It was a “spectacular weekend of celebrity cameos, fireworks and crowd-surfing”, said Sky News‘s cultural and entertainment reporter Gemma Peplow. Oh, “and music, of course.”
But sound issues and scheduling oversights have left some feeling that this year’s edition of the UK’s biggest music festival didn’t quite strike the right note.
Lessons to be learnt
SZA’s Glastonbury headline set “will go down in history for the wrong reasons”, said the BBC‘s music correspondent Mark Savage. Despite her “vocal command” and a “visual feast” of staging, the American artist “failed to ignite any magic” at the Pyramid Stage.
Attracting the smallest crowd of the weekend’s trio of headliners, persistent sound issues resulted in “distorted and muffled” vocals, a problem which also dampened performances by Shania Twain and Cyndi Lauper. Still, SZA delivered one of the “most vulnerable, moving” performances of the weekend’s biggest acts. It was a “sublime show” held “in the wrong venue – a problem that has repeatedly blighted this year”.
There came a point at this year’s festival where it was “easier to give up about a mile away from the stage”, said The Independent‘s features editor Adam White. Noughties pop icons Sugababes and “grouchy, nostalgic pop-punk queen” Avril Lavigne were two acts that were “shoved on a too-small stage in front of an overwhelming sea of people”. Glastonbury organisers should “learn lessons from a year that has vastly underestimated the appeal of pop nostalgia“, and “overestimated the interest in many performing over at the Pyramid”.
Hit-filled highlights
“In terms of ‘I was there ‘ moments, this one wasn’t quite up there with Jimi Hendrix doing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock,” said arts writer and pop critic Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the Financial Times. Nonetheless, history was made in some respects. The festival hosted its first K-pop act, Seventeen, who “rose above the demotion” of their set’s “low-status” mid-afternoon scheduling to draw fans and inspire “something of a singalong, the festival’s seal of approval”.
And there were other standout moments. Coldplay’s Saturday-night set “was a spectacle designed to be seen from outer space”, said Hunter-Tilney. The fifth-time headliners “were out to make a Big Glastonbury Statement”, with a “large, random assortment of guests” and a “retina-dazzling, synapse-frying, sensory overload of a show”. It wasn’t for me, but “everyone else crammed into the vast Pyramid space” loved it.
Dua Lipa threw “everything she has at it” too, said The Guardian‘s head rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis. There were pyrotechnics, special guests and “crowd-pleasing hits”. She drew a huge crowd who stayed put – a sign that the singer got it right.
And organiser Emily Eavis doesn’t seem too concerned about the criticisms that have been levelled against this year’s bill. “It’s got to be the best one yet,” she told The Sun, confirming talks with acts for next year’s festival are already under way before a planned fallow year in 2026.