Glastonbury 2019: Sunday with the Cure, Kylie and Miley Cyrus – as it happened

And that’s it from me, at the end of another Glastonbury that contained multitudes. I hope you heard something you loved over the last three days, and the rest of the year brings you more pleasures. And now the countdown to Fleetwood Mac next year (will they?) begins. Thanks for your company, even when you disagreed with me. There’ll be loads of Glastonbury in tomorrow’s G2, words and pictures, so give it a look. Goodnight!

Our own Alexis Petridis weighs in on the festival-closer by these goth-pop veterans.

It’s three years since Christine and the Queens made her Glastonbury debut on the Other stage, performing in a downpour hours after the Brexit bore came through and offering a radiant blast of European cosmopolitanism to a field of damp and downtrodden Brits. Since then she’s released her second album, Chris, a more challenging record than her self-titled debut and one that didn’t quite reach its predecessor’s commercial peak. But just as it took an appearance on this very stage to mint her star, so does her headline performance tonight galvanise the field: there’s the saucy funk of Girlfriend with its outrageous body rolls, the flowing bodily undulations of The Walker, and a refresh of Paradis Perdu that swaps its original sample of Kanye West’s Heartless for Luniz’s I Got 5 on It; her clear lineage to pop history, made manifest in a brief sample of Janet Jackson’s Nasty and a stunning a cappella rendition of Bowie’s Heroes.

I can’t lie – I’ve seen her do this show enough times that I could do the choreography, and I can’t dance. But every time, it yields something new: the dances are of course choreographed, as in any high concept pop show, but the emotion always feels immediate – the pain on her face during What’s Her Face, a song about being exiled by mainstream culture, the vulnerability she exudes when she removes her shirt, faces the back of the stage and flexes her back muscles in a balletic display of strength. She’s in tune with the festival’s spirit, too – she aptly labels it “Glastonfreaky”, says she’s been craving a return ever since 2016, and clubby closer Intranquilité is the perfect bridge for those heading to the South East corner for one last night of debauchery.

Sauntering on to the John Peel stage in an all-black tracksuit, Mike Skinner still exudes the excitable geezer vibe of his Original Pirate Material days – an everyman for the Carling-toting crowd. Launching into the UK garage-infused classics from that debut, Skinner sets the punishingly busy tent off into an immediate mosh pit, one that does not relent throughout their headline set.

Despite a supposed retirement in 2011, The Streets re-formed in 2018 and are on word-perfect form, Skinner’s now-gravelly voice shouting through numbers like his anti-mindfulness manifesto Geezers Need Excitement and Don’t Mug Yourself. The live band is a nice addition, embellishing sparse tracks like It’s Too Late and allowing Skinner the space to ad lib (mainly about said mosh pit) to the crowd and even have “the most chilled out crowdsurf” during sad-boy anthem Dry Your Eyes.

The momentum lags on the slower numbers though, especially the guitar-led balladry from 2011’s overly-introspective Computer and Blues. Instead, it’s the jumped-up energy of their breakout hit Fit But You Know It and dancefloor regular Has It Come To This which cements Skinner’s position as the pioneer of the lager-spraying school of UK hip-hop which has now spawned talents such as Slowthai. Skinner may be older and somewhat slower than his early-2000s heyday but it’s an aptly energetic close to the John Peel stage, providing enough enthusiasm for the punters to at least get through the gruelling journey home.

South London rapper Flohio may be one of the most hyped by – ahem – metropolitan media types, but that doesn’t always translate into popularity. Up against other rap and hip-hop in the east side of the site, like Tion Wayne doing megahit Keisha and Becky about 50 metres away, and the Streets headlining the John Peel stage not too far beyond that, she’s got competition, and when I turn up there are about 12 people watching. She still gives it her all, throwing her expert club flow into a series of trap tracks underpinned with headnodding dub energy. By the time her track Bands comes round, she’s grown her crowd to 100 or so – still small beer, but the kind of performance whose word of mouth will keep her star rising.

Dave is a gifted storyteller. His set on the Other Stage kicks off with flames and bombast, but some of the most spine-tingling moments are when he’s at his most stripped-back – whether performing his profound, politically charged single Black against a monochrome backdrop, or delivering an impromptu motivational speech and a capella verse detailing his journey from selling mixtapes at school, to making his number one album, Psychodrama. A calm and crisp performer, his poignant lyricism can easily command the stage. But the set crescendoes with a run of three warm, melodic summer singles, perfect for the final night of this sweltering Glastonbury: Location, No Words, and his biggest hit to date, Funky Friday, featuring Fredo.

Unexpectedly, the set also turns in one of the best surprise guests of Glastonbury. Before performing his AJ Tracey collaboration Thiago Silva, Dave calls up to the stage a member of the crowd named Alex, who is wearing a Thiago Silva shirt and a bucket hat. Alex gets mic’ed up by the crew, and – improbably, as these stunts almost always end in secondhand embarrassment – knows every single word to the song, and performs it like a champ. The crowd is roaring, and it’s one of the most feel-good moments of the festival so far, to see a superfan performing side by side with his favourite artist. Props to Alex, who is definitely absolutely buzzing right now.

