Glastonbury 2013: Mumford & Sons, the xx and Bobby Womack – live blog

And that's my lot, Mumfords have finished with an all-star With a Little Help From My Friends, featuring First Aid Kit, the Vaccines, Vampire Weekend and Big Black*. We'll have reviews of Tyler the Creator from Adam Boult and Bobby Womack from Chris Michael before very long on the main website. Caspar's just called from on site HQ to add his thanks for staying with us through the festival, although he's not the best person to know if you have been doing so, because he's in a field in Somerset and out, you know, seeing stuff. Thanks from me, too (and I want to apologise to the poster and anyone else who was offended -I think - by what I said about Bobby Womack and the autocue. I was just trying to descibe it vividly. Maybe too vividly). It's been a fun three nights, and I've enjoyed your company. As well as tonight's remaining stories, expect more Glastonbury tomorrow, rounding up the weekend.

Right, now I'm going to watch the football, and actually get drunk.

* One of these may be incorrect.

The heroic Mark Beaumont has returned to the Guardian's Glastonbury HQ in a portable cabin that does not bear a brand name (seriously, in journalism, the sentence that would get you the most legal complaints would be: "He Sellotaped a sign to the Portakabin door asking the cleaner to Hoover the floor."). When asked for three words to describe Mumford & Sons he announced: "Too long, too boring". Also, though, that they "went down well." And Caspar is back after suffering what might be the hardship of the xx – who, of course, were not playing party hits. He says "I am cold." Here's his view of the action moments ago …

In the 11.30 post, I meant Springsteen obviously. On to another beer. I'm cutting loose, people. It could get sketchy.

Nothing can stop Caspar taking photos. He got this one off despite being caught up in a full-scale recreation of the cablecar scene from Where Eagles Dare, in which a giraffe took the role of Peter Barkworth …

The Backstreets.com messageboard thread about tonight's show is bonkers (you have to be a member to see it). People are raging about the European setlists. His series of shows in huge football stadiums for huge crowds have not been designed for hardcore rarity spotters sitting at home.

By the way, if you're puzzled by the lack of discussion about the prospects for democratic change in the Middle East, I think you want the Egypt Protests liveblog.

OK. I've just realised Bobby W has Alzheimers. Forgive me lack of research before discussing that topic.

Anyway, I'm going Pic'n'Mix. I know BW is better but I've gone back to Mumfords. I agree with you all about everything they do sounding so samey. And there not being many huge melodies. So why do so many – and it is millions of people – love them? Lots of people love them, they don't just casually buy the records. And please don't say it's because they're all stupid. Mumfords touch something powerfully in these people: you're not there for the sex or the glamour or the spectacular stage show. What is that thing? I don't feel it either, even if I don't imagine myself ever loving them? Or is the problem our own cynicism? I was madly cynical about Springsteen until less than 10 years ago – I left an hour early because I hated everything about the gig the first time I saw him – but I made a leap of faith. I deliberately cast aside all the restraints that my stupid self-conditioning as a "music person" had put in me – the stupid dogmatism about what was "right" or "wrong" that fit in my with my self-image. I jumped: that's what it was. I don't think Marcus Mumford is a Springsteen, but there has to be something there. I don't believe they'd be this popular if there wasn't.

Caspar wants me to tweet a photo of Jeff's kitchen. Jeff, as I keep saying, is a QC, and what he doesn't know about taking the Guardian to the cleaners for an invasion of his privacy would fit into an 150-word album review.

I take Frances' point about Bobby W down thread: he's been very ill and he's very old. I've sometimes felt that when I've seen Brian Wilson, no matter how much I want to see him again and again. But Bobby W is physically rather than mentally infirm. He made this decision himself, knowing he's getting amazing exposure, to a loving live crowd. And it's great stuff, no matter that he's no athlete this. And now he's on his feet. What did they give him backstage? I want some.

Now over to BBC4 for Bobby Womack. Perfectly timed for the exact moment in the set we heard but didn't see. Are our lives caught in a loop form which we can't escape? Is this Groundhogbury?

But now I see that Bobby isn't so much referring to his autocue as staring at it with the intensity of someone with five numbers in a rollover week waiting to see if he's got the number of the sixth ball, too. (By the way, if anyone can explain what the Thunderball lottery actually does, format wise, please say. I watch Match of the Day with Jeff quite often – we've known each other 20 odd years and live 5 mins' walk apart – and we always wonder what it is when we see the end of the draw before the football begins.)

Oh, turns out Bobby didn't give Damon the Heimlich.

