Glastonbury 2025: Pulp arrive with euphoric secret set as Patchwork
In surely the most discussed secret set in Glastonbury history, Britpop legends Pulp appeared on the Pyramid Stage at 6:15pm on Saturday to declare it a “Pulp Summer”.
Plenty of hearty rumours were swirling around the band behind the ‘Patchwork’ alias. Pulp were certainly front-runners, but a last-minute post from Chappell Roan holding a patchwork quilt from her childhood threw many attendees off the scent.
Pulp even meddled in the myth; keyboard player Candida Doyle told BBC Radio 6 Music, “We wanted to, just because it’s the 30th anniversary and that kind of thing, and they weren’t interested.” Pulp do, however, have form for staging surprise slots at Glastonbury, after they made a last-minute appearance on the Park Stage back in 2011.
What appeared before the vast crowd was a spectacle nobody could have anticipated: a strange assortment of people in ponchos, holding their arms out wide as if to block the audience’s view of whatever was happening behind them.
After an intense pause, and several up-close shots of the nervous faces of the so-called poncho wearers, the screen asked, “Are you ready for… Pulp summer?” Out came the large silhouette of Jarvis Cocker, barrelling straight into the 1995 hit ‘Sorted for E’s & Wizz’.
The band looked delighted to be playing for the vast and varied crowd, ready to wear disco shoes. In no time at all, the Britpop band were into their second song, the huge anthem ‘Year 2000’.
“Did you know we were going to play?” Cocker asked the audience, who yelled back a resounding “Yes!”. He then mused, “How? Psychic. Good,” before reminiscing that the two opening songs had both been played for the first time “thirty years and four days ago… They were born in Glastonbury.”
After playing ‘Spike Island’, Cocker addressed the audience, even pointing out “you with that giant tennis racket there” in his humorous address. “We feel incredibly relaxed,” he boasted, despite the humongous crowd only growing in size, stretching right back to the campsite.
Friday night at Glastonbury saw The 1975 headline the Pyramid Stage and Loyle Carner headline the Other Stage. Later on Saturday night, Charli XCX and Neil Young will compete for a crowd, while on Sunday, Olivia Rodrigo will close the weekend.
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