The geeks will inherit the earth. A decade on from when many assumed their natural sell by date would be, Vampire Weekend are the last blog rock band standing. Second down on the Pyramid stage seems a unlikely space for a band whose brand of studied naffness bears no relation to much of the rest of this year’s line up – and yet here we are. The further they shift away from current trends – latest album Father of the Bride is their uncoolest yet – the more popular they become.

Of course, it helps that they’re a pretty formidable live band – precise and buzzing with energy. A-Punk and Cousins are irrepressibly busy bounce-alongs and the new tracks – Harmony Hall in particular – slot in seamlessly. Even their lamest indulgence – a duelling guitar solo – makes a strange amount of sense.

Much has rightly been said this festival of the new British jazz scene, but unquestionably the hottest star in jazz right now is Kamasi Washington. Two years ago, he played a mid-afternoon slot on West Holts, now he’s been elevated to second on the bill, and as the sun sets the LA saxophonist and his band provide a perfect scene – storming to a close with a Fists of Fury that is a funky as any blaxploitation cut, politically charged and as all-round magnificent as any big band could hope to sound in 2019. Roll on a headline slot next time round.

Glasto 2019 has been a vintage year for mid-2000s indie bands: The Killers, Vampire Weekend, Foals and Interpol have all played to the masses, and now it’s the turn of Friendly Fires, another band who have managed to transcend that era of indie student discos, hanging around Camden, and poring over NME. Their tropical pop-euphoria is just the kind of sundown set that’s needed after a weekend of having it in the dank South East Corner.

There are flavours of Chic by way of George Michael (there’s a lot of George Michael) with plenty of sexy sax and congas. New track Heaven Let Me In – from their just-announced album, Inflorescent – is another blissful homage to uplifting house, like the riff on Jamie Principle’s Your Love that made their name. And their old emo-Balearic hits like Jump in the Pool and Paris still sound suitably epic and as bright as their Hawaiian shirts.

Ed Macfarlane, meanwhile, is an underrated frontman – he’s got crystal-clear pipes and excellent trouser-snake moves, as during Jump in the Pool when he wiggles his hips to fanatical screams. It does make you wish more people threw shapes like that on stage and looked as if they were truly in the moment.

They end on Kiss of Life, another glorious reminder that Friendly Fires are the party band you almost forgot you needed in your life. But they’re back, and more brilliant than ever.

With the release of her third album, Grey Area, this year at the age of only 25, Little Simz has marked herself out as a prodigiously talented rapper and storyteller, specialising in verbally dexterous, introspective verses that take in everything from mental health to gender politics.

It is testament to the broad musical span of her releases – including the likes of trap-influenced bass to soulful melodies and dancefloor-focused rhythms – that her crowd at the Park stage is one of the most pleasingly diverse of the festival.

Backed by a full band and dressed in white, Simz’s set is polished and muscular, featuring most of the tracks from Grey Area. Highlights come on the gunshot verbal scatter of Venom, the sweetly melodic Selfish and early cut God Bless Mary, dedicated to Simz’s nextdoor neighbour who tolerated her loud, late-night early bedroom productions.

The show takes an incongruous turn when Simz takes up a bass to play along to her DJ’s selections of Erykah Badu’s Bag Lady and the Notorious BIG’s Juicy, dissipating the crowd’s energy. Yet, things soon pick up with the gospel-backed Flowers and here Simz demonstrates the wide-ranging talent of today’s British rap. It is a field that has space and, crucially, an audience for everything from Stefflon Don’s tongue-in-cheek sauciness to Slowthai’s hedonism and Simz’s pensive lyricism.

There’s an knowing wink in the Stella McCartney outfit that Billie Eilish wears to take to the Other stage, with the Beatles’ logo emblazoned on her back. Greeted by a crowd of fizzing, enraptured teenage girls, she wastes no time launching into one of her most snarling singles right out of the gate: Bad Guy is an incongruous goth-pop rager, which partway through flips into a chopped and screwed coda. The moment she embodies the transition, fixing the crowd with intense eye contact, is magnetic. And that’s just the first song.

Eilish was bumped up to the Other stage in recognition of the fact that the last two years have been explosive for her, going from the viral Soundcloud hit Ocean Eyes to her massive 2019 debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go. Her strange allure is the way she can flip seamlessly from maximal rage to quiet intimacy. She’s captivating when she lies motionless on the ground, singing the distorted and sleepy When I Was Older, just as she is when she’s leaping around and kicking the air to the drop in Bellyache. And, after a set full of gnarly moshing, it’s surreal to watch her play the song that started it all, Ocean Eyes – a gentle whisper of a ballad.

The mood is momentarily sad when she expresses a moment of jealousy of the crowd, saying: “This looks fun to go to – I would love to go to this shit, my God.” Still only 17, she’s coming of age under scrutiny, and will possibly never get to experience what it’s like to attend a festival like Glastonbury as anything other than a celebrity. But throughout the rest of the set, it’s heartwarming to see the obvious joy she takes performing with her brother, Finneas O’Connell (who writes and produces all of the music with her). She wields her mic like a rock icon, styles herself like an emo SoundCloud rapper, and sings like an angelic indie songwriter – but unmistakably, performs with the pull and charisma of a pop star.

