artist behind the ‘TBC’ title in the festival’s programme. The audience’s prayers were soon answered, as Serge Pizzorno and Kasabian emerged from the artificial fog. Immediately erupting into ‘Club Foot’, the energy and sheer power of the audience singing back to Pizzorno might have been enough to tear the roof off of Woodsies. 

Following their strong opening track, Kasabian descended into a greatest-hits performance, treating the hoards of fans surrounding the tent to a plethora of their best-loved tracks. The group were so commanding that Woodsies soon became overwhelmed, with stewards preventing more people from getting into the stage. Finishing on the timeless indie rock classic ‘Fire’, Kasabian left the sunburnt crowds incredibly satisfied with the result of their long-awaited secret set.

Yard Act deliver an impassioned performance

This weekend has seen no shortage of impassioned political speeches. There has scarcely been a set that has not, in some way, referenced the ongoing conflict in Gaza, or has called to “Free Palestine”. One of the most emotional and affecting speeches, however, came from Leeds-based post-punk poster boys Yard Act. Following their calls for togetherness and solidarity on penultimate track ‘100% Endurance’, frontman James Smith delivered a particularly impassioned speech during ‘The Trenchcoat Museum. 

“This is freedom,” Smith exclaimed as the sun set on another packed day at Worthy Farm, “this is as close to freedom as many of us will get. But not everybody has that freedom like that, and it is your duty, whilst you are here and you have one life to live and enjoy it, and celebrate it, and be free in this field, and take your drugs and hold your loved ones close. But in doing so, we also pay tribute to and stand with the people who don’t have this freedom.”

The instrumental of ‘The Trenchcoat Museum’ continued on during this speech, adding another layer of dramatism and emotion to Smith’s speech. “To the people of Ukraine,” he continued, “to the people of Sudan, to the people of Palestine, and anybody else fighting for their liberation, fearing for their lives, who does not have what we have right now, we stand with them, because, Glastonbury, the lines on the maps don’t exist, they were drawn on by a few greedy men. We can transcend those borders”. Take notes, Chris Martin.

Gossip win the day

While Coldplay delivered a bloated two hour set over on the Pyramid Stage, Washington dance-rock icons Gossip treated the crowd at Woodsies to an awe-inspiring set. Frontwoman Beth Ditto darted effortlessly between stand-up comedy, anecdotes about her life, emotional tributes to friends passed and, of course, a selection of tracks from the band’s incredible discography. Amid widespread chants of “There’s more of us than there are of them”, Gossip lamented the state of global politics, using soulful vocals and infectious rock instrumentals as their weapons of choice.

Initially, the crowd at Woodsies was sparse for Gossip, with most punters over at the Pyramid taking in all the best that Chris Martin had to offer. As the set went on, however, more and more people were drawn into the tent; entranced by the powerful vocals of Ditto. By their own admission the band were sick during the performance, with Ditto repeatedly blowing her nose on her leotard in between tracks, but this illness did not seem to impact their musical proficiency.

Gossip’s set was certainly a stand-out performance of Saturday at Glastonbury, as can be confirmed by those intelligent few who decided to forgo the middle-of-the-road stylings of Coldplay for something a little more impactful. The group finished on their 2006 hit ‘Standing In the Way of Control’, which managed to get everybody in the vicinity on their feet and dancing to the beat.

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