Glastonbury 2024: Yard Act deliver impassioned speech about political freedoms
During their set on the Woodsies stage, Leeds post-punk band Yard Act gave the most impassioned political speech that Glastonbury Festival has encountered for many years.
Addressing the crowd during their final track, ‘The Trench Coat Museum’, frontman James Smith orated on the state of the world and how privilidged we are simply to be watching Glastonbury in any capacity. “Glastonbury, we’re going to go one more time, but before we do, whilst I’ve got you in the palm of my tiny little hand, we want to say how lucky we are to be here in this field here with you,” he began.
He continued: “And we know how everybody that can be in this field is very fucking lucky. This is freedom—this is as close to freedom as many of us will get. But not everybody has that freedom like that, and it is your duty, whilst you are here and you have one life to live and enjoy it, and celebrate it, and be free in this field, and take your drugs and hold your loved ones close. But in doing so, we also pay tribute to and stand with the people who don’t have this freedom.”
While the beat rumbled on, adding further, danceable profundity to Smith’s words, he said: “To the people of Ukraine, to the people of Sudan, to the people of Palestine, and anybody else fighting for their liberation, fearing for their lives, who does not have what we have right now, we stand with them, because, Glastonbury, the lines on the maps don’t exist, they were drawn on by a few greedy men. We can transcend those borders.”
Summing up his sermon for border eviscerating liberation, he concluded: “We can send our fucking energy above those borders and change the fucking world. And if you think that sounds like hippie bullshit, well, that’s because it is, but it’s also true. So, if you’re at this festival and you believe in freedom, and you believe that your energy is fucking worth something, you can show it to the world and all the cameras that are broadcasting this to the television, by going mad one last time with us before we leave this stage and go about the rest of our lives. Glastonbury, if you feel it, fucking feel it and move.”
A giant dancing mass then ensued as one of the weekend’s greatest and most pertinent sets rumbled to a pulsating techno-inclined finale. Political statements have been made multiple times over the weekend – even Banksy has unveiled a crowd-surfing immigrant boat – but none have matched the vigour and ardour that Smith put forth.
Prior to the performance, Smith spoke exclusively to Far Out and commented, wryly riffing on their track, ‘Dream Job’: “It feels ace, top, mint, boss, class, sweet, deece. Yeah, not bad. Good! This year will be better because we aren’t as knackered as last time. And it will be bigger, too, because there are seven of us on stage now.”
Elsewhere in the set, the band brought out Katy J Pearson for the single ‘When The Laughter Stops’ and rolled out the hits from each of their records so far.
You can watch the band performing ‘When The Laughter Stops’ below.
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