Xfm's Glastonbury Review - Saturday
The sun comes out, and all of Glastonbury breathes a sigh of relief. Here's our view of Saturday at Worthy Farm.
Now here's something that hasn't been seen at Glastonbury on Saturday for four years - the sun. As the mud dried out to give way to firm ground, the atmosphere at Glastonbury shifts smoothly from fear to joy via a quick pitstop at relief. Having tweaked the nipples of adversity, the thousands of revellers who had feared a wet weekend were treated to a Glastonbury of rare vintage.
With more spaced to move around, the festival becomes less a chore and more a pleasure. So it is that Shakin' Stevens is greeted with a sizeable crowd when he takes the Pyramid Stage at the ungodly hour of 11am and on that bears with him when he utters the dreaded words,"Here's some songs from the new album."
No such problems for Canadian Krautrock enthusiasts Holy Fuck at the John Peel tent who do their best to live up to their name while securing a number of converts for their troubles all of which conspires to give British Sea Power a lot of living up to do. Their set fails to ignite despite the presence of a four-piece Bulagrian choir for an oddly subdued "Waving Flags".
Gruff Rhys' Neon Neon are having the opposite effect at the Other Stage. Joined by Har Mar Superstar, their brand of retro 80s disco proves to be the perfect complement to the sun that beats down from above. Over at the Pyramid Stage, Brendon Benson has taken to resembling Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham in all his 70s pomp as The Raconteurs take the stage for the Saturday Teatime Slot. A notoriously difficult piece to pace in the line-up jigsaw, this is the part of the festival where bands are made or broken. The Raconteurs deliver a tight set of blazing rock'n'roll but it's difficult to leave the stage without thanking that maybe a little bit more audience interaction would have helped their cause more.
Elbow have undoubtedly bagged the day's most enviable spot. Hitting the stage at the point where the sun is thinking of calling it a night, Guy Garvey and gang turn in a set of staggering beauty with "Leaders Of The Free World" and "Grounds For Divorce" being cases in point. And who can argue with them when they sing, "One day like this a year will see me right"? Who indeed?
Thanks to Elbow's magnificent set, Xfm misses a large part of The Last Shadow Puppets' unannounced performance at The Park but does at least catch their cover of Billy Fury's "Wonderous Place" which does at least go to show where they're coming from.
MGMT's pop-psychedelia slay the Park. Despite rumours of an off-colour set at the John Peel stage last night, the New Yorkers dispatch "Electric Feel" and "Time To Pretend" with the minimum of fuss and maximum of pleasure while "Kids" sees the band go crowd surfing with gleeful abandon.
Sadly, Battles set is cut severely short but the four tracks they plough through have the desired effect. Like a punch up in a sequencer factory refereed by an 808 drum machine, Battles' math rock sways the unbelievers while the faithful revel in the bleeps, loops and unrelenting rhythms. Likewise CSS who follow afterwards. Though their allotted time is shorn back, the Brazillians present a number of tantalising glimpses of their forthcoming album. Tight, lean and wiry,CSS are looking to set to surpass their debut with the aid of a sound of a sound that owes more to rock than dance.Their stock-in-trade playfulness is still at the core of their being and it's an attitude that sees them win the day.