Glastonbury 2025: Saturday with Pulp confirmed as secret act, Kneecap, Charli xcx and more – follow it live!
Key events
Kneecap reviewed
Alexis Petridis
Alexis Petridis’s verdict on that much-discussed Kneecap performance has landed. You can read the whole thing below, but here’s a snippet:
It’s probably too late to say that it would be a shame if said controversy completely drowned out Kneecap’s actual music, but the point stands. Behind the furore, the trio are really good at what they do. Chara and Bap are impressive rappers – raw-throated but dextrous, far funnier than you might expect if the only stuff you heard about Kneecap revolved around recent events. And live, their sound comes into its own, a fizzing stew with a bassy intensity that has a hint of the Prodigy about it
Do You Remember The First Time, next. Before, Jarvis admits that he, like a few poor souls I’ve seen this weekend, left Glastonbury after one day on his first time at the festival. “I couldn’t hack it,” he says ruefully.
“To enjoy Glastonbury you have to submit to it.” Quite.
Jarvis explains the circumstances that led them to decide to tour and release their new record. The band gathered in a “living room in the north of England … we had one poor quality acoustic guitar, and out of tune piano and an African drum, and we attempted to play this song and at the end of it we somehow decided to tour.” And with that Cocker launches into Something Changed. A lovely song, and one that led to at least one couple getting together, as recounted in the Guardian’s Cultural Awakening column
Jarvis says that he’s going to visit the audience for Acrylic Afternoons, and does – lobbing a load of teabags into the front rows: “Share ‘em.”
“I feel incredibly relaxed, do you feel relaxed? Even you with the giant tennis racket there?” He mimes a forehand, before the band launch into a real oldie, 1992’s O.U. (Gone, Gone). Jarvis gets the audience to split in two with one shouting O and the other shouting U.
And, as Jarvis notes, Spike Island has some real resonance, because The Stone Roses were the band that Pulp replaced at the last minute on the Pyramid stage 30 years and four days ago.
Just as I was saying that this wouldn’t be the sort of set heavy on new, unfamiliar songs, the band strikes up Spike Island, which is only four weeks old, anthemic and full of nostalgic. Then again, in that time it seems to have already reached fan-favourite status. Our Alexis Petridis is a fan
John Fogerty review
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Time for a grizzled veteran of the countercultural 1960s to play some roughed-up electric guitar and sing in a distinctive croon – no, not Neil Young just yet, but rather Creedence Clearwater Revival bandleader John Fogerty, who turned 80 last month but has the spirit and hairline of a man 20 years younger.
This is a joyous, raucous set, featuring some barnstorming long-form blues rock, including a song with a guitar solo by Fogerty’s sideman that achieves the extraordinary feat of being at least five minutes long and enthralling all the way through. And though Fogerty might not have the universal name recognition of some others of his generation, CCR actually have more than twice the listeners on Spotify each month than Young thanks to a clutch of eternal classics. It would almost have been worth a downpour to make Have You Ever Seen the Rain one of those magical triumph-against-adversity Pyramid moments, but it remains euphoric, with thousands raising their voices for its big kindly chorus.
But there’s real bite, too. Fortunate Son, written in 1969, was infused with the anger at poor men being drafted into the Vietnam war while the privileged could easily dodge it, and Fogerty still fills the chorus with its mix of indignation, fear and bewilderment. Between songs he explains the saga of him earning back his song catalogue from late mogul Saul Zaentz, crediting his wife – “She stood in the face of every fuckin’ lawyer” – and his own vitality and indefatigability: “I had a plan, and the plan was to outlive those sons of bitches.” He sounds genuinely emancipated as he toasts the crowd with a glass of champagne and trails his new album of rerecorded CCR songs.
And then it’s back to purely good vibes with Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary, the latter an instant entry into the annals of great Pyramid singalongs. Your move, Neil.
“This is Pulp, sorry if you were expecting Patchwork,” Jarvis joshes, before noting that those opening two tracks were first played here 30 years and four days ago.
It’s funny: Pulp have been, and will be, touring pretty extensively this summer, and yet this set seems to a must-attend. I know people who saw them just over a week ago who are back in the front row again today.
Disco 2000 next: I don’t think this is going to be one of those secret sets, a la Lorde yesterday, where new songs are tested out to a baffled audience, thank God.
Patchwork is officially Pulp
Over on the Pyramid, the worst-kept secret – well one of about five of the worst kept secrets – at the festival is finally revealed: Patchwork is Pulp. They open with Sorted For E’s and Whizz
Oh and we shouldn’t forget TV on the Radio, never less than energising live, who have just got underway on Woodsies.