Friday's readers might recall me gushing over the Arctic Monkeys' lighting design. The xx's is terrific too: white lights low at the side are always a winner. I saw Glasvegas do it before their first album: a brilliant low sophistication, high impact presentation that made them a lot more exciting a live experience than the songs perhaps merited. And I was bowled over when I first saw it used, by REM in 1985.

I was just thinking the xx should do Agadoo just for shits and giggles, and when those steel pans began, for a second I thought some crazy thought transference had occurred …

Springsteen finished 20 minutes ago …

01 - Shackled and Drawn
02 - Badlands
03 - Prove It All Night (solo by Nils, no intro)
04 - Johnny 99 (Sign Request)
05 - Reason to Believe (Sign Request)
06 - Atlantic City
07 - Wrecking Ball
08 - Death to My Hometown

Born in the USA
09 - Born in the U.S.A.
10 - Cover Me
11 - Darlington County
12 - Working on the Highway
13 - Downbound Train
14 - I'm on Fire
15 - No Surrender
16 - Bobby Jean
17 - I'm Goin' Down
18 - Glory Days
19 - Dancing in the Dark
20 - My Hometown

21 - Waitin' On a Sunny Day
22 - Lonesome Day
23 - The Rising
24 - Light of Day

Encore:
25 - Jungleland
26 - Born to Run
27 - 10th Avenue Freeze-Out
28 - American Land

29 - My Lucky Day (Acoustic)

The whistling means I know I really don't mind Mumford & Sons. But I told you that at the beginning. So I've gone to BBC3 for the xx.

I just realised I was whistling along. IT'S THE BEER WHISTLING! HONESTLY!

This beer is Marshmellow real ale. Very easy on the palate (very suitable for Mumfords, too, probably. Next post will probably be to say I bloody love Mumford & Sons). Would have been good with the slow roasted brisket with a Texas dry rub that I had earlier, With homemade barbecue beans (black eyed and kidney, simmered in the fat from the brisket, then with some tomato puree and a teaspoon of barbecue sauce added).

And Marquee Bowie Monty passes 100,000 words for the weekend with his Nick Cave review.

 An international cricketer writes …

Jeff, who is 49 years old and a QC, has just said to me: "Do they call it the Pyramid stage because it's shaped like a pyramid." That's British justice safe in his hands.

On to third pint. Expect incoherence soon. Look, I'm not a fan, but I bet I would be incredibly moved if I were in that Mumfords crowd. This is uplifting stuff – you might say manipulative, too keen to deliver an emotional hit without you putting in the work, but is that necessarily a bad thing? No one ever said to Little Richard: "Listen, Richard, Keep a Knockin's great stuff, but isn't a bit cheap to make it so exciting from the beginning?"

Caspar's been taking pictures. Lord knows I've told him not to enough times.

Ed Simons from the Chemical Brothers has made up a special song, just like Mick Jagger did …

Hey, I take back anything I've ever said about Billy Corgan, having discovered the identity of the chap who joined them on stage. It's not that I love the early Scorpions records particularly, or love the man's solo work, but I really admire big-name musicians who promote their obscure heroes …

Spacedone

30 June 2013 10:04pm

Uli Jon Roth.

I watched the whole set online. They started off a bit hesitantly but once they were warmed up it was great to see the Glastonbury crowd bouncing like it was 1993 again.

It's Mumford & Sons time. I might leave the commentary to you good folks below the line. But that would be cruel.

You know Wayne Rooney's entire food/drink supply at Glastonbury was just Pot Noodles and vodka? Do you think he used the vodka instead of water to make the Pot Noodles? Like the Aussie blokes next to us at Lord's a few years back, who when they had finished the beers in their ice box, started scooping up the icy melted water and drinking it. "It's not water," they told us, "it's the best way to smuggle in a couple of litres of vodka for when the beer's done."

Springsteen setlist update …

01 - Shackled and Drawn
02 - Badlands
03 - Prove It All Night
04 - Johnny 99 (Sign Request)
05 - Reason to Believe (Sign Request)
06 - Atlantic City
07 - Wrecking Ball
08 - Death to My Howetown

Born in the USA
09 - Born in the U.S.A.
10 - Cover Me
11 - Darlington County
12 - Working on the Highway
13 - Downbound Train
14 - I'm on Fire
15 - No Surrender
16 - Bobby Jean
17 - I'm Goin' Down
18 - Glory Days
19 - Dancing in the Dark
20 - My Hometown

21 - Waitin' On a Sunny Day
22 - Lonesome Day
23 - The Rising
24 - Light of Day

Encore:
25 - Jungleland
26 - Born to Run

Bobby's just asked "Do you want to be lifted?" I have no picture, so I presume he's just offered Damon the Heimlich manouevre.