Rapper Stefflon Don, whose song titles include Tight Nooki and Lil Bitch, is maybe not who you’d expect to be following the mum-friendly singer-songwriter Tom Walker, but such is the near-random nature of the programming on the John Peel stage. With the Walker fans far from the vicinity, Don starts her set to a criminally small crowd – one of the sparsest I’ve seen on a main stage all weekend. No matter though as she shells the front rows with venomous lines taken from her two mix tapes and last year’s debut EP, Hurtin’ Me.

The sub-rattling French Montana-featuring title track of that EP is a highlight of the set – Don’s most recognisable tune and one which she performs accompanied by a slick dance routine in front of the gargantuan mirrored lettering of her name. The only setback is that since so many of her tracks are guest verses on other artists’ releases – Shot and Wine with Sean Paul, Bum Bum Tam Tam with J Balvin and Future – her otherwise smooth flow lags as she waits for her bars to come along.

As she closes her set, though, the tent is three-quarters full, the bemused crowd hanging off her every word on the dick-pic-inspired Ding-a-Ling. Don can scatter through grime, wile out to dancehall and put on a dance routine to rival tonight’s Other stage headliners Christine and the Queens. She is one of British rap’s most captivating new talents.

As Glasto this year has shifted focus to the climate emergency, there has only been a whiff of political skewering from the performers in 2019. Stormzy wore a stab vest for his headline show; Joe Goddard shouted “Fuck Boris” at the end of Hot Chip’s set; there are a few other examples here and there; but it does feel a bit like the malaise has well and truly set in.

Damon Albarn senses this and uses his show with The Good, the Bad & the Queen to remind people not to lose faith. “Three years ago we came here and opened on the Friday with the Syrian National Orchestra. It was the Friday after the referendum, and we were really shocked. It became a mission to work out what’s going on here.”

“We didn’t engage with it enough,” he says. “So, simply: don’t give up politics. You might give up on politicians but don’t give up on democracy itself,” before launching into deranged vaudevillian dub tune The Truce of Twilight.

It was to be expected from a band – comprised of, among others, Paul Simonon of the Clash and the godfather of Afrobeat, Tony Allen – whose last album was on the theme of Brexit. The group marries Albarn’s two majors – Britishness and African music – with a rowdy Dickensian flair, Albarn as the Artful Dodger acting up to the crowd. It’s fun to see him being cocky, as if he has a new lease of life, and amusing to see how his bandmates blithely ignore his antics – falling down to the floor in mock shock being one.

But then he is serious again. “Interesting fact,” he says. “Do you know what they call England in Iran? Englishtan. Fill in the rest of the essay. Can’t have any of that terrible xenophobic attitude in England. This is been a great festival to dispel that,” and then he plays a “healing song for a healing festival”, the Dylanesque acoustic number Ribbons.

He’s right: it’s been the most diverse Glastonbury yet, and it’s all the better for it.

Thanks to everyone I spoke to for my tour of Glastonbury’s fashion – we’re ending on a high with Ian Kenton and his mankini.

“I got this from Amazon. There’s been a lot of selfies. I had to get a bumbag because I have no pockets. The festival is one of the times I work really hard – we do the sound and light. We were all meant to wear outfits like this – but no one else got the memo.”

The narrative around Miley Cyrus has always been about how she picks up one sound – hip-hop, pure pop, gnarly authenticity – and then “rejects” it as she moves on to the next thing. Her current styling is “hard rock karaoke at a gritty midwest bar”, and she has her fair share of grungy belters, but her latest EP also features a fairly self-explanatory rap track called Catitude that she performs while crawling across the Pyramid stage, and that you imagine was written expressly in the hope of scoring a Drag Race sync.

At this point in her mercurial, often controversial career, it’s pretty clear that these things reflect the many multitudes of Miley, who stomps around the Pyramid stage in wet-look leather and a tiny skin-tight vest, yet spouts new-age wisdom (“the Killers fucking rocked and it scared the fuck out of me, but I ask the universe every day, show me something that scares the fuck out of me”) and cries as she sings The Most, a song about her mum.

The glorious thing about Miley is that she doesn’t really make any sense, and her chaotic energy is the thing that binds it all together and keeps everyone goggling even when she makes moves that would traditionally result in shedding followers – the Pyramid field is packed, surprisingly. She covers Amy Winehouse and Dolly Parton, brings out her dad Billy Ray and rapper Lil Nas X for the latter’s Old Town Road, and wears a lilac wig to play On a Roll, the “hit” from the episode of Black Mirror where she plays ill-fated pop star Ashley O. Played half in its original synth-pop style, half as the Nine Inch Nails song it riffs on, it becomes a hard-rock battering ram yowled so mightily that she makes Steven Tyler sound like Aled Jones. As insane as it is brilliant.

Another day, another bewilderingly massive singer-songwriter at the John Peel stage, though Tom Walker’s syrupy sad-lad balladry couldn’t be further from the chirpy folk of Gerry Cinnamon. That said, the Glaswegian by way of Manchester balladeer is a sensible fit for Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury, a time when the prospect of a return to stultifying normality is casting a deep pall over punters. Most are here to wallow in the gloom of Leave the Light On (241m listens and counting on Spotify), a maudlin but sincerely felt ballad about a friend’s drug addiction. Walker is stronger when he sticks to this sort of lived experience – it’s when he aims for state-of-the-nation stuff that things go badly wrong. “This is my middle finger in the air to the news,” he says, introducing Dominoes, a muddled broadside against the mainstream media that feels like an unintended companion piece to David Brent’s Equality Street.