We’re in a bit of a lull, post-Kneecap and ahead of the two impending secret sets. But there’s still plenty of fun to be had around the site, or flicking through the iPlayer. On the Other stage at the moment, for example, Amyl and the Sniffers are kicking up a storm, while there’s some remarkable percussion-led jazz from Yussef Dayes and his band over on the West Holts
Jamie Grierson
No Chalamet then, but how about this for a big name: Gary Lineker! Jamie Grierson is currently watching Lineker talk at The Information stage, along with Andy Cato, the former Groove Armada member turned wild farmer:
Appearing before a crowd of 250 people on The Information, footballer-turned-broadcaster-turned-activist Gary Lineker debriefed his recent departure from the BBC and the motivations behind his political commentary.
Starting a family saw him become more interested in how the world works, which combined with the platform of social media, led to him being more outspoken on a range of issues from immigration to the conflict in Gaza. “I’ve been traumatised by the images of children in Gaza,” he said. “I want to give a voice to people who have not got one.”
Stay tuned for a full report from Jamie later today.
Jade review
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The former Little Mix singer confesses that she was worried no-one would come to her debut solo Glastonbury performance – but Kneecap, The Script and various other big names don’t seem to have made a dent in the huge devoted crowd of girls, gays, theys, kids, mums, dads and pretty much anyone with the slightest taste for the corn syrup of pure pop: the crowd spills out of the tent and there’s hundreds more outside, watching on the Woodsies’ big screens.
After the bananas success of her debut single Angel of My Dreams last year, nothing since has really connected on the same scale – and, to be frank, that’s due to some underpowered production and songwriting. New single Plastic Box is a very tepid take on the relentlessly sad pulse of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own, and while Jade sings her cover of Madonna’s Frozen with the song’s requisite drama and nails that deep, sombre “when your heart’s not open”, the backing goes from generic techno to generic trance and isn’t anything like as characterful as the original.
But a switch up to Higher State of Consciousness-type acid and the chorus of N-Trance’s Set You Free ends it all on a high. It’s just one example of how Jade turns to maximalism to get the songs to where they need to be. Fantasy is boringly produced on record, but here it reaches the disco-fabulous euphoria it was aiming for, with Jade’s soaring vocal matched by a barnstorming sax solo. FUFN sounds like Lady Gaga cosplay in the studio, but today sounds like an electro-ska monster that would win Eurovision for Croatia, with Jade getting us to put our middle fingers up while she rails against transphobia and other examples of inequality.
A medley of Little Mix hits – Shout Out to My Ex, Sweet Melody, Woman and Touch – propels even more hands in the air. Jade expertly negotiates the beat switch from peppy pop to Woman’s skanking reggae and hard rock with some strong choreo (although Touch’s line “just a touch of your love is enough to take control of my whole body” still sounds like something an AI boyfriend would tell you). But then Jade declares: “That was the old me – it’s time for something new”. She brings out Aussie trash-bacchants Confidence Man for new song Gossip, which climaxes with the line, “Tina says you’re a cunt” – unlikely to have got past Simon Cowell, this.
Jade ends on Angel of My Dreams, inspired by a time when the industry was getting her down, “so I wrote a cheeky song about it”. Personally I still find this a dog’s dinner, a series of ideas fused with all the skill of a trainee welder who’s just failed their NVQ for the fourth time – though I appreciate this chaos is very much the appeal for the song’s fans, who are in huge abundance here, making game attempts at the genuinely angelic central hook. They don’t get close to Jade, whose voice still has superhuman, un-karaokeable technical brilliance.
Lucy Dacus review
Safi Bugel
While Kneecap cause a blockade over at West Holts, things are a lot more subdued over at the Park stage for Lucy Dacus, where a modest but devoted crowd of people have spread out over the bank.
It’s an appropriate set-up for the Virginia songwriter, whose music is characterised by its cosy quality, all soft indie rock melodies, fuzzy sentiments and mumbly vocals. On stage, it’s a grand yet solidly homely affair: she performs atop a big round rug – and at one point, from a plush blue chaise longue – while the screens imitate the wallpaper and gold frames from the cover of her new album, Forever is a Feeling.
Across the 45-minute set, she meanders through her back catalogue, from early hits like Hot and Heavy and I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore to selections from her aforementioned new album. Some of these tracks stand out: Ankles is both performed and received well, for example, but the rest sort of merges into one big wash of sound.
Dacus’ stage presence is understated, but sweet. “Raise your hand if you love someone,” she says shyly, before playing the woozy, straight-up romantic Best Guess, another brief highlight from the record. “Cool, this song is for you.” She also urges everyone to stay hydrated and top up on their suncream and, at one point, sips from a cup of tea.
It’s a pleasant enough experience, intimate and exciting for the diehard fans, I’m sure, but a little unremarkable otherwise.
Rumours swirl around this festival site like Pyro smoke, and lots of them turn out to be utter hogwash. One such false rumour concerned Timothée Chalamet playing as part of a tribute to Bob Dylan on the Acoustic stage. Obviously he was nowhere to be seen, but apparently there were some nice covers by folk veteran Ralph McTell at least.
