Wow. Glastonbury 2025 did not disappoint. We all had the best time and for four days we fully immersed ourselves in the Glastonbury Bubble – arguably the happiest place on earth. Everyone is happy and free to roam around a temporary city the size of London.
It’s hardly surprising we got lost quite a few times and our legs are still tired. Emotionally and spiritually I’m not sure I’m going to be in the reality zone for a while. It’s exhausting, but in a good way – one big happy blur of friends, music and madness. A total escape from the outside world. Anything goes and there’s an unexpected surprise around every corner. It’s a joy to behold. Everyone is smiling infectiously, including all the staff and it simply creates such a positive, life-affirming experience whereby you love everyone and never want to leave. I genuinely don’t know how they manage to pull something of this magnitude off, but somehow it (mainly) all works.
As an older festival goer, we have to do things a little differently to the younger crowd. We have to sleep. We have to sit down. We have to wear sensible shoes and pace ourselves, even if we tend to manage that element quite badly. We are fuelled on alcohol and adrenalin and not much more – which means we appear to be way more wobbly on our feet by the end of the night than some of the younger people – who were clearly fuelled by other means. For us it’s a balance (literally) – can we watch a headline act and then head to Shangri-La where it’s super busy to see Fat Boy Slim? Probably not. Can we make it to the Park Stage and then race back to see someone else? Probably not, given the distances and the crowds. It’s simply impossible to see everyone you want, so you have to make choices. Our steps were about 22K a day, whereas my kids probably did 45K steps a day.
At least there was no mud to contend with. The weather was almost perfect this year. Possibly too much sunshine one day and a lot of sunburn the next, but enough cloud cover to make it manageable, as long as you were wearing a hat! My pink hat had to stay on for the entire time, because the hat hair issue when it’s hot was horrendous.
That said, it felt a bit less busy than last year, which was a good thing (10,000 less tickets sold) and the crowd control seemed very well managed in general. When it appeared to be a terrible clash of headline artists, I think they crafted that element well – I would have loved to have seen The Scissor Sister’s, given it was the first concert I took my daughter to when she was ten (“best show we’ve ever seen” said my kids – with the added bonus of Ian McKellen on stage), but we knew that it would fill up quickly and be quite a squash (and very hot), Charlie XCX was also going to be massive, Doechii I didn’t know and given that Neil Young might not have that many live performances left him in and I love his music, it was a no brainer. He had a smaller crowd as a result of all the other choices, but I’m so glad I was there, despite the inevitable FOMO one always gets. You can’t do everything, so you just have to go with the flow.
I managed to find all my kids (and trust me, that’s harder than it seems, what with all those people and not a great phone signal) to watch Rod Stewart together which was very special as he’s a family favourite and he played my father’s favourite song, so it was a pretty emotional hour.
The 1975 I watched with my daughter as none of her friends wanted to see them (or maybe they did, but something better was calling to them) and Noah Kahan we also watched and danced all together.
Then we went our separate ways.
Everyone’s best bit is different. For me it’s about catching up with old friends, dancing wildly, seeing favourite bands and bands you’ve never heard of and enjoying all of it equally. Some in our group want to head to the smaller stages and immerse themselves fully in the crowd. Others want to escape for a sit down and some food and a catch up in between the key music. But most would agree that as the world gets worse, Glastonbury just gets better – something to do with the extraction from reality I suspect.
Twinning with my friend:-
Don Lett’s – super cool:-
Of course, when I say it (mainly) all works, there’s inevitably a dark underbelly – we saw a few unconscious people being attended to, my kids saw one girl having to be resuscitated and you just hope and pray that everyone got home safely. There’s also the issue this year of Bob Vylan and the firestorm they’ve ignited with the chanting which of course is outrageous and so not in keeping with the Glastonbury ethos. Generally everyone is there to look after each other and to make new memories with old and new friends. Taking all that we’ve experienced back into the outside world and hanging on to all the really, really good bits.
So sad it’s all over and we have to wait 725 days to get back there!
All the footage is available to see, so there’s no need for me to review any of the music, but here are my highlights for my own personal memories:-
Lewis Capaldi
We were very close to the stage – as he pointed out himself the “TBA” slot of 35 minutes was one of the worst kept secrets and he was a joy to behold. We’d seen him two years ago and it was emotional in a different way, given how much he was struggling and now he was back to “finish what he started” and it was all incredibly emotional in a happy way. He looked good and seemed to be in a much better place.
Pulp
Another badly kept secret – “Patchwork” was who they were listed as. They were brilliant.
Rod Stewart
A family favourite and someone who I’ve loved forever. His voice wasn’t great, given he’d just recovered from flu and he started with a few songs that weren’t necessarily required, but after that we got banger after banger.
Snow Patrol
A favourite of mine and they were brilliant.
Neil Young
I didn’t love the start – a bit of a guitar-wank-fest, with his new band, but once he got into his acoustic stuff, it was a joy to behold. He wasn’t as grumpy as he sometimes is and we got a pretty special playlist, including “Harvest Moon”, “The Needle And The Damage Done” and “Rocking In The Free World.”
Oliva Rodrigo
She was one of the Sunday night headliners and as there wasn’t an obvious one I was keen to see – with The Prodigy on the other stage and all the others miles away we decided to see her. She won the crowd over and for me I had a huge amount more respect for her when she brought out Robert Smith from The Cure to sing with her. Very cool.
Brandi Carlile
I didn’t really know her music before, but she was brilliant and like all the other bands seemed genuinely overwhelmed and delighted to be playing – even at a lunchtime slot – she filled up fairly rapidly as she sang and I’m definitely going to listen to her duet with Elton John now.
1975
He got some pretty bad reviews for his louche approach to the set, but I thought that element (smoking and drinking and slightly staggering) worked well. He was pretty arrogant, but we know that already and the music was great.
Miles Smith
Joyful. We couldn’t get into the tent because Lorde (also fab) had been the TBA just before, but he was great nevertheless.
Kaiser Chiefs
Brimming with energy and they played a really good set of all the songs we know and love.
I probably shouldn’t have shared by hip flask of Cointreau with all my new best friends as I feel like I may be coming down with the classic Glastonbury flu!