Miley Cyrus just played a cover of Jolene, by her godmother Dolly Parton, then rolled into Party In the USA, and then brought out her dad Billy Ray and Lil Nas X to do Old Town Road. Incredible scenes!

Laura Snapes has done us a five-star review of Kylie’s performance, concluding thus: “The showmanship, the incredible run of hits – it is absolutely phenomenal. So much so that the crowd keep bursting into chants of “Kylie! Kylie!” and bringing her to tears. Never mind the legends slot; next stop, headliner.”

Ashuvini Mahendraun: “I like catsuits – I have three with me for this trip. They’re really good for hot weather. I go to a lot of festivals - I went to Primavera earlier this year – but I don’t wear these kinds of things at other festivals. It’s more T-shirt and shorts. At Glastonbury everyone is a bit more out there.”

Fat White Family look like they’ve been at Glastonbury since at least last Tuesday when they take the stage at the Park, but then Fat White Family always look like that: sleazy but chic. Like all the best bands, they give the impression of being fellow reprobates well met, the last gang in town.

Easing themselves into their set like they’re easing themselves into a spandex trouser suit, they slowly pick up the pace and by the time they hit Feet, the crowd squinting through the late afternoon haze are firmly into their stride too. One of the singalong moments of the festival comes with the chorus of one of their big tunes, Touch the Leather. It might make more sense to see them in the small hours in Shangri-La, but anyone who has got lost en route to or from Kylie and ended up here by mistake will be taking away some kind of strange but important life lessons.

Eve Lazarus: “These leggings are from Puckoo Couture, a Bristol designer, and I got the earrings from a market stall. The rest of it is Pretty Little Thing, I got told at the last minute I had to wear green. I usually wear a lot more colour and when I am not wearing colour, I don’t feel like myself. Amy Winehouse said the same thing about her beehive.”

All weekend Hannah Jane Parkinson has been looking at how Glastonbury is addressing the climate emergency.

The angular-haired pop-metal posers have upped their game since they played Glastonbury’s Other stage three years ago. They are by now Britain’s biggest metal band, as well as the festival’s token heavy main stagers. Their show is arena-sized, with a catwalk along the back for them to grind their axes along and Janet Jackson-rivalling dancers, who mosh around the musicians, and a song in which they appear to duet with the film character The Crow, who looms on the visuals behind.

But though they have the heaviness to reign supreme in the metal world, they also have an appealing commercial edge, straying into EDM at points. As such they seem seem stuck between the two realms, perhaps condemned to the Other stage for life. Their show, with the bombast of Queen, is a spectacle at least. Maybe next year the Pyramid could be theirs.

Another special guest over on the Pyramid: Chris Martin has joined Kylie’s backing band, strumming away on an acoustic guitar for I Just Can’t Get You Out of My Head!

The Coldplay star appeared with Stormzy during the grime star’s Friday Pyramid headline set.

Ben Beaumont-Thomas just watched Jeff Goldblum charm the pants off the West Holts and had a fun time, even if the Jurassic Park star’s ivory-tinkering left something to be desired:

Goldblum himself plays the piano like a man driving an unfamiliar hire car away from an airport, peering at his sheet music and poking experimentally at chords. But he is game enough to admit his own frailties. “I’m known for the glissando,” he says wryly; he relies on cascading note runs, one-note solos and vamping chords rather than virtuosity. But his magnetism is its own instrument. As his band close out with the Jurassic Park theme, the crowd at the West Holts stage has swelled massively, everyone basking in a beam of starlight.

Flags. Glasto’s got a ton of them. Plenty are bad but some are worth your attention. Here are a few of our faves from this year:

As widely hoped, Nick Cave has joined Kylie for the pair’s sensual and dark duet, Where the Wild Roses Grow. The pair enjoy a light canoodle midway through. Phwoar!

Time for another of our artist Q&As. This time it’s multi-instrumentalist Georgia, who tells Kate Hutchinson about coming to Glastonbury aged seven (her dad was in Left Field!) and a close encounter at this year’s fest with a Love Islander:

NYC Downlow, Glastonbury’s venerable gay club, has been commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots at this year’s festival. Alex Needham spoke to its creators about what they had in store, including – rather wonderfully – a communal listen to Somewhere Over the Rainbow:

In previous years, grime and UK rap has often been confined to a particular corner of Glastonbury. This year, it’s joyful (and pretty tiring on the legs) to discover that there’s a huge variety of rap artists spread across the whole site. There’s scarcely a stage that hasn’t seen a moshpit this weekend – yesterday Slowthai was demanding his crowd create the biggest of the festival at West Holts, and today Octavian was insisting that his at John Peel had to be even bigger. But perhaps unlike other rappers on the bill, Octavian’s dreamlike music isn’t always the most obviously mosh-able.

