Friday at Glastonbury – follow it live!

Sinead O’Brien reviewed

Gwilym Mumford

The summer of sprechgesang is upon us. You can’t move at Glastonbury this year for bands that half-sing, half-talk, preferably with some brooding post-punk as backing. The William’s Green stage is particularly sprechgesang-ed up, serving as a finishing school for wannabe Mark E Smiths. Joining Yard Act, Folly Group, Sprints and co is Sinead O’Brien, former Vivienne Westwood model turned punk poet and someone for whom the sing bit of sing-speak is very much an alien concept.

Live, O’Brien a magnetic presence, stomping about the stage in a billowing translucent floor length dress. There’s more than a little PJ Harvey about her intense stage presence – Horses-era Patti Smith is another touchstone, too. Yet while many of the current sing-speak pack wear their influences very visibly, O’Brien deserves credit for veering off the well-trodden track and doing her own thing: there are disco stompers and techno bangers amongst the post-punk staples.

The problem for many will be that delivery. Pitched somewhere between friendly flight attendant and carnival barker, it is very much an acquired taste, and there’s very little respite from it. You long for a sunburst of melody to occasionally poke through the relentless chatter. But when it clicks and O’Brien’s chewy lyrics give way to something more direct and primal, things get very exciting indeed.

Wolf Alice reviewed

Kate Hutchinson

Pyramid stage, 16.45

It’s fitting that Nirvana should be thundering over the sound system not long before Wolf Alice take the stage: frontwoman Ellie Rowsell looks every inch the grunge queen as she strides onstage and yells “Glastonbury!” in a white silk slip and combat boots, eyes kohl-ed, echoing the babydoll look of Gen-Xers Hole and Babes in Toyland. “You have no idea,” she says, trailing off but referencing the lengths her band has gone to to get to the festival on time, after getting stranded in Los Angeles, unsure if they would make it. Coming after winning a Brit and topping the charts with their last album, 2021’s Blue Weekend, this was not a performance for them to miss.

But make it they did. That stress and adrenaline – not to mention what must be impending jetlag – imbues the snarling rock songs at the start of their set with a thrilling urgency. Rowsell gives it the best she’s got, taunting the crowd with her seductive sing-speak one minute and howling like a rock god the next, especially during Formidable Cool. Then it’s into diamond-sharp falsetto on songs like Lipstick on the Glass, reaching notes that echo Kate Bush by way of Stevie Nicks. Surely, she has to be one of greatest vocalists in this country at the moment.

This is a rare rock band that has real range. Not sooner are they tearing it up but they’re into soft ballads with triple-pronged harmonies (Safe from Heartbreak, a proper fairytale moment). When the stage goes sepia-toned for their Lana Del Rey-ish (and given their recent travel delays somewhat ironic) ode to LA, Delicious Things, complete with string section, it promises to be a big festival moment. But instead it’s Bros, with its emphatic build ups and candid visuals of band life – and friendship – behind the scenes that has couples swooning. Their sad Sex on Fire, perhaps.

Occasionally you’re left wanting for a proper screech-along festival chorus – despite lots of intimate moments, like when Ellie sits at the front of the stage to deliver an emotional The Last Man on Earth, wind in her hair, they don’t yet have the big-welly singalong that stretches to the edges of the audience, a song that has truly cut through and become anthemic. Occasionally the band seem like separate entities, staying in their zones and lacking interaction; you wish they’d say something between songs that hinted at their personality.

Give them time. Finally, they settle into it and look like they’re genuinely having fun – a smile shared between Ellie and bassist Theo Ellis, drummer Joel Amey putting his stick theatrically up in the air, guitarist Joff Oddie getting a chance to crank up the rock riffage of one of their earliest songs, Giant Peach. They end with Don’t Delete the Kisses – a song that’s “about telling your crush that you fancy them,” says Ellie. You can only imagine that they’re going to have one hell of a celebration tonight.

Lonely Heart Club, 17.30pm

Before Potter Payper arrives on stage, DJ and presenter Kenny Allstar is on stage hyping up the crowd in spite of the rain, shouting out the exquisite health that UK rap is in right now – and Potter Payper’s set ends up a decent testament to that.