Plugged the iPad into an amp. We now have great sound, but no picture again …

Got the Bobby livestream on an iPad now. He's got Damon Albarn on with him now. And lecturing him. Affectionately.

DISPATCH FROM THE FIELD!

The Field is what we call Caspar …

Streams of people headed towards the Pyramid for Mumfords - as I've legged it to West Holts to catch some Bobby Womack. He dedicates the show to Damon Albarn, with whom he wrote his comeback album. Damon, no stranger to these parts, is playing with now as well, but we can't chalk this up as a Glasto Surprise as it was always planned this way. Bobby's voice: VOICE OF THE WEEKEND. And a proper review from Chris Michael follows later as well as the lowdown on the xx, Mumfords, possibly more.

There's a famous story about Kelvin McKenzie when he was editor of the Sun, getting a letter of complaint from a reader. He get the reader's phone number, called him up and told him he was banned from reading the Sun. Eamonn81, you are banned from reading the Guardian.

eamonn81

30 June 2013 9:38pm

Nick Cave and Billy Corgan are Gods regardless of how they get along.

And anyone who likes Bruce Springsteen hates music. Dire dirges, without exception.

We'll be bringing you Marquee Bowie Monty's review of Captain Caveman's storming Pyramid stage set very soon. Like I say, the man's a machine.

Now I know why I don't like The One Show on Radio 4.

With David Cameron currently in Kazakhstan, and known to be keen to keep in touch with The Latest Developments in Kazakhstan, we wondered if he'd sorted out a stream to keep in touch. Then we wondered if Kazakhstan had its own equivalent of Glastonbury for him to attend. A search for "Glastonbury of Kazakhstan" brought no joy, but it did uncover a link between the two places. That is: Liam Neeson is reportedly to star in a movie called Glastonbury: Isle of Light, to be filmed in Kazakhstan. It may be about something mystical and biblical and that. Or it could be about Skunk Anansie's headline set way back when, and one man's struggle to escape and hear something half-decent.

My Cat Power stream is fine, but I don't really want to watch her, to be honest. Is that so very wrong?

Tim talked to Bobby Womack last week. You can read what the great man had to say here. And you can read what Bobby said, too. (I'm here all week, try the lamb etc)

OK, Bobby Womack's now live on the West Holts stage, but my stream is doing the Friday night thing of looking like a Doctor Who special effect from the Jon Pertwee years, so I'm sticking with Deap Vally for now.

Top Rock Writer John Aizlewood is at Springsteen …

Springsteen setlist update …

01 - Shackled and Drawn
02 - Badlands
03 - Prove It All Night
04 - Johnny 99 (Sign Request)
05 - Reason to Believe (Sign Request)
06 - Atlantic City
07 - Wrecking Ball
08 - Death to My Howetown

Born in the USA
09 - Born in the U.S.A.
10 - Cover Me
11 - Darlington County
12 - Working on the Highway
13 - Downbound Train
14 - I'm on Fire
15 - No Surrender
16 - Bobby Jean
17 - I'm Goin' Down
18 - Glory Days
19 - Dancing in the Dark
20 - My Hometown

21 - Waitin' On a Sunny Day
22 - Lonesome Day
23 - The Rising

Enough Pumpkins – seriously, no one wants to buy my 12in? And while I'm hawking my old music, any takers for an original, genuine copy of Panda Bear's first solo album on Soccer Star (bought on a whim in NYC), once described in The Wire as "so rare it's only rumoured to exist" – and I've put Deap Vally on BBC3. A group who are good, but not as good as I want them to be.

Got Chic on mute on at the moment. It's the end of Friday's set, with fans on stage, and I've just noticed some arse recording it on his iPad. You were dancing on stage with Nile Rodgers, and you couldn't live in the moment? Really, that is awfully sad.

Caspar Llewellyn Smith can heal you! I've chosen a different method – my first beer, a bottle of Pride of Oxford, half litre, 5% abv.

Now, sometimes you get a piece of magic falling into your lap. Like when you Google "Billy Corgan awful interview" and come across something to link Nick Cave with the increasingly chunky Don of Self-Importance. Yes! It's Billy Corgan interviewing Nick Cave a few years back. Nick isn't very happy about being there …

I've put Smashing Pumpkins on. Jeff is now wondering why the hell he's got me here for the next three hours. Not my cup of tea, but if anyone wants to make me a huge offer for my original Sub Pop 12" of Tristessa/La Dolly Vita, I'm listening …

Top comic Robin Ince agrees with the rest of us about Captain Caveman …

Someone else has been doing the science …

Philltop

30 June 2013 9:04pm

8:25

I don't care much for Mumford and Sons because, in my opinion, their music is fairly dismal.