Drenched in acid trip-emulating cartoon visuals and delivering elegiac auto-tuned vocals over skippy beats, Octavian’s mid-afternoon set had a “heartbroken in the rave” vibe. At one point, he announced that he broke up with his girlfriend last week, and got everyone in the crowd who’s going through a break-up to give a mournful cheer. His vocals shone on sad bangers from his most recent mixtape, Endorphins, but the true highlights of the set were his off-kilter breakthrough hit Party Here (including his lithe, wiry footwork) and the boisterous Skepta-featuring single Bet – a song so infectious that even the security staff were spotted skanking.

Freed from the shackles of indie also-rans Slow Club, Rebecca Taylor is now known as Self Esteem, and specialises in emotionally lacerating DIY pop. If in her previous life she was in the shadows, here she’s gloriously front and centre, rolling through tight choreography with her two backing singers while wearing a sequinned bra and an oversized lilac suit.

Steady I Stand, like most of the songs on debut Compliments Please, starts small before morphing into an anthemic chorus skyrocketed by Taylor’s swollen vocals. Girl Crush, meanwhile, is a 60s girl-group bop updated for 2019 complete with choreographed handclaps, while the urgent In Time (“I’m going to get drunk and slag you off then go home and eat my feelings”) morphs hip-hop’s booming beats into something endearingly lo-fi.

A sweaty set ends with The Best, a throbbing electro stomper revolving around the chorus: “I did the best that I could babe.” You did more than that, if anything.

Ocean Wisdom is a man of firsts: he’s the first rapper to dethrone Eminem as the fastest MC in the world and he’s possibly the first rapper to get his name from a 90s indie band. He tells a story about how his parents came to Glastonbury in 1992 and liked Ocean Colour Scene so much that they gave their son the same name.

Ocean’s sound throws the old-school back to the future. He raps like a cross between a junglist MC and Busta Rhymes, over beats that hark back to the golden era of UK hip-hop (think Roots Manuva), drum’n’bass and Boy Better Know-era grime instrumentals. But while the tunes are decent and he’s drawn a large crowd to Sonic stage, his rapid-fire delivery can come off, at times, as jibberish wibbling away over a party track. And while he brings on a hype man to help out, he lacks stage presence of some of his peers (he shouts out Stormzy) – his set comes off a little like People Just Do Nothing. It’s a promising debut at Glasto, but there’s work to do before he gets anywhere near the Pyramid stage.

Time for another of our occasional catch-ups with the stars performing at this year’s festival. George Ezra spoke to Jenny Stevens about how nice his tent is and why he’s not ready to headline Glasto just yet:

Environmental protests, blunts in the air, roots reggae chirruping over the park: its almost as if it’s 1970, except that Koffee is completely of her time. The young Jamaican star brings playful, combative rap energy and nifty electronic sheen to her debut Glastonbury performance, unspooling her wickedly tangled flow so vigorously that she appears to vibrate, a wiry thing in sleek black Nike. Her revolutionary spirit is also totally of her generation, not focusing on governments and politics but existential stresses: in Jamaica, she tells us, obstacles in life are known as pressure, the name of a song that has the same sense of lived-in stress as anything off Rihanna’s Anti. “We all have to make it, she insists in a laid-back acoustic number that she describes as “a cry for the youth”. She has songs for their triumphs, too: Blessings shimmers with joy, as does Koffee when the crowd sing every word back at her. Another career-making Glastonbury performance.

And here is our report of David Attenborough’s appearance on the Pyramid stage, with some more detail on Glastonbury’s plastic-free initiative:

Over on the West Holts stage Ben Beaumont-Thomas is watching Jeff Goldblum’s jazz set. He’s not even started yet and he’s already killing it, it seems:

Jeff Goldblum is just doing his soundcheck and he already has the crowd in the palm of his hand: he’s fielded questions on his zebra trousers, flirted outrageously with Kate the TV runner, and sung La Marseilleise. His mic gets cut off ahead of the performance – the crowd respond with boos, then chants of “we want Jeff!”, and then the Jurassic Park theme. Banter levels are already dangerously spiking.

Laura Snapes was at the Pyramid for David Attenborough’s rockstar appearance, and here are her first impressions:

There’s almost a Corbyn-sized crowd assembled for David Attenborough, but where the atmosphere for the Labour leader was one of punk community, the vibe today is more reverent – a moment of respect for the nature we’re losing thanks to human destruction, for sure, but also for Attenborough, this single-minded constant in everyone present’s lives, from the infants to the elderly. His speech is brief but powerful, highlighting humankind’s relative insignificance in comparison to its massive footprint, and the comparatively little effort – à la Glastonbury’s plastic-free initiative – it takes to make a difference.

In voiceover David Attenborough asks the assembled to “listen to the songs of the ocean depths”, followed by some rather soothing whale noises.

A huge roar greets his arrival to the stage. Shades of Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 here.

Opening with a snippet of portentous dialogue from Dame Judi Dench and a burst of glittery ticker tape feels like the perfect encapsulation of Years and Years’ highfalutin’ but banger-loaded synth-pop. This is also pop music with a message. The opening Sanctify, about frontman Olly Alexander’s toxic liaisons with straight men, is augmented by messages from trolls such as “Why does he have to be so gay?” and “Anybody cringe at the gayness?” flashing up on the screens. That the song’s central lyric is “I won’t be ashamed” says it all.