She arrives in an orange and white co-ord, and there’s a contented ease to how the East London MC works the stage, like he could do this in his sleep (though maybe that is in part due to the zoot he briefly appears to light up, before being asked not to do that on stage). The bass is so hard it vibrates through the sizeable crowd (largely comprised of young men in bucket hats), and his voice gets hoarse as he weaves the slickly told rap tales he’s best known for. He’s not reinventing the wheel but there’s something especially compelling about his delivery style that makes you listen to every bar. There are warm, soulful pianos and a big singalong for fan favourite Gangsteritus which he claims is an exclusive – as in, he didn’t perform it at his Glastonbury set yesterday. He makes it feel like a moment all the same, nicely rounding off a solid set. Tara Joshi

Denise Chaila reviewed

Laura Snapes

BBC Introducing, 16.15

Denise Chaila walks on to the BBC Introducing stage and raises an eyebrow. “There are mic stands?! You know what, I don’t do that,” she says, picking it up and taking it to the side. “But shout out to whoever did that for me, that was amazing.”

The idea that the Irish rapper would keep still for long enough to use it quickly becomes ludicrous: for the entirety of her 25-minute set, she pings around the stage in a fabulous glittery lilac two-piece, bringing the drama of her songs to life with two hype men who act as foils playing crooner, shy boys and pinball flippers to the 27-year-old artist. She’s pure charisma, all withering looks at weak men, playful braggadocio and endearing gratitude to be here. “Hi,” she says cutely early on. “Welcome to a dream of mine coming true.”

In just shy of half an hour, she leaves us in no uncertain terms about who she is: fiercely proud of her hometown; the “Black James Bond”; a young woman whose parents didn’t let her go to festivals, “but we have to break the mould, don’t we”. She makes us spell her name on Chaila, and cocks a snook at stereotypes. “You ain’t ever seen a man like me / Big girl ting make a little man cry!” she raps joyfully while swinging a sunflower around. “It’s not ’cos I’m a man but because gender is a construct!” she explains. Her sound is thick and bassy, a catalyst for her exuberant delivery, which brings to mind Stormzy at his most playful.

After leading us in various call-and-responses over her set, the last song, she explains, is just for her. “You came to the 061!” she exclaims, shouting out her neighbourhood. “We’ll show you how to have some fun / We’ll show you how to get things done.” At this point, absolutely no one in the boisterous, utterly charmed crowd is left standing on ceremony.

Pyramid stage, 15.15

Three generations of the Finn family grace Glastonbury this afternoon, when New Zealand rockers Crowded House take to the Pyramid stage for a short, hit-packed afternoon set.

Opening with 1993’s Distant Sun and running through a set that includes Fall at Your Feet, Don’t Dream It’s Over and Weather With You, the band – featuring Neil Finn as well as his sons Liam and Elroy on guitar and drums, respectively – are in fine form, displaying their self-effacing Antipodean sense of humour. At one point the elder Finn, clad in a crisp cream suit, bemoans the fact that he can’t run further towards the crowd along the ego ramp because his microphone lead isn’t long enough. (He gets there eventually.) It seems that every New Zealander and Australian present at Glastonbury has congregated for the set: “Laser Kiwi” flags abound, and Neil spends the early portion of the set namechecking the Antipodean locations he sees represented in the crowd.

Around three-quarters of the way through the band’s set, another Finn emerges: Buddy, Liam’s young son. Clad in a purple Amoeba Music T-shirt and wearing gigantic earmuffs to protect his ears, he proceeds to steal the show from his father and grandfather, dancing with the band throughout the set and, during closer I Got You (a hit by Neil’s earlier band, Split Enz), screaming at random intervals. It’s a sweet, funny moment in a set full of them, including at one point a mass singalong of Happy Birthday to send to Neil’s brother, former Crowded House member Tim Finn.

Best of all, though, is seeing the even more multi-generational crowd enraptured, as Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn and company perform their timeless catalogue. Shaad D’Souza