[ad_1]
Key events
Here’s a gorgeous review of Little Simz’s majestic sounding pyramid stage by Safi Bugel.
Our sports desk’s Stuart Godwin is in the crowd and was keenly aware of the generational differences in the audience for Coldplay: “Now I happened to hear two different people in separate parts of the Pyramid audience saying Paradise” – released in 2011 – “was the first song , which they have ever downloaded. Just embalm me now, FFS.”
Here’s the live debut of And So We Pray, from Coldplay’s new album Moon Music, featuring Little Simz (and Burna Boy in VT).
Coldplay pioneered the use of unison flashing wristbands on their Mylo Xyloto tour in 2012. They lit up the pyramid in different shades of the rainbow tonight and for anyone wondering how they work, I really enjoyed it this delightful, incredibly nerdy thread in which the developers discuss (in fantastic detail) how Taylor Swift’s crew controls their comparable devices for her Eras tour.
Spotted – extremely spotted, so much so that her only review request for the weekend was no clashes on Saturday night – Coldplay fan Elle Hunt wrote: “Kill me now and use my remains to feed compostable cuffs, so a beautiful tree to flourish. “
Intrepid sub-editor Tim Burrows and I were trying to work out our favorite Coldplay songs before they started playing: I think The Scientist might be mine. (I reserve the right to change my mind later.) Until now, I’ve never really thought about what the lyrics mean as an adult, but it’s such a wonderful expression of the battle between reason and emotion in a volatile relationship.
It’s beautiful – for Paradise, Chris Martin ceded the piano to Victoria Canal, German-born, Spanish-raised songwriter Ivor Novello, who was born without her right forearm as a result of amniotic band syndrome. “Let’s see those beautiful British hands!” Martin tells the crowd at the start, somewhat strangely. “Thanks to the beautiful Victoria Canal,” he says at the end, before instructing the crowd – much like Mike Skinner earlier – “only the girls please!” to sing the song’s chorus.
Johnny Buckland looks so preternaturally cool as he plays that glorious, prismatic guitar refrain in Adventure of a Lifetime (proof of my theory that being one of the other members of Coldplay must be the sweetest gig in music – all the success, no a celebrity faff). Devon boy Chris Martin also seems to have adopted a bit of a Mid-Atlantic accent as he commands the crowd to get low and jump up again.
Coldplay’s non-stop fireworks are going off behind our booth – behind the Pyramid stage – and it’s going to take at least 20 minutes for them to stop making me jump.
View the streets!
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Other, 8.30 p.m
“We’re closer to the end than the beginning,” Mike Skinner tells the audience on the Other stage at the start. He means we’re over halfway through the festival, but the feeling is something bigger: an existential warning about living life to the fullest. Of course, the audience responds in kind, tearing up this sunset with fireworks, smoke bombs, children on shoulders, women lifted up and spirits even higher.
Skinner acts as a kind of Glastonbury sage, dishing out hard-won advice and suggested itineraries between his documents of nightlife and emotional British life, and he barely manages to stay on stage – either climbing his monitors or bouncing down into the crowd, addicted to the sermon and communion. “Go up the hill or stay here” are the first two options, although he prefers the former, telling us to “go up the hill” every next song: another metaphor, perhaps, for scaling life’s difficulties on the way to something bigger.
Photo: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian
His discography stretches back more than 20 years to Let’s Push Things Forward’s early Internet boast, “you won’t find us on AltaVista” (a defunct search engine for younger readers), and it’s magnificent to see how much social history he’s packed into this time as a complete demon to watch: of nightlife, women, drugs, weaknesses and heroes. So many of his songs are about living in the present instead of the future, a valuable lesson in the terribly carefree 21st century. “Let’s think about mental health and how we’re going to feel like shit on Tuesday,” he admits to the crowd at one point, but later in the set his lyrics giggle: “This is my future – I’m glad that ‘I’m not this person!”
There’s an amusing paternalism to his phrasing, advising a fan holding his phone to “get it out of selfie mode” at the end of a song, then promising “if you need any more tech advice, I’m here”. He’s a seasoned crowdsurfer, pitch perfect throughout and his songs themselves are steeped in the spirit of Glastonbury, most at odds with Blinded by the Lights: a song about too much ecstasy and freaking out, played in golden light with Skinner co-ordinating the waving of flags , including one emblazoned with his own likeness. “They could make wars with this if only they would” goes one of his lyrics: also about ecstasy, but it might as well be about Glastonbury and indeed the music of the Streets. In their shared humour, ease, irreverence and amiability, he, this music and this crowd are the best of Britain. “Mike Skinner to PM,” reads a phone message picked up by the cameras, to huge cheers. For starters, that’s tens of thousands of votes.
What deal did Chris Martin make with the devil?! He looks amazing. Live blogging duty is always a matter of pick your poison and I wouldn’t have missed Charli xcx’s DJ set last night or my beloved National tomorrow for anything, but man, even the full body thrill of watching them kick off with Yellow on the iPlayer feed was enough – I’m panting with jealousy for my colleagues and friends in the field. (I’ve only seen a snippet of a Coldplay show – the last 40 minutes of their 2016 headline set – having missed out on tickets to their 2002 set at the Hall for Cornwall as a kid.)
As Alexis Petridis takes the field for Coldplay, we watch in the booth as furious drum ‘n’ bass hums through the door from Silver Hayes. The BBC’s classic countdown – with the old parallelogram logo – is running on the big screens, the sky is a gorgeous lilac and there seems to be no room for halloumi swings in the pyramid field, judging by the view from the crane camera.
[ad_2]
