st dan

Yep - superb. When the heavens opened for Mr November and Terrible Love .. it was a special moment.

I’m from ‘up north’ and I couldn’t believe the weather you guys all got at the festival compared to what it was like here! Was like two completely different seasons.

I think the whole ‘Sad Dads’ rebrand has been an excellent ploy and given them a whole new lease of life. It’s basically them admitting they aren’t attempting to be ‘cool’, but there is a huge market for their target demographic, and they’re even winning over new fans even at this stage of their career and 10+ albums in.

Just thinking, as the headline size acts have social media teams who’s job it is is to increase exposure to as big an audience as possible - and that coupled with the fact that everybody has access to streaming these days, do acts still need to roll over to the festival and accept lesser fees in return for the exposure? Is that even still relevant a relevant angle in this day and age, or have the bookers now lost this bargaining chip, which has held them so dear over the years?

Anywayyyy …. Here we go: https://www.glastofestfeed.com/news/coverage/watch-glastonbury-2024-setlist-iplayer/ Takes you directly to the link in iPlayer to watch whoever you want.

I think another thing to consider is that the younger audience who have grown up with festivals probably do just go from stage to stage, act to act, like they would do at any other festival and aren’t really exploring the other areas of the site that Glastonbury offers. I assume the maximum capacity is taking the whole site into consideration, but it seems it’s increasingly likely that just portion of it is being regularly used. This will make the other areas feel much quieter. Glastonbury aside, things to do outside of the music isn’t really a concept for major festivals.

Don’t think that’s the main issue here though - Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Kendrick, Stormzy etc were all booked with the future generations in mine, and none of them bombed like this. No issues with the idea of what they are trying to avoid the same generic bookings every few years, but the fact the chose the wrong one. SZA is nowhere near the level required.

Confidence Man for me. They were superb even on the TV, looked like a great party in the crowd.

Who has come out well with this booking? I don’t see any winners at all - the festival itself, the bookers, Emily, SZA have all been unanimously panned for it … but it was so obvious it was going to end this way. Did any of them genuinely expect this to go well? Was the intention to win over the neutrals and for them to applaud the risk? It was just madness. And the fact it was closing the festival too makes it even worse. If it had been a Friday night, then they probably get away with it and Coldplay save the day - but that was the dampest of damp squibs.

To draw a decent crowd and to be well received as a ‘good’ headliner, then you need the hits and the singalongs. Simple as that. If you don’t have them, it will always seem a flat performance no matter what. I bet 75%+ of people at the festival couldn’t name a single SZA song.

James Blake sounding excellent on Woodsies. Stunning vocals

Was actually thinking about this - given the lack of a popular headliner or sub on any of the stages, I could see a lot of people potentially heading off early.

The 10 people in the crowd that know the words are going to be getting a lot of screen time I think.

Very jealous of those there for The National tonight. Thinking it could be one of those ‘I was there’ moments. They’re in fine live form at present (I would say their best ever), and this is just the perfect slot for them. I’ll have to wait until Castlefield Bowl on Thursday for my fix.