They don't actually appear to be any posher then the Jagger or Clapton, who managed to get away with singing blues songs, despite coming from the deep south east.

ps "mumford and sons" c'nts = 8million. So more people think they're c'nts than think they're terrible. Maybe. We need a venn diagram.

Hello! I'm back! Now I'm at Jeff's house. If I started slipping you legal gossip, it's because I'll be drunk and he's a QC.

OK, folks, I'm taking a 10-minute break now Captain Caveman and the Bad Seeds have finished and I am walking round to my friend's house to carry on with a beer in my hand and a song in my heart. If I were Iggy Pop I'd have a cock in my pocket, too, but we all know I'm not.

He never stops! Marquee Bowie Monty is the man they call The Word Machine! He's a one man Proust of Pop, a Roth of Rock, and now he's reviewed Vampire Weekend!

Michael Eavis on Prince Harry! Now there's an erotic movie I'd like to see!

Someone's questioning my assumptions!

OttoMaddox

30 June 2013 8:35pm

Loads of people love them, loads of people don't care very much, and a very much smaller number of people despise them.

Wrong. How many people bought their last album? Maybe 1% of the population. That's not 'loads' by any measure I ever heard of. I can guarantee a larger number than that hate their bland wankiness.

How very dare you, OttoMaddox, for I have SCIENCE ON MY SIDE!

Google search: "mumford & sons" terrible – About 6,640,000 results (0.13 seconds)

Google search: "mumford & sons" brilliant – About 11,600,000 results (0.28 seconds)

I've checked my methodology with Professor Brian Cox of D:Ream and Professor Green, and both say it's sound.

Top Music Writer Steve Yates tweets me to say that Bobby Womack will be on BBC4 at 10.30pm. And a quick check on Springsteen reveals he's doing Born in the USA in its entirety.

01 - Shackled and Drawn
02 - Badlands
03 - Prove It All Night (solo by Nils, no intro)
04 - Johnny 99 (Sign Request)
05 - Reason to Believe (Sign Request)
06 - Atlantic City
07 - Wrecking Ball
08 - Death to My Howetown

Born in the USA
09 - Born in the U.S.A.
10 - Cover Me
11 - Darlington County
12 - Working on the Highway
13 - Downbound Train
14 - I'm on Fire
15 - No Surrender
16 - Bobby Jean
17 - I'm Goin' Down
18 - Glory Days
19 - Dancing in the Dark
20 - My Hometown

And on the Backstreets messageboard, the fans – WHO AREN'T EVEN THERE – are outraged, because he did it last night, in another country, at a show they weren't at either. Incredible. They are predicting a massive backlash. I am predicting there will not in fact be a massive backlash, and that these fans have to get some perspective.

Cavey's currently nearing the end of Stagger Lee. A song about a murderer following a song about a murderer. Do you think he's sending Michael Eavis a message about which of today's Pyramid Stage performers actually deals in art?

He's only just finished writing about Chase & Status Quo, but already Mark Beaumont – he'd like to be nicknamed Bowie, but everyone calls him Monty, except Marcus Mumford, who calls him Marquee – has written something else. It's about Australian people. Australians in Europe? I'm pretty sure I know a song about that subject. And THIS is the best version of it …

Apparently someone on 6Music has just described Cavey as "Mumford & Sons' warmup act." Christ on a bike, don't let him hear you say that.

Back to Mumfords … if you're going to have a pop at them, at least do it this brilliantly.

This is a BRILLIANT set by the way, and if you're not watching, you're bonkers.

Cavey's on to The Mercy Seat. Nothing like a song about the electric chair for some good time vibes. Party on, executioner dude!

OK, let's talk about Mumford & Sons for a moment. First, it's good that Ted Dwane has made a full recovery from his recent brain surgery and is able to play tonight. Whatever you think of the music, don't wish ill on the people. It's music press received wisdom that they are a divisive band. But that's rubbish really, isn't it? Loads of people love them, loads of people don't care very much, and a very much smaller number of people despise them. The music press has always resented supposedly "alternative" bands who make it without their permission, and I suspect that's caused some of the resentment. But the party line is that they are, in Jon Savage's words, "Tory-rock lite" – that they are inherently conservative, by virtue of their horny-handed-sons-of-toil garb, which they have not earned (not like the way David Bowie served his time on Mars before becoming Ziggy Stardust), by virtue of harking back to a rose-tinted agrarian past, which in actual fact was pretty bloody if your job was to work the land rather than own it. I can see the truth in that, and I wonder if they are popular for the same reason Downton Abbey is popular – and I think there might be a progressive reason buried somewhere beneath that. We're in an age where gilded leaders display every sign of not actually caring about those less fortunate – for God's sake, stopping people signing on for a week after getting laid off, the same week the Queen get's a 5% rise in her handout. What Downton portrays is a fantasy world in which the gilded rulers actually care about everyone else. The government we'd like to have, if we're going to have to have the super-rich and super-posh governing us. Mumfords are the same impulse: posh people can care. Marcus Mumford is the idealised David Cameron. Or something.

