A hot and sweaty start: What we learnt arriving at Glastonbury 2024

And so it begins. Over the next two days, over 200,000 people will descend on Worthy Farm in Somerset for the Glastonbury Festival.

A month ago, weather reports were suggesting that this year would be the first in recent memory to present a classic washout event. A typical southwest English summertime with rain showers and footfall churning the dairy farm’s fields into rivers of squelching mud. At the time, the UK was dealing with one of its wettest years on record.

Then suddenly, a week before it began the weather changed. Worthy Farm is in an area of England defined by its ancient grounds littered with ley lines and pagan history. Perhaps some of that pre-Roman magic was at play as today, as the festival gates opened, the sun bore down on Glastonbury.

There are a few reasons why this year’s edition of the UK’s biggest and most significant music and culture festival is special. The first is rooted in changes to the festival areas. Primarily, the iconic Arcadia dance stage has retired its arachnid-themed steel girder set-up. In its place is The Dragonfly, an impressive installation of the titular insect created out of the shell of a Royal Navy helicopter.

The Woodsies Stage (formerly known as the John Peel Stage) has also expanded, adding the Tree Stage to its Main Stage area. Glastonbury die-hards know that this is the place to be for all of the best left-field artists that the Pyramid, Other and West Holts stages won’t accommodate for.

While the music doesn’t get properly started before Friday, punters filter into the festival site from Wednesday. For an outsider to the Glastonbury experience, that might seem like arriving a bit unfashionably early. Having spent almost an entire day lugging a heavy tent through London to then suffer through an unbearably hot bus ride to the site itself, I can already report that the festival spirit has won through.

A festival goer is sprayed with water to cool off, during the Glastonbury Festival in Worthy Farm, Somerset, England, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. AP Photo

Glastonbury boasts more than a hundred stages and smaller acts are already keeping crowds entertained, while others head over to gain spiritual and physical guidance at the Healing Fields, between grabbing a bite to eat at the endless exciting food stalls littered around the area. This isn’t just a music festival. It’s an entire city-state. As Glastonbury becomes the seventh biggest city in the south of England for the next five days, Euronews Culture will be on the scene to report on what makes this the ultimate festival in Europe.

Who’s playing?

After co-organiser Emily Eavis faced criticisms last year for the festival’s all-male headliners Guns n’ Roses, Arctic Monkeys and Elton John, she was adamant that 2024’s edition would be different. Eavis has thoroughly delivered by putting pop music’s hottest property Dua Lipa with the top slot at the Pyramid Stage on Friday night. Expect her to get the entirety of Worthy Farm grooving to her solid back catalogue and hit-laden new album ‘Radical Optimism’.

Dua Lipa performs "Think I'm in Love with You" at the 59th annual Academy of Country Music Awards, May 16, 2024 Chris Pizzello/Invision

Headlining on Saturday will be Coldplay. The UK indie rockers will make history as this is their fifth time in the top spot, a feat no other act has achieved in the past. Chris Martin and his band will likely bring out a few tracks from their upcoming album ‘Moon Music’, but hopefully they won’t linger too heavily on their more recent music and elect to create that Glastonbury Moment™ with a sunset rendition of classics like ‘Fix You’ and ‘The Scientist’.

SZA arrives at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, 3 April 2022 Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

While Dua Lipa will kick off proceedings, closing out the festival at the site’s iconic Pyramid Stage will be US R&B singer-songwriter SZA. It’s her first time at the festival, but between her work as an award-winning songwriter for other artists and her own hefty discography that has been on a blitzing world tour, her position in the (somewhat traditional) up and coming headline slot shouldn’t fool anyone. This will be a big one.

Beyond headliners, there’s a raft of legendary female acts to keep people entertained. In the titular “Legend’s Slot” on Sunday is Shania Twain. Then for all the angsty noughties kids, Avril Lavigne will bring a set that’ll remind everyone why ‘Sk8er Boi’ rocked their worlds. Finally, UK girl group royalty Sugababes in their original line-up (there was a period where they exchanged members more often than the Conservative Party exchanged leaders), making their set unmissable. Think that’s more than enough, 80s legend Cyndi Lauper will remind us that girls just wanna have fun before Kate Nash takes us back to the cracks in our foundations.

Best of the rest

Other highlights will be LCD Soundsystem, Little Simz, Olivia Dean, Janelle Monae, and Jessie Ware which will all provide ample chances to dance in the sunshine. For those fancying something on the rockier side, there are going to be sets by the premier punk bands of the day from the UK (IDLES) and Ireland (Fontaines D.C.), while earlier in the days sets from nu-punk anarchists Lambrini Girls and Mannequin Pussy will shake some hangovers loose.

LCD Soundsystem performs at the AXE Ceremonia music festival at Bicentenario Park in Mexico City, Sunday, March 24, 2024. Marco Ugarte/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved

The beauty of Glastonbury is the sheer breadth of the acts on show. It would be impossible to list them in entirety here. But if you’ve been reading and still haven’t found anything to latch onto yet, you’ll be glad to hear that also coming along are rockers The National, Bombay Bicycle Club, and The Last Dinner Party; electronic acts Disclosure, Justice, Jamie XX, and hip-hop artists Danny Brown, Tems, and Burna Boy.

Finally, I’m personally most looking forward to the intriguingly titled Partygirl set that Charli XCX is presenting on Friday. After the critically acclaimed release of her rave-inspired album ‘Brat’ this month, the set promises a “close-up look at Charli’s glitchy, club music era”.