Glastonbury 2023: Cat Stevens pays tribute to George Harrison with cover of The Beatles
The traditional ‘legends slot’ on Glastonbury Festival‘s jam-packed schedule is a place for singers to truly deliver what the audience wants. It should be full of crowd-pleasing bangers, and Cat Stevens, who also goes by Yusuf Islam, took heed of this when he performed at this year’s event.
Delivering a range of covers as well as his own classic songs, the ‘Father and Son’ singer really got the party started when he covered The Beatles’ song ‘Here Comes The Sun’.
After acknowledging that a previous song “could have been a tip of the hat” to Paul McCartney, Stevens paid tribute to the bassist’s bandmate and the creator of ‘Here Comes The Sun‘, George Harrison.
“I would like to pay tribute to another inspiration of mine, and he inspired us to take a trip, actually, to take a journey, eastward towards the light. George Harrison,” the performer told the crowd before launching into the iconic opening guitar line for the Abbey Road tune.
Speaking about his decision to take on the opportunity at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, Stevens told Rev. Kate Bottley as part of an interview with BBC Radio 2: “It’s kind of predestination, you may say. It’s a natural for me, I suppose, as I have got to this point, now, where I’ve got a really good catalogue of songs which stretches back to 1965 or 1966 let’s say.
“So I’ve been there, done that,” he continued. “And I’ve gone through this whole kind of – of course, I went away for a while too. So I got a life, and I came back. I mean, I’ve got a story to tell. I think it’ll be very suitable. Oh, and I’m looking forward to it greatly.”
Watch Yusuf/Cat Stevens pay tribute to George Harrison below.
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