I thought , since it is Glastonbury weekend, we needed to celebrate the world's greatest music festival with some kind of playlist.
But what angle to take? Random headliners from across the years? Too predictable. Bands from remote stages you've never even heard of? Too obscure. So, instead I scrolled through the main stage line-ups from across the years, looking for something interesting.
I found, in the 2009 list, what I thought to be the most interesting main stage line-up - not necessarily the best (that would be subjective anyway), but one with a really random mix of artists. Here, plucked from those three days of main stage performers, are ten artists that cover a fairly wide spectrum.
1. Neil Young: Rockin' In The Free World
We might as well go in strong. Here is the Friday night headliner from that year, delivering a blistering version of one of his most well known and enduring tunes. Warning - it is over 11 minutes long!
2. Lily Allen: Smile
Line-up diversity is an issue that the festival is still responding to. Back in 2009 you can really see it in the lack of female artists on the main stages. As you will see from the poster above, of the 23 confirmed acts on the main stage, only 4 were female (or in the case of Amadou and Mariam, 50% female). In fact across the whole festival bill that year, the story is the same (and even in 2023, the higher end of the bill is again loaded with white middle-aged men on many of the stages).
Lily's performance on that 2009 afternoon demonstrated why that ratio was utterly ridiculous. Here she is, carefree and ballsy, with cigarette waving around, belting out her number one smash Smile, to an utterly rapturous crowd.
3. The Specials: Ghost Town
You can never have too much ska in your life! An iconic song from an iconic band.
4. Status Quo: Down Down
Without realising it, I have opened with the top three from the Friday. So, now we will dip into Sunday afternoon and a bit of Quo. People can argue about whether they like they direction the Arctic Monkeys took after their first two albums, all they like, but you can't argue with a bit of Quo. Good, solid, dependable - just as you always remember them, which seems to be the way many people like their music. I saw them once at an outdoor gig - it had been raining just before they came on, and they provided the perfect accompaniment to drying off. They have been mocked by many over the years (probably including me when I was younger), but boy do they really knew how to play!
5. Spinal Tap: Big Bottom
Our first foray into Saturday's bill and it is those titans of skin-tight metal, Spinal Tap. Do you try and take them seriously, or laugh at them (or possibly cringe a little if you have missed the point)? Maybe just sit back and enjoy what they do best - entertaining you and putting a smile on your face. In this one you get a double bonus - two bass guitars, with one of them being played by Jarvis Cocker!
6. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: The Weeping Song
If you are missing 'proper' music after the last couple of selections, then let me bring you back around to that. Here we get to go a little leftfield, with Cave and co, as usual, like some glorious musical gothic novel. The Weeping Song is a simple yet powerful song, propelled by the multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis on his fiddle
7. Dizzee Rascal: Bonkers
Glastonbury were at least trying to branch out a bit musically (even if they were failing on the female front), and Dizzee Rascal came along to blast out his mix of hip hop and pop, to the delight of a crowd that was said to be bigger than Neil Young's the previous night (and Dizzee was only third on the bill). Rap and hip hop stars had been a bit thin on the ground over the first 35 years or so of the festival. Curtis Mayfield and Cypress Hill were a few of the notable exceptions along the way, but finally, Jay-Z in 2008 and then DIzzee the following year, started to pave the way (amusingly, much to the annoyance of many po-faced indie and rock fans) for much more of it over the last 15 years.
8. Tom Jones: It's Not Unusual
The idea of the legends spot on a Sunday afternoon really started way back in 1998 with Tony Bennett. For 2009 though, it was the turn of the Welsh legend, Thomas John Woodward - aka Tom Jones. He belted out a host of big tunes in his own distinctive style, to a joyous and very receptive crowd, especially with this classic.
9. Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band: Glory Days / Dancing In The Dark
Saturday night saw an epic set from The Boss - and here is a double bill of classics. While he might have been criticised recently for his stance on ticket pricing, he has never been accused of dialling in his performances. As ever, at Glastonbury that year, he and the band left it all out there.
10. Blur: Parklife
So, we round this list of, just as the festival ended that year, with the Sunday night headliners. Blur had been the Kings of Britpop a decade earlier, and after a seven year hiatus, they were back and ready to resume their mantle as one of the UKs greatest bands. I could have gone for something a bit less obvious from the set - but this electrifying version of Parklife reunites them with Phil Daniels, and would have probably blown the roof off, if they had actually been inside.
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