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Glastonbury 40th anniversary under way

By | Published on Friday 25 June 2010

Despite the fact that over 120,000 people were already on site by Wednesday afternoon and bands started playing last night, Glastonbury’s 40th anniversary only officially kicks off today. Which would usually be a cue for the hot weather to break and a massive rain cloud to park itself above Somerset, but the forecast is looking pretty good, especially Sunday.

Perhaps the Queen had a special word with the weather gods, this being a special year and all. Or just so Prince Charles wouldn’t get wet. Because yes, the Prince Of Wales was at Worthy Farm yesterday as the pre-festival events got under way. Which possibly caused at least a few festival-goers to be disappointed after hearing the rumour “Prince was on site”.

Charlie lamented those who “only come here for the music, man” because they, like “completely miss the fact it’s an ‘experience’ right, a crazy mind fuck that will change your life”. Though the future king was reportedly spotted half naked at the Stone Circle at 6am this morning shouting something about the “flowers whispering the truth none of us will admit”, so I’m not sure we should listen to anything he says.

Before all that, Michael Eavis took the prince on a tour of the festival site, with Charles frequently stopping (or being stopped) to chat to festival goers. Eavis told reporters: “They’re a classless society. The prince seems to be really enjoying his visit”. So that’s nice.

Now the prince is out of the way, the serious music can begin, with day one heading towards Gorillaz’s headline set tonight, which they promise will be a bit special. According to reports, the cartoon band (last minute replacements for U2, of course) have managed to convince every single guest musician who contributed to their recent ‘Plastic Beach’ album to come along and recreate their parts live.

That means Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, Bobby Womack, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Mark E Smith, which is pretty impressive. Although Damon Albarn doesn’t want anyone to get their hopes up too much. He told Xfm earlier this week: “At this moment, on Tuesday, everyone is coming, but that doesn’t mean by Friday we [won’t] have a few casualties on the way”.

Snoop Dogg, of course, is due to perform on the Pyramid Stage not long before Gorillaz. And he’s managed to secure a guest for himself. According to Sky New, Willie Nelson will make an appearance during the rapper’s set.

Going one better, Sister Sisters are apparently going to be joined on stage by Ian McKellen and Kylie Minogue. Kylie was, of course, set to headline the 2005 Glastonbury festival, but was forced to pull out after being diagnosed with breast cancer. A source told The Sun earlier this week: “The Scissors are pulling out all the stops to make this the performance of the festival. They’re commissioning outrageous costumes and they’ve lined up Kylie and Sir Ian. It’s going to be quite a party”.

Also performing today is Florence And The Machine, who is also promising a big surprise, though she’s keeping it under wraps, telling Bang Showbiz: “Obviously I’ve got a big surprise at Glastonbury but I don’t want to tell you any more because I want it to be a surprise”.

But enough surprises. This is the 40th birthday festival, so let’s finish things off with some retrospective nonsense. First, Eavis has been speaking to Reuters about the first ever festival back in 1970, saying: “I instantly fell in love with the idea after 20 years of hard work and milking cows twice a day seven days a week all year round. I had a sudden vision of our land being used in a different way and I fell hook, line and sinker for it”.

Meanwhile, 6music listeners have been looking back at festivals of the (mainly recent) past and have voted for their favourite Glastonbury headline sets of all time. Last year’s Blur set tops the list, which looks rather like this:

1. Blur (2009)
2. Radiohead (1997)
3. Radiohead (2003)
4. Pulp (1995)
5. David Bowie (2000)
6. Orbital (2004)
7. Coldplay (2000)
8. The Cure (1990)
9. REM (2003)
10. Elbow (2004)



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