From there it’s a quick sprint through the undeniable Shine and recent album Paolo Alto’s highlight Karma, Alexander slinking around the stage in what looks like a tartan S&M two piece complete with LOVE choker. When the jacket comes off to leave a mesh vest and bare chest before gay sex anthem Meteorite, the crowd whoop in approval. “Ahh thanks,” Alexander laughs, his euphoria at being a pop star palpable.

Later he’ll suggest he wants to bathe everyone, before a lovely piano-led Eyes Shut causes an outbreak of swaying. Then he announces his loosely buttoned trousers are about to come off before a suitably sultry Desire. Just as the song is hitting its groove, a siren rings out, the beat disintegrates and dancers rush the stage as stats flash up on the screens. “Homosexuality is illegal in 72 countries” one reads, before the show ends with “Queer is beautiful” and Alexander snogs a male dancer to vast cheers. He then gives a very emotional speech, peppered with tears, about everyone working together to change the future for LGBTQ+ people.

If a good Glastonbury performance is about seizing your moment then this is that in excelsis.

Lots of people mentioning the Authentic Lebanese Mezze stall in the Park Area (which also happens to be next to the place I got my second breakfast, but I have moved since I promise). Haven’t spotted a lot of Middle Eastern stuff here, certainly not in comparison to Mexican and Indian, so I was looking forward to this. The best bit was definitely the spinach and feta fatayer pastry, which was unusually spinach-heavy, and the hummus and baba ganoush – but again, had to get out my trusty tin of salt as it all lacked for a bit of oomph. Doing a roaring trade though so clearly Glastonbury disagrees.

The Guardian’s Alex Needham had a quick chat with Smiths ledge Johnny Marr about this year’s Glasto heatwave, the festival’s political element and his memories of seeing Zep at Knebworth. Read the whole interview here:

The rumour that Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper would play a secret A Star Is Born set at Glastonbury may have been promptly scotched by Emily Eavis, but there’s another multi-hyphenate performing hits from her own musical drama in their absence. Irish actor Jessie Buckley starred last year in Wild Rose, a charming Brit drama about a Glasgow girl’s attempts to break into the Nashville country music scene. It was a premise bolstered by the fact that Buckley has the lovelorn voice of a Broadway veteran, as she proved here.

A barnstorming, belted-out cover of Randy Newman’s Guilty is the highlight, but there’s also a chiming cover of Emmylou Harris’s Born to Run too. “This is fucking insane – I can’t believe it,” she yelps at one point, a line it’s difficult to imagine Gaga ever delivering, but on this evidence Buckley is every bit at home here as the Hollywood heavyweights.

Situated in the Greenpeace field near a skate park and a 20ft rave tree lives BEAM, a site-specific wooden sculpture by Wolfgang Buttress that aims to highlight the plight of bees in the wake of the climate crisis. “BEAM is a conversation and symphony between the insect world and us,” Buttress explains, with the centre of the vast wooden structure a – wait for it – hive of soundscapes and flashing lights triggered by a live feed from Worthy Farm’s bee colony. “These live signals are sent to the sculpture via a dedicated internet link,” continues Buttress. “[The] algorithms will be used to convert these vibrational signals into lighting and sound effects, enabling the life of the black bee colony to be visually and aurally felt as a live experience. No two moments will ever be the same.”

If the sound of bees pushed through an ambient filter sounds a bit one-note, then the drones have also been augmented by musicians including Spiritualized, Kelly Owens, Camille Christel, Matt Black and Coldcut. As with most things in Glastonbury, its uses are multipurpose: some are using the central space to do yoga or just escape for a bit, while the giant wooden struts that surround it act as a makeshift maze to get lost in.

It’s also not going anywhere. “I’m delighted that Michael Eavis will keep BEAM as a living bee hotel on his farm so it can be reimagined for Glastonbury,” Buttress says. As the Beat Hotel retires, the bee hotel buzzes to life.

Lauren Cochrane has been out and about snapping the most stylish looks in the field.

Alice Fry, 28, social media executive

“Cycling shorts – it’s just the look everyone is going for, isn’t it? I guess it’s born from Kylie Jenner and those people. I showed this to my friend who is really fashion-forward and she loved it. It’s Glastonbury so anything goes. Stormzy was a highlight – I think there’s a lot of truth in what he says.”

Heather Doughy, 26, PR

“Our group has a different outfit theme every day – this time it’s sexy sweetcorn, a really niche reference from an obscure musical. We also have a Billie Eilish lyric and Disco Needs You for Kylie on Sunday. This is the third time I have been. It’s special because everyone is super-kind. We’re a big LGBT group and everyone feels safe here.”

Laura Rietdyk-Johnson, 26, works in social media

“I am volunteering for Oxfam – usually I have a faceful of glitter. Glastonbury really inspires me to be who I want to be. I have a different look for each day – on Saturday, I was in all green. I plan what I am going to wear for months.”

