Glastonbury 2017: Sunday daytime with Chic, Barry Gibb and the Killers – as it happened
This article is more than 9 years old
Sunday was soothed by Laura Marling, and Barry Gibb got the Pyramid crowd singing. Then it all kicked off with a surprise appearance from the Killers and Chic’s disco party in the sunshine
That’s it for the daytime liveblog – join us for our evening edition
Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
We’re still coming to terms with that onslaught of positive vibes: Barry Gibb and Chic bringing disco anthems, the Killers generating the loudest crowd of the festival, and Haim and Rag’n’Bone Man commanding more people than ever at the Other stage. The sun is out as well, which turns Glastonbury into a big dopey love-fest. I want to just start tapping out happy-face emojis and leave words behind.
And the night is young – on our evening liveblog we’ll have reviews of Haim, Chic, Sampha, Biffy Clyro, Kano, Justice, Boy Better Know and of course the ginger prince of millennial pop, Ed Sheeran. Head over here for that. Thanks for reading!
Our eight-year-old reviewer Z has been the MVP this weekend, slagging off the seasoned likes of Ride and Barry Gibb with astonishingly distilled barbs. We’re letting her go get a frozen lagerita and see Ed Sheeran, but before she goes, she’s shared her appraisal of the Killers:
Photograph: Chris Hall/The Guardian
“7/10. It was way too busy to get inside the tent so we had to listen outside by the road. One man tried to run through a hedge to see them but the security people stopped him. All I could hear was people singing along instead of the band but they still sounded great.”
Nile Rodgers of Chic. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
As Nile Rodgers points out from the stage, the last time he played Glastonbury was four years ago, on the West Holts stage – touring with a new version of the Chic Organisation was one of his responses to being diagnosed with an particularly aggressive form of cancer. Their shtick was exceptionally slick back then: four years on, with Rodgers cancer-free and fresh from volunteering at Grenfell Tower, it’s slicker still.
The crowd lose their minds to Chic. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
Rodgers has a back catalogue preposterously over-stuffed with sublime music: the latterday Chic’s skill is presenting it as a kind relentless, mind-boggling barrage, without slipping into wedding disco cheesiness. There are obviously omissions – there’s no room for Dance Dance Dance, My Forbiden Lover or Sister Sledge’s Lost in Music and Thinking of You, although they unexpectedly play My Feet Keep Dancing from 1979’s Risqué – but it seems fairly churlish to quibble in the face of a set that steamrollers the Pyramid stage crowd: We Are Family, Le Freak, Good Times, Get Lucky, Upside Down, I’m Coming Out, Let’s Dance. The crowd’s response is pretty delirious, but that seems only fitting.
Kiefer Sutherland review: 'One of the longest hours of my life'
Kiefer Sutherland. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
From time to time Glastonbury throws up a piece of scheduling so peculiar that it makes you do a double take: Kiefer Sutherland, performing on the Avalon stage is certainly one of those. What will he be doing there? Torturing baddies in the manner of his most famous character, Agent Jack Bauer? No, in actuality Sutherland will be playing with his country band, though the torturing bit wasn’t too far off.
Arriving on stage decked in a comically sized stetson and clutching a glass of whisky, Sutherland does at least look the part, and he’s an engaging enough performer, bouncing around the stage and performing the odd knee slide. The problem is his musical output, a series of stultifyingly conventional country and western songs riddled with lyrical cliches and predictable melodies. Things only pick up when he attempts a cover of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, and even then it’s at best little more than a faithful backroom bar version. “This is the longest day of my life,” Bauer’s 24 tagline used to go. This was certainly one of the longest hours of mine.
Michael Eavis. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
When asked earlier on about Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance, Michael Eavis said: “Wasn’t he fantastic? I said to him when are you going to be prime minister? He said ‘In six months’.” The Glastonbury founder said he asked Corbyn when he was going to get rid of Trident, too. “As soon as I can,” the Labour leader apparently responded.
