Thursday at Glastonbury 2024: The ultimate day for discovery
As early doors revellers wake up to their first full day on-site, Thursday establishes itself as Glastonbury’s day for discovery. Before the main stages open and the stars descend, the humble weekday has space to be more interesting, more intriguing and endlessly more dedicated to the grassroots ethos the festival claims to be built on.
In general, a Glastonbury Thursday is a day to get situated. Before the bustling chaos steps up a notch when the official lineup starts, it’s a great day for festivalgoers to get their bearings. It’s the time to soak in the sights: send postcards from Glastonbury-on-Sea, queue up for the immersive art experiences like Terminal One, and wander through Shangri-La with a more lucid mind to acknowledge the impressive scale of it all before it becomes merely a wild backdrop to some big nights.
So much of Glastonbury’s cultural dominance and the public’s enduring obsession with it lies in its huge, vast and immersive feel. With 900 acres of land to explore, separated into different zones with distinct vibes and atmospheres, you could come year-on-year and still be discovering new little corners. Without the distraction of a list of big artists to tick off, Thursday is typically the day to try and see as much of it as possible. We racked up over 30,000 steps in doing so.
But while the main stages are still shrouded in scaffolding, the smaller ones, tucked into bars or managed independently by teams other than the Eavis’, keep the true spirit of Glastonbury alive.
Because, after all, Glasto has always been more than its headliners. With around 3000 acts performing each year, the festival, at its core, is about discovery. It’s about stumbling upon gold and being open enough to stop a moment, pause your mission to whatever far corner of the site you’re heading to, and just be here. There’s no day that does that better than Thursday, the festival’s underrated ultimate slot for new talent, giving emerging acts a moment in the spotlight before the big leagues roll in.
In 2024, that was clearer than ever. While the weather couldn’t make up its mind between sunshine, wind and cloudiness, the quality of the new artists dotted around site was decidedly brilliant.
Pushpin shine at Glastonbury
The Hive stage stood out as a place to be. Nestled between Silver Hayes, The Other Stage and BBC Introducing, the small bar area seemed to be calling more and more people in as each act gained intriguing applause. Sometime around 5pm, I stumbled upon Pushpin there, a 4-piece indie outfit I’d never heard of but now have their songs in my playlist for the journey home.
Launching in with a violin, impressive vocals that dip between members and some huge, grooving bass lines that cut over the top of big rolling drums, it was an incredibly tight musical performance. But it also delivered exactly the kind of wake-up energy Thursday revellers wanted. The vocals felt reminiscent of The Maccabees or early Mystery Jets, filled with pure indie nostalgia. There was a fresher edge that seemed to borrow from the more expansive sounds being put into action by Black Country New Road or any of the other classical instrument slinging post-punk troupes but made it more hooky, more danceable and an altogether more high energy set up that was a perfect start to it all.
Enjoyable Listens continue to impress
Immediately after, I saw Enjoyable Listens get the same crowd wrapped around his finger. He had us eating out of his hand in a way that Coldplay or any main-stage act dreams about. As we boomed applause after each song, a repeated jokey comment of “more applause” helped to craft the image of a cultish character completely comfortable with being on stage. Imagine Rick Astley meets lounge singer vocals, with a dash of Father John Misty shamanic energy and a huge dose of wit and humour injected into both the music itself and the show.
As things were wrapped up with a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’, the crowd were so invested and so present that the singer could even crowd surf – maybe giving him the record for the best stage dive on the smallest stage.
Strummerville is the perfect Thursday spot
As the sun set, we made the pilgrimage up past the Tipi Village to the very top of the site, the stage feels like a whole festival contained within itself. Having run for 20 years and powered by the spirit of Joe Strummer, there are people who will barely leave this part of the site all weekend, staying firmly locked into its intimate atmosphere that can be calming at times but, on this Thursday night, descended into pure chaos that would compete with the energy of any small venue.
We caught Sleaze first. They threw the first brick at Strummerville as they started lobbing sponge slabs at their crowd, gaining a little jeer when they announced they’re from “bricks-ton”. As if picked up from The Windmill’s rough-around-the-edges punk scene and dropped right down here, the stage nestled in the woods suddenly transformed into the perfect place for their deliciously grotty rock songs. The clue is in the name with Sleaze: these are songs to shower after, and by the looks of it the band could do with doing the same. It was a set that left the impression that Glastonbury was still built for vibes like this rather than Coldplay’s unnecessary pyramid return.
By the time they finished, the secluded area was packed out. So much of Glastonbury is just feeling utterly baffled by the sheer amount of people that exist and are right here. So on Thursday night at 11pm, it felt like a whole population of bodies was squished in, desperate to see Fat Dog, one of music’s current buzzy names.
Fat Dog go flippin’ crazy
So much of that buzz is connected to their live set. Before their debut single ‘king of the slugs’ was out, word of mouth about their wild crowds and high-octane shows earned them slots at major festivals in 2023. A year on, with a few singles out now, you can still hear their name being whispered around the site all day leading up to this, their first set across a busy weekend. And instantly, the band gave their crowds something to keep whispering about.
To give a taste of the kind of carnage I’m talking about, within only a few songs, the band’s lead singer was told to tell his crowd to chill out a bit. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” he said after announcing that they might be shut down if we didn’t all calm down a bit after a couple of tracks of circle pits and flailing crowd-surfing limbs. It was probably less than a minute later that the singer said “I tried my best” as carnage took hold again.
The whole crowd moved as a chopping sea, jumping up and down and getting that already high step count even higher. Obviously, their singles went down well, with ‘King Of The Slug’ feeling certain to be some people’s highlight of the whole weekend, but their cover of Benny Benassi and The Biz’ ‘Satisfaction’ stood out as the finest moment, giving us all a good singalong in between the chaotic breakdowns as they turned the rave classic into a raging rock number.
A sunny and upbeat start to Glastonbury 2024
Three acts in one festival day doesn’t seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but at what other festival would you have a whole day of seeing nothing but exciting new talent, given a good stage to dominate as they still hold true emerging status. These are bands right in their very infancy, able to play one of the world’s most renowned festivals. The honour of that isn’t lost on them as everyone seems to step onto the stage, no matter how small and no matter how many people they’re greeted by, with a look of total joy.
The crowd and artists on Thursday radiate this mutual admiration. Everyone is brimming and ready for a big weekend, so there’s no better moment for new artists to be engaged—a whole festival’s worth of music fans are keen for things to begin. While soaking in the sights during the quieter day, Thursday is also the perfect day to soak in what is surely the sound of the future, with all three of these acts having the chops to graduate up and up to the big stages.