From the spiritual awakening of Langa Methodist Church Choir to a social awakening. Anyone can spout empty bromides about peace and love from a stage, but 79-year-old Mavis Staples gives hers real meaning and power in this absolutely magnificent Pyramid stage set. Delivered in a throaty holler, her songs about love and social justice are full of simple, digestible, but poetic truths: “What good is freedom if we haven’t learned to be free?” she asks early on. These open-hearted questions harden and galvanise on Who Told You That: “We don’t wanna rock the boat – who told you that?” she asks, brilliantly sly and lupine.

Via classic 12-bar electric blues and a cover of activist anthem For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield, she warms her heart back up, imploring the crowd in a glorious, ferocious yell to “touch somebody!” English reserve melts as strangers gingerly reach out to each other. She ends by castigating “that – I don’t know what to call it – that one in the White House”, pleading for gun reform and an end to the imprisonment of migrant children at the US border. “I might just run for president!” she decides. She has 10,000 or votes secured here already.

Writer and activist Reni Eddo-Lodge made very clear at the beginning of Left Field’s banner debate this afternoon that the panelists would not be discussing “why racism is bad”. The speakers – Matthew Collins from Hope Not Hate, Faiza Shaheen from the think tank Class, Sheffield’s enigmatic Lord Mayor, Majid, and Amos Schonfeld, founder of youth movement Our Second Home – have done enough of that in the past. Instead, this discussion was geared towards action and solutions, exploring what resistance means in an age when far-right ideology is becoming ever more mainstream.

On banning or no-platforming as a tactic for fighting back, Majid spoke on his headline-grabbing move to ban Donald Trump from the city of Sheffield during a state visit: “Yes, America are our friends, but when my friend’s being a prick I say, ‘Mate, get your shit together.’” Others spoke on the importance of compassion and celebrating difference. Shaheen, who is standing against Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford in the next general election, partly as a protest against his “incredibly cruel” welfare reforms, said that she had found herself redressing her assumptions about people when doorstepping Ukip voters, and finding them open to changing their minds. “Just in having that conversation, and being humanised … You’d be surprised by how far you can engage with some people.”

The most important point iterated by each panelist, though, was a need to challenge hateful rhetoric wherever and whenever we see it, even if that means responding to “endless abuse, diet tips and death threats” on Twitter, as it does for activist Matt Collins. “We have to stand up for what we believe.” For Majid, just being visible and consistently true to his core beliefs is a way of fighting hate. When his appointment as mayor instigated abuse, he says: “I suddenly realised my mere existence was a form of resistance.” Despite facing racist hate mail, he refused to tone down his politics. “I’m a black Muslim refugee immigrant – how can I not be political? If you’re trying to be anyone’s cup of tea, you might as well be a mug.”

If Glastonbury needed a wake up call on its last day then Finland’s Alma is here to deliver it: her brand of brash agit-pop, delivered in a throat-lacerating roar, could resuscitate the dead. “Dance, fucking dance,” she sings within the first two minutes, prowling the stage like an off duty Cyberdog employee – all lime green hair, matching silk shirt and skull jewellery.

“You’re crazy for being awake this early,” she says correctly, before she performs the pulsating Cowboy and a giant picture of her with two middle fingers raised flashes up on the screen. At times the angst feels a little forced – the appropriately named Good Vibes is too buoyant to be delivered angrily – but the congregation of young girls in the front row can’t get enough.

It’s also perfect pop for a genre-agnostic new generation with the self-aggrandising Legend fusing hip-hop and big crunchy rock guitars, while EDM drops are sprinkled throughout MØ collaboration Dance Wiv Me. If occasionally on record it can veer a little too close to generic radio fodder – and there’s still a sense that she’s scrambling for a hit – in a live scenario it’s emboldened by Alma’s untiring stage presence.

Cas, 54, and Sue, 60

Sue: “This is a once in a lifetime experience – I’ve wanted to come forever and luckily a mate got tickets at the last minute. I’m celebrating my 60th birthday this year and I can’t think of anything better than being at the front for Kylie. It’s sad that she had to cancel her last performance here because she was ill so it’ll be emotional having her back – I can’t wait to dance along with her.”

Gemma, 34

“Kylie’s been my idol since I was really young – I used to dress like her when we had mufti days at school! This is my first Glastonbury and I just can’t believe my luck that she’s playing – I want to get as close as possible. I love everything about her.”

Joanne, 35

“Kylie just doesn’t do bad tunes, does she? She’s a true legend and I want to be front and centre when she’s on. There’s something so special about being at the front of the Pyramid Stage – last time I saw the Jacksons and shed a tear, so I’m sure Kylie will be just as special.”

Michelle, 53, Shona, 44

Michelle: “We’ve come all the way from Australia for Glastonbury and it’s amazing that Kylie’s playing. I’ve seen her three times and each time she’s totally smashed it. I once did a Kylie flash mob at the Royal Opera House in Sydney. How amazing that she’s come back to perform after she cancelled because she was ill before – she’s going to get all the love she needs from us and this crowd.”

Luke, 25

“I just don’t want to go home – everyone’s feeling the blues today so I’m really excited to dance to Kylie, it’ll be a massive pick-me-up. She’s got such a great back catalogue of fun bangers – her performance is going to keep me going through the next week when I’m back home and just want to be back here.”

