If sartorial bias is anything to go by, Shania Twain’s easy country anthems, Charli XCX’s pacey hyperpop and The Last Dinner Party’s intellectual indie rock divided and conquered at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Novelty cowboy hats and touches of Charli’s signature lime green encircled the main stages and one of the many vintage clothing stores on site had a rack entirely dedicated to The Last Dinner Party’s notorious baroque neo-gothic style.
Huge audiences drawn by Sugababes and Avril Lavigne, leading to additional crowd-control measures being put in place, demonstrated an insatiable appetite for pop nostalgia.
However it was electronic music, traditionally relegated to smaller stages and later time slots, which truly reigned supreme at Worthy Farm this year. Orbital invited Tilda Swinton on stage for part of their mobbed performance, Justice’s electrifying set collectively gave everyone an unprecedented second wind on the final night and smaller venues in the Silver Hayes area, such as The Levels and Lonely Hearts Club, were teeming right up until the first buses began hauling exhausted partygoers home on Monday morning.
Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter
Jazz music, having gained exponential populist appeal in this country over the past decade, is well catered to by various specialist festivals, most notably Love Supreme and We Out Here. The former leans towards crowd-pleasing headline bookings from the worlds of soul and disco, like Chaka Khan and Dionne Warwick, with more traditional jazz, acts like Billy Cobham, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Christian McBride reserved for tents and smaller stages.
The latter tends to cater to a hipper crowd, tapping into the ‘new wave’ of jazz made popular in part by the festival’s curator, prolific DJ and label boss Gilles Peterson, along with electronic acts whose music is somewhat jazz affiliated. This year’s stellar We Out Here lineup includes Ebo Taylor, Andre 3000 and Floating Points.