Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has defended the festival’s line-up amid criticism of there being a lack of rock bands as pop star Dua Lipa prepares to headline Friday’s music.
This year’s event sees headline performances from Dua Lipa, Coldplay and American R&B singer SZA, while country star Shania Twain will play the coveted Legends slot.
“I think the line-up reflects what’s happening in the music world at the moment – there aren’t a lot of new rock acts to choose from if I’m honest,” Eavis told the PA news agency.
“Hopefully that will emerge again, my heyday was 1995 with Pulp and Oasis and Radiohead… and that was great but music changes all the time and right now this is where we’re at.
“Every year, we’ve been criticised for being too rock, too grime, too hip hop, too pop… it’s just part of our year.
“Generally it’s not from the public… everybody’s really happy and excited to be here.”
This year’s festival is taking place in the week before the General Election, which Eavis acknowledged they have “never had”.
“I feel a bit like we’ve stepped out of the election, even though it’s next week,” she said.
“We were working on having voter registration booths, but then the day moved.
“It’s a big one for us, we’ve never had a pre-election festival.”
Glastonbury have also decided it will not be broadcasting the Euro 2024 football tournament, with England set to face Slovakia in the last 16 at 5pm on Sunday.
Eavis said the festival set up a screen to watch fixtures during the World Cup tournament in 1998, but times have changed.
“We used to have a screen here as no-one had any means of finding out what even the result was because we were so cut off from the outside,” she said.
“Now obviously, everyone’s connected and I think you know it’s a music festival.
“I’m sure if people want to see it enough they can check for results or whatever on their phones.
“But hopefully I’m encouraging people to put their phones away and and forget about the outside world.”
Dua Lipa is to headline the British festival for the first time when she takes to the stage in Somerset on Friday evening.
The 28-year-old is expected to treat revellers to a selection of her hit songs, including Houdini and Training Season from her third studio album, Radical Optimism, released earlier this year.
The British-Albanian singer, who took home the Brit Award for best pop act in March, said she was inspired by psychedelia, trip-hop, and Britpop styles when creating the new record.
Squeeze will open the Pyramid Stage on Friday at midday, followed by rising star Olivia Dean, K-pop group Seventeen and singer Paul Heaton.
Dean, 25, who won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award in 2023, performed on the The Lonely Hearts Club stage at the festival last year, but this will be her first time playing on the main stage.
LCD Soundsystem will then take to the stage at 7.45pm, ahead of Dua Lipa’s set.
The American rock band, whose hits include Dance Yrself Clean and All My Friends, last played Glastonbury in 2016 where they performed on the Other Stage.
Thursday festivities included a tribute to the late DJ Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1, who died in January at the age of 83.
The special event took place across two stages at the festival and included a daytime celebration on The Glade stage, featuring King Of The Beats and Paper Dragon, before it moved to the BBC Music Introducing stage for the evening.
Elsewhere, and just days after the birth of his fourth child, Joe Wicks led a fitness session and set his sights on taking his workouts to the Pyramid Stage.
He told the PA news agency that he had initially planned to take his wife Rosie with him to the festival, but said they made a last-minute change after the birth of his son Dusty.
On Friday, Wicks will take to the Park Stage at 10am, to put more festival-goers through their paces, where he is hoping for crowds of up to three or four thousand.
The stage had been set to see Groove Armada on Thursday night before the electronic music duo were moved to other DJ slots due to the size of expected crowds.
Announcing the news on X, the festival’s official account said: “Instead, we encourage you to take in their sets at the larger capacity Glade on Sunday at 8.30pm and B2B with Eats Everything at Levels on Saturday at 6pm. Thank you for your understanding.”
The festival also includes art installations and attractions and this year revellers have been treated to Carhenge, a series of 24 mutated vintage car sculptures, and Arcadia’s fire-belching dragonfly installation, which had previously taken the form of a spider.
