After two days of mostly exploring and DJ sets, I was pretty happy to see Friday arrive. With the main stages opening and the lineup ramped up considerably. The site felt more like a busy city than the quieter town it appeared as yesterday.
The Hives – Other Stage
Starting my day were classic Swedish rock and roll band The Hives who, in their own words (although I’m inclined to agree) signified two Glastonbury firsts; the first time The Hives have performed at Glastonbury and the first time a festival has tried putting the headline act at the beginning of the bill. The thing with The Hives is that they truely justify the egotistical persona acted by frontman Howlin’ Pete Almqvist. They use it to provide a comedic spin on the set too, whether that’s getting them to chant for the organisers to provide a ladder to get onto the stage (claiming they were higher in importance than the festival organisers) or stating that Howlin’ Pete needed to be off the front as the stage wasn’t vast enough for his ego. Music wise, the band played a few new tracks but were not afraid to play all the classics, getting the audience involved and starting singalongs which were shockingly loud for so early on.
Enter Shikari – Other Stage
Enter Shikari have come a long way since I last saw them, after the release of their second EP in a small (yet oversold) pub in Cambridge, jumping around the side of the stage with ferocious energy. The energy is something the band have definitely retained, the band themselves stating that while a lot of music is written as escapism, their music is written to directly attack the things that affect them negatively. The newer tracks definitely take on more of a political slant, frontman Rou himself wearing an “NHS not Trident” tshirt, which is fairly fitting at a festival that has fairly strong political views itself. The band were to thank for the biggest mosh pit I’ve seen at Glastonbury yet, and it was good to see people really getting into the music, yelling lyrics and throwing themselves around.
The Sadness Band Experience – Sensation
After a pit stop at MEATliquor for a Dead Hippie burger (basically bliss), I stumbled across this interesting ensemble on the Sensation stage near the cabaret stage. The band of gothic dressed members, seemingly fronted by a man going by the name of Frank (the happiest guy alive, it later turned out) told stories using a mixture of music and drama, performing on a variety of instruments including double bass, cello, accordion and drums. The story I caught the whole of described how one of the characters, Virginia, had found a man claiming to be her father had killer her mother, and how she got her revenge. It was definitely different, but brilliantly entertaining. Given that they were on at the same time as The Vaccines, I feel I made the right choice in stopping.
Black Angels – William’s Green
Black Angels are a band who I wasn’t aware of until today, and it was more by convenience that I managed to catch their set. They were certainly interesting though, with some seriously psychodelic vibes brought along by a mixture of delay heavy guitar riffs, subtle yet effective synths, steady bass driving it forward and tasteful lashings of guitar feedback. They were certainly enjoyable, and I’m sure I’ll be checking them out on record in the future.
65daysofstatic – William’s Green
One of the bands I was most excited to see at this years festival, 65daysofstatic, made a point that they were a bit shocked that they were asked to perform at this year’s Glastonbury, pointing out that “all these bands are so young and stylish – I literally get none of it. It’s nice to be included.” The band, who have been going for over ten years now are veteran performers really (not in age terms, I’m pretty sure they’re actually quite young too), yet all that really means is that they’ve progressed and refined their sound and built a huge fan base in that time. The audience is pretty great too, as the band treat us to Dance Parties [Mechanised]. With a new track thrown in for good measure, which was seriously enjoyable and, again, shows the band refining their sound yet again. Classic tracks like ‘Retreat! Retreat!” keep everyone pretty before the band reach a climactic end with ‘Radio Protector‘. Incredible.
Foals – Other Stage
With a return to Glastonbury since the release of this years new album Holy Fire, Foals are well prepared to perform. On a personal level, this is also an opportunity to convince me that people are being honest when they say how good a live band they are as when I caught them at Southside festival a few years ago they were fairly uninteresting. Changing ‘XXXXX’ to Holy Fire’s ‘Prelude’ since I last caught them, the band are certainly off to a strong start, and the audience responds favourably. It’s certain early on that this is a different Foals than the Foals I saw in Germany; the band seem more alive, more like they’re enjoying themselves, like they’re doing what they love. Playing a good mixture of albums new and old, the odd sound of hundreds (myself included) shhing the audience at the beginning of ‘Spanish Sahara’ creating a wonderful atmosphere and topped off with Yannis crowdsurfing while playing guitar. It’d be fair to say that, with their Other Stage performance, Foals have more than won me over: I understand why everyone claims they’re a good live band! Quite simply: because they are. A huge amount of dynamic range to their performance too, from poppy hits to slow builders.
Arctic Monkeys – Pyramid Stage
The headliner for the day, Arctic Monkeys, ensured a busy crowd over at the Pyramid stage. And crushing. Lots of crushing. Their performance was a fairly wide mixture of new and old, but tracks off of the first two albums were genuinely better received, even by the Pyramid audience. Classic songs like ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor‘ causing mass jumping.
It would be fair to say that maybe The Hives were right: the best came first. The Arctic Monkeys weren’t bad in any way, but when you compare them to bands earlier down the bill it feels like they put a lot less effort into their performance than The Hives did, with their egotistical crowd involvement, or 65daysofstatic did with throwing themselves all over the place and just seemingly enjoying themselves. I think this is one of the main problems I have with Arctic Monkeys; I think you should either push for interesting or fun when it comes to music but a lot of their material just passes by without even making an impression in my ear drums. They did fun really well when they started out, but now they seem to be fairly uninterested, or at least act moody for the sake of performance. People compare their new sound to Queens Of The Stone Age, but QOTSA are in an entirely different league when it comes to both lyric writing and structuring their music.
I, like a lot of people I spoke to, had no idea until the Glastonbury set times were announced, that The Hives were even still going. I think it’s great that a band can come back to playing big festivals and make such an impression, being probably the best band of the day. I only hope that they keep making an impact and getting themselves out there. I’m not sure what Howlin’ Pete would do without an outlet for his huge ego anyway.
On a sidenote, the biggest let down of the day would have to be Beady Eye being announced as the secret opener on the Other Stage. It was expected by many that it would be Atoms For Peace, so it was a let down that rather than enjoying Mr Yorke and co. we were bombarded with Liam Gallagher’s annoying voice. Ah well, it’s still early days!
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