At the midpoint of this year’s edition, we look back to some of the festival’s classic performances.
These days, the list of major artists that haven’t played Glastonbury is much shorter than the list of artists that have played it, and it gets even shorter by the year (thanks, Metallica).
And while it has become a rite-of-passage for the world’s biggest acts, Glastonbury has often hosted artists before or right at their grasp of global success.
With that in mind, we went trawling through the archives for performance videos from the ’80s, ’90s and today, from the Pixies to the Prodigy to Plastikman (well, sort of).
THE PIXIES
(1989)
Tomorrow, the Pixies will return to Glasto for the first time in 25 years. Their 1989 visit was just months after the release of the seminal Doolittle, and — despite getting stuck in traffic and almost not making it in time — their hour-long set finds the band at the height of their powers. Plus, they played all 23 songs in alphabetical order, because Glastonbury.
SPIRITUALIZED
(1992)
Following the demise of Spaceman 3, Jason Pierce and company played Glasto months after the release of their debut album. The space rockers played the vaunted NME stage on Saturday, laying down a set similar to that of 1993’s Fucked Up Inside live album.
OASIS
(1994)
The Glastonbury debut for the Gallagher brothers, at the height of Britpop-mania. Because you can’t have a Glastonbury round up without Oasis, love ’em or hate ’em.
ORBITAL
(1994)
Orbital have appeared at Glastonbury so many times they’ve even got a release collecting their various appearances from 1994 to 2004. Their inaugural appearance made that much more impact as that year the festival was televised to Channel 4 for the first time, piping dance music into homes around the country.
PRODIGY
(1995)
A year after going from rave heroes to mainstream stars with Music for the Jilted Generation, the boys of Prodigy worked the crowd and freaked out the Channel 4 audience from the NME stage. They’d hit even higher highs two years later, fully-ensconced as global icons and headlining the entire festival.
DAFT PUNK
(1997)
Before they donned their iconic helmets, Daft Punk played the dance tent in 1997 (aka “The Year of the Mud”). They haven’t returned to Glasto since, but that doesn’t stop us from hoping they will one day.
RADIOHEAD
(1997)
Radiohead has played Glasto at three distinct points in their career, in 1994, 1997, 2003. In this set — just a month after the release of OK Computer — Radiohead was still a formidable guitar-driven, alt-rock machine, without the electronic experimentalism that has marked their later work. And look how young!
DAVID BOWIE
(2000)
Bowie’s first Glasto appearance dates back to 1971, and his return some 39 years later has since gone down as one of the most loved sets in the history of the festival. His rendition of ‘Heroes’ that year remains particularly special.
LEFTFIELD
(2000)
Even if you didn’t know of Leftfield, chances are that by the late 90s you knew them thanks to the 1998 Guiness ‘surfer’ advert. The 2000 edition of Glastonbury is memorable for most as the last one you could jump the fence, and as a result, Leftfield’s set was insanely crowded which made for both an unforgettable experience —especially when ‘Phat Planet’ came on — swiftly followed by the most miserable one trying to leave the field.
JAY-Z
(2008)
Say what you want about Jay, but after Noel Gallagher publicly discredited his appearance as the headliner at the festival, the New Yorker casually opened his set with an acapella of ‘Wonderwall’, swiftly followed by ’99 Problems’. Now that’s gangster.
BONUS: PLASTIKMAN
(1995)
We’ve got Richie Hawtin’s Plastikman on the brain, and while this isn’t a performance video, we’d thought we’d include it anyway. In Glastonbury Displaced, Glasto ’95 footage is set to ambience from the Sheet One sessions. Trippy.
