Glastonbury 2024: Five winners and five losers of the festival
And there it is. Another year, another Glastonbury. What is undoubtedly the biggest festival in the UK, if not the world, has been and gone. Over the weekend, it delivered a stellar mix of artists, good and bad, equipped with highs and lows aplenty. Now that the dust has settled, punters are home (or wearily heading there) and the sweat-induced, alcohol-infused haze has begun to lift, it’s time to take a look at the winners and losers from the festival.
The ‘Glastonbury moment’ is talked about frequently by those commentating on the festival; however, its definition has become quite loose in recent years, as anything from a legendary headline set to two strangers kissing in a field seems to fall into its realm. The general consensus seems to be anything that happens within the festival that is memorable enough to not be obliterate by the effects of booze. Of course, these moments aren’t always memorable for the best reasons.
While Glastonbury continues to provide music fans and artists with some of the best moments of their lives, it is also a big operation, hard to manage, and proving increasingly difficult to get right. It is also subject to the best and worst of those on stage. Whether the negatives result from poor management, empty politics, or just a bad day at the office, they remain a fundamental part of what is a musical cornerstone.
So, from SZA drawing a measly crowd to the Gossip doing a ‘Bellingham’ and snatching triumph from the jaws of defeat, here are some of the biggest highs and lows from Glastonbury 2024.
Glastonbury 2024 five biggest winners
Dua Lipa
There were many question marks surrounding this year’s headliners, as people said it was a bit too soon for some and a bit too late for others. Going into her headline set, even though she had a barrage of hits and an arena tour behind her, there were still people who questioned whether or not Dua Lipa was ready for such a prominent slot, but she proved she was.
In what was a stellar performance filled with excellent vocals, faultless choreography and a surprise appearance from Kevin Parker, Dua Lipa managed to kick the festival off to a flying start and looked like a seasoned pro every second of her performance. The only place for Dua Lipa at festivals from now on will be as a headliner, and rightly so.
The Last Dinner Party
If you want to talk about question marks, look no further than The Last Dinner Party. The minute their first single, ‘Nothing Matters’, was released, online armies were quick to ask whether the band were legitimate and whether or not they were industry plants. With every step forward the band takes, whether releasing their killer debut album Prelude To Ecstasy, selling out tours worldwide or picking up awards everywhere they go, the band continues to prove doubters wrong.
Their set at Glastonbury continued to push the band on this trajectory as they took to The Other Stage on Saturday and proved themselves to be one of the best new live bands out there. With a choir of punters helping them throughout their set and with energy jam-packed into every second of every track, The Last Dinner Party have proven themselves to be future contenders for the main stage.
Avril Lavigne
The original pop punk princess pricked plenty of ears when she was announced as one of the acts making up this year’s Glastonbury line-up. Bringing in a crowd of 70,000, Lavigne’s set was one of the highest attended of the weekend, and the crowd was elated as she reeled out the hits such as ‘Sk8er Boi’, ‘Complicated’ and ‘My Happy Ending’.
“I can’t believe its taken me 22 years to finally play Glastonbury, but it was amazing,” she said, “The audience were incredible, everyone was up on shoulders, holding signs and there were colourful smoke bombs going off, it was just so cool.”
Gossip
Coldplay headlining the festival was a controversial call, given how little the band have contributed to music since their last headline set. Subsequently, a number of Coldplay haters were left twiddling their thumbs during Saturday’s headline slot; however, luckily, Gossip came to the rescue.
Given the set clashed with the headliner, the crowd was relatively sparse, but that didn’t stop Gossip from delivering one of the festival’s most exciting and invigorating performances. Beth Ditto’s vocal talents were phenomenal as punk prevailed throughout one of the most exhilarating sets of the weekend.
Confidence Man
While many bands and artists use their platforms to talk about politics, which is great and well within their right to do, Confidence Man is a shining example of another side of music, one that keeps energy, fun, and good times at the forefront of everything they do. Their set was built entirely on enjoyment and was subsequently one of the festival’s biggest highlights.
Talk about a band that you don’t need to have heard of before seeing them; Confidence Man can win crowds over within seconds of being on stage. Their songs, choreography and crowd centre around community and fun, and it’s near enough impossible to watch them and not have the time of your life.
Glastonbury 2024 five biggest losers
Shania Twain
While people hesitated to fully embrace the headliners, having Shania Twain in the legends slot seemed like a great booking. With a remarkable career behind her laden with hits and a live show that people around the world praise as fun, her Glastonbury was unsurprisingly packed; however, Twain didn’t deliver when it mattered.
While her set was fun, the sound problems were difficult to shake, and her performance was criticised by many for being flat. On such a big stage, where so many people were already not as excited by the big names on the line-up as they should be, Shania Twain stepped in when she delivered a drole performance.
Coldplay
The band who never should have been headlining. Since Coldplay’s last headline performance in 2016, they haven’t released or done anything that warrants their return to The Pyramid Stage, and yet, on Saturday, there they were. Dishing out 100,000 light-up wristbands in lieu of good music, Coldplay were a disappointment from start to finish.
The band had a great-looking set, but their music was lacklustre, and Chris Martin’s pandering for peace was so transparent that it sounded as though he was reading it off his hand. The band broke a record this weekend as the only band to headline Glastonbury for the fifth time, and we can now only sit back and hope that it will be their last time fronting the Pyramid Stage.
SZA
SZA’s headline set on Sunday night might have been one of the poorest attended in the festival’s history. Minutes before she was due to take to the stage, there were large patches of space free on what is usually a completely packed area of the festival. The lack of audience doesn’t represent SZA as being a poor performer, but more a poor lack of organisation on behalf of the festival.
Despite the singer being one of the biggest-selling artists in the world at the minute, without commercial crossover, she simply wasn’t the right fit for the main stage. Not to mention, sound issues and generally poor performance mean that despite SZA’s best efforts, it’s hard to say this headline slot was anything other than a Glastonbury loss.
The Pyramid Stage organisers
It’s hard to ignore the common theme surrounding the above artists. They were all booked as big artists on the Pyramid Stage at this year’s festival. While it’s true that curating a weekend festival is becoming more difficult as various genres make up the mainstream and music becomes more accessible to audiences at large, it’s hard to deny that this year’s organisation has been bad.
With sparse crowds, persistent sound issues and a line-up that doesn’t know what it wants to be, the organisers of the Pyramid Stage need to do better. It’s never going to be easy organising a line-up for the biggest festival in the country, but this year really shone a light on how out of touch some of the people behind Glastonbury are, and it’s forcing the festival to take steps backwards.
Glastonbury as a whole
Glastonbury is a festival laden with contradictions. These were particularly highlighted during Coldplay’s set. Far Out noted how strange it was that the festival motto is “leave no trace,” yet over 100,000 wristbands are given out and discarded without a care.
This blatantly represents the “peace and love” attitude surrounding Glastonbury, a sentiment that is as empty as some of the music performed there. In the same review by Far Out, it was noted, “The rest of Glastonbury by 2024, is nothing but surface-level politics that goes no further into the problem or the solution than the commercially safe “love each other” statement will afford… and it is rotten with privilege.”
