Glastonbury 2025: Neil Young confirms appearance after previously withdrawing from festival
Neil Young has confirmed he will play at the Glastonbury Festival in 2025 after previously stating he had withdrawn from the lineup. He initially cited the BBC and “corporate control” as his reasons for pulling out.
In a new post on his Neil Young Archives website, the Canadian singer-songwriter backtracked on the comments he made on January 1st. On January 3rd, he shared with fans in a post titled ‘Glastonbury Festival’: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved. Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there!”
In this new statement, Young becomes the second artist to be confirmed for Glastonbury in 2025 after Rod Stewart, who is set to perform during the legend’s slot.
Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis took to Instagram on January 3rd to share her delight at Young returning to Glastonbury. She posted on the social media platform: “What a start to the year! Neil Young is an artist who’s very close to our hearts at Glastonbury. He does things his own way and that’s why we love him. We can’t wait to welcome him back to headline the Pyramid in June”.
Following the confirmation from Young and Eavis, the former Buffalo Springfield musician becomes the first Pyramid Stage headliner announced for 2025. It will mark his second time headlining the legendary festival.
In a turn of events, just two days ago, the musician initially wrote on his website on January 1st that he wouldn’t play at the festival: “The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs.”
Young then went on to confirm that his scheduled performance at Worthy Farm had been cancelled due to the festival’s relationship with the BBC, writing, “We were told the BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot for things we were not interested in.”
He continued: “It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being. We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.”
The singer-songwriter concluded his first statement by looking ahead to his shows later this year: “Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”
When Young previously performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 2009, a portion of his set was broadcast on the BBC, who have a relationship with the festival dating back to 1997. While the broadcaster is closely aligned with the festival, it doesn’t have corporate interests due to being paid for by license fees rather than through advertisers.
Although Glastonbury Festival recently announced their profits doubled during the last financial year to £5.9 million, the Somerset festival did donate £5.2m to organisations including Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid during that same period.
Glastonbury Festival is yet to reveal the line-up for this year’s event. For the 2024 event, organisers waited until March to reveal the line-up, which suggests it will be another two months before they share the full list of artists who will be performing at Worthy Farm this summer. The event is set to take place from June 27th to June 29th.
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