Picture alert!

It's a gallery of Sunday at Glastonbury! I've not looked, but my guess will be lots of people in funny clothes.

Cavey's on to Tupelo now. Do you think his bandmates call him Cavey? And do you think he then does the Captain Caveman roar?

I was watching a bit of Chase & Status earlier. I didn't like it much and switched over, so it's a good job I've got Mark Beaumont's review to let me know what I missed. A few years back, Chase & Status were one of the headliners at the much-missed Guilfest, the event whose bill was seemingly put together by the promoter gathering one music magazine from each of the past 40 years and then booking whichever band appeared on page 11. I so wish they'd jammed with the other headliners that night, and we could have had Chase & Status Quo.

This is Reason to Believe for those, like me, who wish they were somewhere else this evening …

Meanwhile, over at the Olympic Park, it looks like the lucky sods are getting a ripping set.

01 - Shackled and Drawn
02 - Badlands
03 - Prove It All Night
04 - Johnny 99 (Sign Request)
05 - Reason to Believe (Sign Request)
06 - Atlantic City
07 - Wrecking Ball
08 - Death to My Hometown

Three in a row from Nebraska! I love Reason to Believe so much.

Deanna now! Blimey, it's Proustian rush night. Now I'm in Leeds in 1989/90, at a basement club called Wig Out! It was 99p to get in. You'd give the guy on the door a quid and get a penny chew back. Amid the shambling and the psychedelia, this one was a regular on the turntables. I wonder if Cheery Nick played his new album at length earlier in the set? I hope for the crowd's sake he didn't, because this is a proper fan-pleaser of a show from what I've seen. Great stuff

If you don't know the song, this is what it sounds like …

Every time I hear it I am transported back to my suburban box bedroom, headphones on, listening to Peel in the darkness. It sounded so unearthly, so uncanny – like nothing I had ever heard before. I miss those days, being 13 or 14 and hearing everything for the first time. Especially music like this that you could not hear anywhere else.

Go to the live stream, quick! Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are in the middle of From Her to Eternity, the least likely early evening festival anthem ever and it's BRILLIANT!

Bobby Womack's playing tonight, but my TV listings don't suggest he's one of the main acts on BBC. But here's a video of him on the BBC, doing a classic!

You want news reporting? I've got news reporting. Here's a news report about Michael Eavis saying this year was the best Glastonbury ever.

And here's a line from him about 2014 …

He said he had already secured three top acts, but declined to confirm rumours that Led Zeppelin might top the Pyramid stage following talk of a 2014 reunion. "I hope people will want to come next year," he said.

I would say the chances of Led Zeppelin playing next year are fractionally smaller than my chances of being asked to interview Sofia Vergara while we both try out tantric sex for the first time. With each other. But you never know, I suppose.

Feel free to tweet me this evening. I'm @michaelahann. I'll also be conducting a unique experiment later on. Well, I say unique experiment but that's rather overselling it. For the last two nights I have sat on my own for several hours, accompanied by two computers, a phone and a TV. And, to be honest, it gets a bit wearing. So later on I'm popping – computers in hand – round to my friend's house to watch there. So there's a possibility I may get a little tipsy after nine. So if you wonder why there's silence from here between five to nine and five past nine, that will be why.

Before we go to Glastonbury, I shall give you a quick update on the Springsteen setlist. Four songs into the show and it's …

1. Shackled and Drawn
2. Badlands
3. Prove It All Night
4. Johnny 99

Welcome, my friends to the party that never ends!

Michael Hann here, logging on for a third evening of Glastonbury in front of the TV. So what's in store for us? There's the xx on BBC3 and Mumfords on BBC2 later this evening, plus the BBC3 highlights from 8pm. The livestreaming currently offers Vampire Weekend, Editors, Steve Mason, James Blake, Sérgio Mendes and Twin Falls. The red button offers Of Monsters and Men, Jessie Ware and Django Django. I'll be flicking back and forth, I'll be rounding up reports from the field, I will be looking for interesting and amusing links. And, of course I will be bringing you setlist updates from the Springsteen show at the Olympic Park in London. Which I am missing to be here. Not that I am bitter, or anything.