Anyone stumbling back to their tent after an all-nighter at the stone circle must have thought they were experiencing a divine intervention: the sound of beautiful choral music spilling across the Pyramid stage field. It’s emanating from Langa Methodist Church Choir, a Cape Town choir that the Eavises met during a charity trip and subsequently invited to play this year’s festival – a serious logistical undertaking involving dozens of artist visas and the kind of effort that very few other festivals would make.

Their songs, which ask God to see them and not leave them stranded – sentiments that will no doubt chime with plenty of hungover festivalgoers – swell and rise to the back of the field. Dressed in black robes with beautiful detailing like green lipstick and beaded headpieces, they’re accompanied by a single hand drum, which gives these devotionals heft and swaying rhythm. This hit of absolute beauty spiritually realigns the entire site – leaving it ready to be undone again for one last time tonight.

“Had a mooch round the Healing Fields and then decided the most healing thing I could do for myself was to get a vegan masala chai and raw brownie from the cafe at the entrance to the tipi fields and go and lie in a hammock for a bit. Correct decision: the brownie was good, especially for something with no butter in it – very fudgy and fruity with a decent sprinkling of nuts – and the chai nicely spiced and not too sweet. They look like they take their coffee pretty seriously too.”

One from last night:

Earlier on Saturday, Liam Gallagher referred to his set as part of his “ongoing Glastonbury residency”. Headlining the Other stage, the Chemical Brothers could easily make a similar claim. For anyone who grew up watching Glastonbury on TV, the sound of Hey Boy, Hey Girl throbbing across montages of Worthy Farm is a familiar one. So there’s a built-in nostalgia to their set, amplified by the dusky sky, the constant smoky pop of flares being lit and a high density of Glastonbury’s iconic flags – but not to the degree that the crowd are twiddling their thumbs waiting for the hits.

The material from new album No Geography is just as joyfully chaotic as the stuff from their heyday – chemical explosions of bright synths girded by twisted robot yowls. They pull off bold, breathless transitions, from ravey sirens that bark like an orchestra of seals into sharply overdriven, twinkly brightness, the effect akin to being dropped off a cliff. Saturate, from 2007’s We Are the Night, is luscious and overwhelming, a powerful jazz drumbeat thrashing amid its hopeful ascending synths. With Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons ensconced in a flight deck’s worth of synths, the visuals transmit the playfulness at the heart of their music – a new song, Got to Keep On, has the best of the lot, a kind of silky pink Michelin man made of petals swaggering along a treadmill.

Nothing, obviously, is as visceral as their admirably spare deployment of the hits: they tease Hey Boy, Hey Girl with a flirty intro, then trigger that roiling beat and helter-skelter cry – “Here we go!”; Galvanise still sounds regally intimidating. It’s easy to overlook the Chems as their hipper, more avant-garde successors take over – as they should – but in their spiritual home, they prove why they’ll always be Britain’s beloved rave dads.

Tara Asher

Tara Asher went viral this weekend for her BSL interpretation of Stormzy’s headline slot. Speaking to the Guardian before the set, she explained how being a lifelong grime fan prepared her for the show:

“Sign language is my first language – I’ve got family members who are deaf. But I never even considered going into [interpreting music] until going to a couple of festivals with my deaf friends, and then I saw the need for it. There’s not many interpreters who interpret music and do festivals, there’s a shortage nationally. Not all deaf people are into music, there are some who are and some who aren’t, the same way that not every single hearing person wants to go to a music festival. I know that a couple of Stormzy’s biggest deaf fans are here, so it’s really nice to know that they’re going to get a wonderful experience.

“I’ve listened to grime music since the Risky Roadz days, since the very beginning, so it’s easier for me, because I understand the context, the slang, all that stuff. Yes, grime is often faster, but sometimes you may get a rock song that’s very difficult to convey in sign language. But each to their own. I like to stick with grime.”

Benjamin Gorman

DeafZone volunteer Benajmin Gorman is the first deaf BSL interpreter to work at Glastonbury. On Friday, he interpreted Bastille’s Pyramid stage set for a deaf audience. He told the Guardian:

“Glastonbury is a fantastic music festival, but it’s not just about the music; it’s about the atmosphere, it’s about the camaraderie, and also the lovely food we’re surrounded by, and the bit too much sun we’re experiencing. Festivals aren’t always just about the music, it’s about the overall experience of being part and parcel of the festival, and [interpreting is] about a deaf person being able to take part in that. There are various levels of hearing a person might have. Some deaf people have some residual hearing and can hear quite well; some have no residual hearing but they can experience music through vibrations. Also, the atmosphere really makes you connect with the acts and the artists. So a festival is an experience in itself.

“The important thing is access. For deaf people, they deserve to have the same experience as anybody else who pays for a ticket to go to a festival. For myself, I think we need to show that deaf people are capable of [interpreting] as well.”

Good morning from the blessedly cool Guardian cabin where constitutions are slightly fragile but morale remains high. On a scale of “Stone circle dweller” to “Brandon Flowers on the main stage”, our appearances may hew closer to the former, but we’re doing our best to bring some of the Killers’ Vegas razzle-dazzle to today’s liveblog. Before that kicks off in earnest, let’s revisit their five-star performance – with its guest spots from Pet Shop Boys and Johnny Marr – which Alexis Petridis declared a bona fide Glastonbury Moment.