Glastonbury 2023: Sharleen Spiteri was “worried no one would show up” to Texas performance
Ahead of Texas performing on the Pyramid Stage, the band’s frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri revealed that she was “worried no one would show up” to the show.
Spiteri spoke to The Guardian at the Cabaret tent to discuss her history with the Scottish group and revealed that she’d only been to one music festival before she started playing with them. She said: “I’ve been in a band since I was 17 years old. The truth is, I went to one festival in Scotland, and we played our first festival that year. My festival-going is playing them, basically.”
Spiteri was a 17-year-old hairdresser in her native city of Glasgow when she formed Texas with Johnny McElhone in 1986. The first song they wrote was ‘I Don’t Want a Lover’, which became a hit in 1989. The frontwoman explained: “Thirty-five years later, we’re still doing it”.
Spiteri then noted that a number of her band’s hits might surprise a younger audience. She continued: “They go: ‘Texas – who are these old bastards?’ Then they go ‘oh, I know that song, I know that song, oh that was them’… That’s what I’m hoping for today and that everyone will have a great time.”
The crowd cheers, bemusing Spiteri: “If you’re applauding me for that, what the fuck are you gonna do when I start singing?”
Later, she recalled being patronised by a session tambourinist, who rejected her feedback, telling her: “You’re not a percussion player”. In response, the Glaswegian said: “No, but I’m a musician, and it’s my fucking record … He literally belittled me in front of my whole band, he was really condescending.”
Following this, Spiteri praised her bandmates for “not taking the easy route” by hiring her as the vocalist. “Had they been a male-fronted band, they probably would have had a lot more recognition.”
Moving onto today’s performance, she expressed pleasure at the band still drawing a crowd. Whether it be performing with Wu-Tang Clan in Glasgow last week or recording at Abbey Road Studios, she says she’s “never” intimidated.
“I never feel intimidated,” she adds. “I’m like a Labrador … I get very excited because I cannot believe my luck.”
Watch Texas perform ‘Black Eyed Boy’ at Glastonbury Festival 2023 below.
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