Key events
Grotesque breaking Fat White Family news from Tim Burrows:
“Lias from Fat White Family just pulled out what looked like a bread roll from the crotch of his large underpants and ate it as the band started Touch the Leather. He is very sweaty up there.”
Special wristbands are being handed out for tonight’s Coldplay gig. I’ve got one in front of me and currently it’s a lump of translucent plastic but apparently it will light up in some way when they arrive on stage. Don’t worry Guardianistas – they can be composted.
Poor old much-maligned Keane are on the Pyramid stage right now, and I have to concede that Everything Changes, a song that usually brings me out in welts, sounded pretty good from our Guardian cabin. Lots of people joining in by the looks of it.
While you watch the Last Dinner Party do their winsome “Kate Bush meets Guillemots” thing, why not read yesterday’s Guardian G2 cover story, in which they speak to Elle Hunt about misogyny, their mad festival season and those industry plant allegations
Otoboke Beaver reviewed
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The Park, 3.15pm
Arguably what you most want in afternoon heat like today’s is some gently lilting spiritual jazz played on flute with accompaniment from passing songbirds. But in the Park you’re getting absolutely incandescent hardcore punk from Japanese band Otoboke Beaver. Concerns about a meteorological vibe clash quickly evaporate, though, as the all-female quartet prove to be one of the weekend’s most irresistibly charismatic acts.
Their sound is pure old school punk, with seething rhythm guitar, high speed and occasionally melodic bass, lots of shouting, and absolutely no solos. But they wring so many thrills out of that old sound by being unbelievably tight: songs are full of clever math-rock time changes, with microsecond zones of silence suddenly filled with thrashing noise once more. The band’s floral dresses, meanwhile, are less an ironic juxtaposition with the music, and more a gleefully feminine confounding of expectation – which plays out in the songs, too. Mostly sung in Japanese, one of them is introduced as being inspired by a YouTube comment asking why the band didn’t sing in English. The sly English-language retort is a constant repeat of “I don’t know what you mean” followed by a scream of “SHUT UUUUP!”
By the end, lead singer Accorinrin is bashing the mic into her skull at around 180bpm and guitarist Yoyoyoshie leaves the stage by way of an inflatable beaver rubber-ring crowdsurfed across the cheering throng, while leading them in a chant of We Are the Champions (or rather “Champon”, after their album Super Champon). One of those sets where a band just made a few thousand new superfans, and another great punk performance at this edition of Glastonbury.
Guardian Glastonbury’s erstwhile Thames Estuary correspondent Tim Burrows spotted this Essex flag after Cyndi Lauper’s set. Colin and Katie (and friends) from Brentwood, the home of the peasants’ revolt / Towie, said the flag was a tribute to their friend Darren who died on the way home from Glastonbury. A fitting tribute to a departed mate and a faraway south-eastern county.
Over on the Other stage is one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend: The Last Dinner Party, making their Glastonbury debut. The crowd looks vast. Review to come.
The entire cabin has been crowded round iPlayer watching Otoboke Beaver, who broke into an impromptu rendition of We Are the Champions for reasons unknown. Then the guitarist frisbeed an acoustic guitar into the audience and crowdsurfed on a giant inflatable beaver. Top that, Chris Martin.
Also doing a sterling job of staving off drowsiness (see 3.57pm) are Otoboke Beaver on the Park stage. The Japanese punk band make quite the racket – full of stop-start riffs, anguished yelps and occasionally the vaguest hint of a melody. Not for everyone but it’s done the trick on me. We’ll have a full review from Ben Beaumont Thomas later.
Tems reviewed
Jason Okundaye
Other stage, 2.15pm
It’s hard to believe Tems has only this month dropped her debut album. The term “meteoric rise” is a cliche in music criticism, but since breaking out with her feature on Wizkid’s 2020 single Essence, she has gone on to win a Grammy, with a further Grammy nomination and an Oscar nomination to her name, as well as features and background vocals for the likes of Drake, Beyoncé, and Rihanna. It’s the run of dreams, but when Tems enters the stage you get the sense that Glastonbury is up there with the great pinch-me career milestones. “Glastonbury! We made it” she shouts, and “I’ve never sung to this big of a crowd before.”
She has clearly built an ample following, and the crowd are roaring and singing along as she opens with an uptempo rendition of 2021 single Crazy Tings, swaying among a set of ornamental grass, against a backdrop of a sunset savanna – a clear reference to her album Born In The Wild. Though she often sounds shy when she speaks to the crowd, she confidently and comfortably belts out Avoid Things and Damages, and enjoys regular dance breaks. Wearing a shimmering navy jumpsuit resplendent with fringe trims, she rocks around the microphone stand, swings it, gyrates it. When she announces Replay she says, “I want you to whine your waist to this one”, and in front of me a group of ladies are dancing with each other, whining low with no sign of aching knees.
Though she doesn’t entirely run away from the big vocal moments – such as Turn Me Up – at times she feels too reliant on the backing singers. But when she leans into that smoky, seductive alto voice, she shines. It’s a voice as at home with Afrobeats as with contemporary US R&B and soul music – and it perfectly complements the themes Tems sings about, whether it’s dismissing unsatisfactory lovers – “Even though bro, I could let you go” – or narrating a relationship breakdown: “If you ain’t mine then we just waste time.”
But it’s TikTok viral Afrobeats song of the summer, Love Me Jeje, which really gets the crowd going, with friends and lovers alike caressing each other and declaring their affections. “Are there any lovers in the house?” Tems asks. “Picture the person you love and hold on to them tight.”
She closes with Free Mind, delivering a gorgeous finale singing of “the peace you cannot buy”. It feels like you are witnessing someone live through one of the biggest moments of their life, there’s a sense of victory as she runs off stage, and you can’t help but smile for her.
Lanre Bakare has visited new immigration-themed Glasto stage Terminal 1, where in order to get in you have to answer a question from the British Citizenship test:
It’s suddenly very hot down here on Worthy Farm, and it’s getting a little drowsy in the Guardian cabin. To wake myself up I’ve fired up Alogte Oho and His Sounds of Joy on the iPlayer. The Ghanaian afrobeats star is whipping up a storm on the West Holts, with some terrific glittered outfits on show.
Gwilym Mumford
Hi, Gwilym here, taking you through Saturday afternoon at Glastonbury. We’ve got some big reviews coming up – Cyndi Lauper, The Last Dinner Party, Tems – so don’t touch that dial! (Do computers have dials?)
I’m now off up to the Park for some Otoboke Beaver, and then to see whatever Russell Crowe is planning to bring us on the Acoustic stage – so I leave you in the capable hands of Gwilym Mumford.
Some more pics from 47Soul earlier, taken by our own Jonny Weeks.