Our own rock critic Alexis said that Barry Gibb was “one of the greatest sets that heritage act slot on the Pyramid stage has seen,” but that means nothing to the youth of today. Our eight-year-old reviewer Z – who continues to absolutely slay in what is probably her 10th different outfit this weekend – writes:
Photograph: Chris Hall/The Guardian
“5/10. He’s older than I thought he’d be! He sounds like a lady but he’s got a beard. Some of the songs were really really slow. My mum and dad were dancing to Night Fever and Stayin’ Alive but I had an ice-cream instead.”
The sun is out and 100,000-odd people are dancing to the greatest party jams on the planet. Nile Rodgers is doing Good Times into Rapper’s Delight, and has prompted a stage invasion. VIBES ARE STRONG.
The sun is finally out, a rave klaxon goes off, and Mr Lover Lover, backed by a full band, struts on stage in a shiny shirt, waggling his crotch and yelling “Glastonbury! Ladies!” His pop-reggae was apparently made for this festival: an enormous crowd has assembled, and Mr Boombastic with its mega squelchy bass has everyone skanking immediately.
Of course, it’s cheesy as hell. On Oh Carolina, he is reminiscent of Tom Jones, and there is an interlude where he works the crowd like an aerobics instructor, yelling at everyone to get “turnt up” as his DJ plays a chart hip-hop megamix.
The show loses some momentum when it become clear that he is singing over the top of his own voice coming from a speaker. But perhaps he was saving his energy for infidelity banger It Wasn’t Me, where his Jamaican patois rolls at double-time, like the excellent MC he always was. No doubt Glasto has never had a huge field sing “banging on the bathroom floor” before. After the popularity of this performance, it may well do again.
“It’s a wrap!” says Harriet at the Killers. “I’ve never been to a show where an audience have been so dedicated to singing along to every single lyric. Properly overwhelming. They left the stage to a roar from the audience before their drummer came back and said something quiet down the mic which sounded a little like ‘keep the faith’. Bet he gets a telling off from Brandon backstage for that.”
At the Killers, “some nutter has let off a flare and the crowd are so loud you can barely hear Brandon,” says Harriet. I can clearly hear them from our backstage base and they’re half a mile away. Mr Brightside truly is Gen-Y’s Don’t Look Back in Anger. Our subeditor Richard Barnes concurs: “The Killers’ crowd was amazing; loudest I’ve heard pretty much ever.”
Our photographer Alicia Canter is down the front for the Killers.
Brandon Flowers of The Killers. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
More from Harriet:
“Killers fans are so nice that instead of getting overexcited and chucking cups of their own wee over fellow festivalgoers, the people next to me are putting a cool pack on strangers’ foreheads and cheering kindly when they look relieved.
“15 minutes to go and the hits keep coming. They’re now playing All These Things That I’ve Done, everyone’s arms are in the air, and it stinks.
“Mr Brightside is on now. Brandon is marvelling at the audience going bonkers.”
Another in our ongoing People of Glastonbury portraits series, with Jordan Hopkins, 23, Tom Pearson-Comer, 24, and Georgia Meek, 23, all from Manchester.
Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
What do you love about Glastonbury?
JH: Everyone is the friendliest person I’ve ever met … I could bump into someone and ask them how their day has been and they’d actually answer it, whereas if you did that in Manchester or out on the street you’d look a bit of a weirdo.
GM: I think that as well. Because you can randomly talk to another person. You’ll never meet them again but you’ll always have that memory in your head. That makes it fun.
TPC: I think the variety. You can come with mates who are all into different things, and because there’s so many options everyone can get about doing their own thing and then meet up of a night.
GM: My favourite moment was when we were tequila dancing. We were learning Cuban dancing at Glasto Latino and us three got right into it. It was really fun.
Are you strong and stable?
GM: No we are not. When I’m with my boyfriend...
TPC: I never feel strong and stable.
JH: Yes, but via recreational drugs.
Grohl or grime?
JH: Grohl all day. No chance of grime, I hate it. All my mates love it but I hate it.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion