Glastonbury 2025: Friday with Lewis Capaldi’s secret set, Wet Leg, Lorde and more – follow it live!
Key events
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Alex Kapranos really does give good pointing.
Also, why does no-one do this any more? You weren’t worth yer salt if you weren’t doing this at least four times during a set at Sheffield’s Leadmill circa 2005.
Peter Capaldi secret set!!
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Franz Ferdinand are sounding as tight as the tight black jeans they persist on wearing in the year of our Lord 2025. As a fellow early middle-aged millennial, I know how hard it is to wear a wider legged trouser after being so deeply radicalised in the mid-00s indie scene, but I have learned to move on (a bit).
As a way of one-upping Lewis Capaldi’s secret set, Franz Ferdinand have brilliantly brought on … Peter Capaldi. He’s duetting on Take Me Out. Genius.
Lola Young reviewed
Jason Okundaye
It is hard to think of a young British artist receiving a more undeservingly difficult ride from the public than Lola Young. The online mockery, particularly for daring to be erotic, is typically rooted in fatphobia; her career success has been dismissed as down to her aunt being Gruffalo books author Julia Donaldson, despite what limited influence that could actually have; and she had to issue a clarification about her “resting bitch face” for the sin of being caught looking unhappy at losing a Brit award to singer Jade. At Capital’s Summertime Ball earlier this month, her earpiece failed mid-song and she became emotional, drawing further mockery (though received sympathy and kind words from fellow Brit school alum Raye).
That is to say, I have developed a soft spot and admiration for the British-Chinese-Jamaican south Londoner, not as pity, but because despite the constant brickbats she remains so passionately in love with music. Here she comes on to the Woodsies stage in a black bralet and long plaid shorts, playing the grungy sad girl as she performs Good Books, singing “you make it hard to see beneath the rubble”. Her lyrics are so confronting of the lovers of her life; they make you think of failed romances, dickhead ex-boyfriends and the worst arguments you’ve ever had.
These themes are so perfectly complemented by her husky, gravelly voice, though it is dulcet when she thanks the crowd for being here to witness her “magical moment” at Glastonbury. And she’s not afraid to lean into her own sex appeal: she slides down a microphone with her tongue centimetres from it, she happily plays with moving down her shorts and whines her waist, singing “you fuck me nice, you pull my hair”.
On Wish You Were Dead she is soulful and funky, while she adopts a punky riot grrl mall-rock sound on Don’t Hate Me. What is so impressive about Young is the versatility in her voice – she uses a mixed accent, at times received pronunciation, at other times cockenyisms and then the kind of Multicultural London English especially found in south London, and it blends into one distinct rhythmic identity. Her spoken-word style, particularly in her performance of One Thing, is reminiscent of Kate Nash.
And she remains playful with her sexuality. She sings the titular song for her forthcoming album I’m Only F**king Myself, and invites on a guest: a blow-up doll of herself, which features on the album cover. Female artists have recently come under heavy scrutiny for playing with sex and domination: Chappell Roan for dressing as a blow-up when she a judge on Drag Race, Sabrina Carpenter for her Man’s Best Friend album cover. Young is more than happy to throw herself behind this particular aesthetic of feminist parody and subversion.
I like that so much about Young – how audacious and bold and brave and provocative she is. When she closes out on her viral track Messy, which has the crowd rhapsodising and belting in unison, she says to them: “Don’t ever feel like you’re not enough. You absolutely fucking are.” You are too, Lola. More than. And I hope you never forget that.
Wet Leg reviewed
Safi Bugel
Wet Leg have built a whole brand off their sardonic accounts of millennial life. There are lyrics about shopping hungover, shagging, and only showing up to parties because they heard there were beers there, all delivered in near-mumbly, disaffected vocals.
Said vocals belong to frontwoman Rhian Teasdale, whose demeanour on stage this afternoon excellently captures that same bratty vibe. Sporting a little white two-piece with a rosette pinned to her short-shorts, she gives a real rock star performance to a sprawling crowd, while her newly expanded rhythm section (including her former co-lead Hester Chambers) crash through their back catalogue. As her voice slinks between deadpan and yodel-y, she crawls round the stage, pours cans of water over her head and repeatedly flexes her muscles. Though at the start it’s a little unconvincing, soon it feels as though she’s fully in control.
Showwomanship aside, the energy is steady throughout their set. Fan favourites like Your Mum and Mange Tout rile the audience up – and there’s a few nice, slow moments of relief – new track Davina McCall, which Teasdale devotes to her partner, is especially lovely. But overall it’s a bit samey: most of their tracks follow the same formula of big riff + punchy drums.
Of course, it’s their best-known hit, 2022’s Chaise Longue, which causes the biggest storm today, thanks to its ever-catchy hook and silly speak-sing vocals. So much so that there is a mass exodus after the track comes to a halt, which feels like a shame, because their closing track, the freshly released, siren-heavy CPR, promises the same anthemic potential.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Franz Ferdinand have started up on the Other stage. We weren’t much taken by their latest album but there’s still a considerable cache of hits to reach into here. Alex Kapranos has opted for one of those silky bomber jackets that Ryan Gosling made unforgivably naff in Drive. Terrible choice in this weather. And it looks like he’s got nothing on underneath. The clock is ticking towards a topless Kapranos.
English Teacher reviewed
Shaad D’Souza
By the time Leeds four-piece English Teacher grace the Park stage on Saturday afternoon, the audience looks a little worse for wear: it’s scorching hot, the few shaded areas are rammed, and those who are braving the sun to stand up for the set are furiously rubbing sun cream into their shoulders.
At first, the band’s gravely serious post-punk seems like a mismatch for this slightly lethargic crowd, but the set soon turns into something more diffuse and mellow, replacing standoffish angularity with a dry and mysterious dream-pop ambiance. It’s this bit of the set that feels best placed for a day like this – practically psychedelically dusty – especially given that, just down the hill, Wet Leg are performing post-punk barnstormers that sound stridently similar to those made by English Teacher and a handful of other bands on the bill. Even so, frontperson Lily Fontaine is a hugely appealing presence, capable of selling even the band’s less remarkable songs.
Gwilym Mumford
In the corner of Glastonbury’s dance area Silver Hayes, a stage called The Information is offering up a series of talks and roundtables touching on issues across the arts and sciences: everything from pollution in our rivers to the state of the hospitality industry. And, tomorrow, Gary Lineker.
This afternoon, a conversation titled We Shouldn’t Be Here hosted a star-studded panel discussing the challenges faced by Black creatives in the arts. The conversation was arranged by Black@Glasto, a group dedicated to uniting Black Glastonbury-goers that has opened a dedicated space at the festival this year.
Comedian Munya Chawawa, who put together the panel, was joined by actor Paapa Essiedu, menswear designer Foday Dumbuya, designer and artist Yinka Ilori as well as the talk’s compere, Black@Glasto founder Elsie Cullen. The panel discussed the prejudices they have faced in their careers. Ilori recounted a racist email sent by an unnamed MP claiming that a pavilion he had designed “would be better in a Nigerian shanty town”, while Chawawa remembered being sent home from a pre-comedy career job because Queen Elizabeth II was visiting the premises that day. Essiedu remembered the backlash to his being cast in the title role of an RSC production of Hamlet, with some critics claiming it was historically inaccurate. “No one has a problem when [David] Tennant’s not doing it in a Danish accent but when it’s me they have a problem,” he noted.
But the panel also discussed the ways that they had overcome such prejudices without compromising on their work. Chawawa said that he used comedy to raise awareness of issues in a “Trojan horse way” by making audiences laugh first. And Dumbuya expressed pride in designing Arsenal’s away kit in the pan-African colours of black, green and red, to celebrate the role African footballers had played in the club’s successes. It “educates a generation of Black and white kids about who we are and what we do”, he said.
We Shouldn’t Be Here also touched on the issue of whether Black festivalgoers are made welcome at Glastonbury, with Chawawa noting that when the Black@Glasto stage was announced, some responded by asking “where’s the ‘white at Glasto’ stage”. He joked: “I had to message mum to delete those.”
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
He plays a new song out today, called Survive. “The last three years haven’t been the best for me, it’s been difficult at times. I wanted to write a song that was about overcoming that stuff… This has been my fucking goal, to get back here, doing this.”
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
“I haven’t been on stage for two years now,” he says. “I don’t know what to say to people. It’s shit chat I’m coming out with now. I am going to shut up, and I’m going to sing the songs, and then I’m going to leave. But I just want to say one more time: thank you for being here.” It really is good to have him back: the way he shifts between breezy banter and the devastating heartbreak of the songs themselves is so headspinning.
He gives Bruises a delicate falsetto middle eight, and you can hear a pin drop in a field of what must be what, 80,000 people?
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
After Grace – for me Capaldi’s best song, so robust, with such brilliantly scanning chorus lyrics – the crowd break into an “Oh, Lewis Capaldi” to the tune of Seven Nation Army.
“I’m not going to say much up here today because if I do, I think I’ll probably start crying, but it’s just amazing to be here with you all, and I can’t thank you enough for coming out to see me,” he tells them. “Second time’s a charm.”
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Over on the Woodsies stage it’s Lola Young, who slowly went stratospheric over the course of a few months with her magnificently sweary and conflicted single Messy. She just announced her new album I’m Only F**king Myself, which is out in September and which I’ve heard. Not sure if I’m even allowed to appraise it yet, and without wanting to stoke the hype fires… it’s very, very good. Like really good. Top to bottom.
Lewis Capaldi’s secret set kicks off
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
There’s a huge cheer filtering over from the Pyramid stage as Lewis Capaldi comes on stage. This is another secret set that really wasn’t so secret – the big ones never are at Glasto – but what a moment. Capaldi’s last big show was on this very stage in 2023, where he had a really difficult time, losing his voice and experiencing Tourette’s tics in front of thousands. The Pyramid stage rallied behind him to sing everything for him, and it was the kind of powerfully human moment that defines the festival. Now he’s back, and it’s quite the way to soft launch a return. He kicks off with Before You Go and he’s in great voice – and the crowd are in equally fine form too.
Paris Paloma reviewed
Elle Hunt
The Glastonbury schedulers get given a lot of grief, for booking the wrong artist on the wrong stage, or at the wrong time, or at the wrong phase of the full moon, etc – so it’s important to give them credit where it’s due: Paris Paloma, on the Avalon stage, at just after 3pm is very well judged. That mid-afternoon slot can be a tricky one to fill, particularly when the temperature is high and people are wanting to save their strength for the headliners to come. Paloma’s crowd fills the Avalon tent but comfortably so, without packing it, and her brand of upbeat, writerly rock gives a welcome injection of energy without demanding too much of us.
Paloma’s pleased too: “This stage is a fair bit bigger than the one I played last year.” She’s still only relatively early into her career, having gained attention with single Labour in 2023. Since her debut album Cacophony was released last year, Paloma has quickly progressed to bigger stages, headlining the O2 Shepherd’s Bush earlier this month. There Emma Thompson was outed as a fan, caught singing along to Labour in a video posted to TikTok.
Today when she takes the stage, with her guitar strapped across her long-sleeve, full-length, flowing white dress, against a backdrop of folkloric imagery, the uninitiated might expect to be eased in with some gentle guitar, but Paloma obviously sets out to subvert those expectations, opening her set with driving, even somewhat heavy guitar. It’s reminiscent of a folksier, less theatrical Florence + the Machine.
Similarly Paloma doesn’t pull her punches, introducing a song as being about the radical power of “loving yourself when there are so many people profiting from everything you hate about your body”. In the absence of genuine self-love, Paloma suggests, “spite is as good a reason” to try to foster it.
She is more explicitly political in a new, as-yet unreleased song, Good Boy, written in response to “frustrations about the current state of patriarchy in the world”, in the UK and the US. The title refers to men in power, kept chasing their tails and each others’ approval under a system that oppressed them as much as it does everyone else.
“I have a lot of thoughts about what a submissive and self-contradictory belief system patriarchy is; there is nothing more submissive I can think of than… being so painfully frightened of being seen as feminine or queer and living your life in fear,” says Paloma. She goes on to eviscerate the “false promises of patriarchy” and how young men “are being radicalised, whether it’s the incels who haunt my comment sections or the fucking loser billionaires who happen to be in power at the moment … I’ve never seen submission embodied so well.”
It’s an eloquent speech, and a refreshing injection of the bigger world through the typically slow part of the day. The investment from the crowd is evident from the steady sprinkling of hands for the duration of Paloma’s song The Warmth, plus the rallying sing along closing her set with Labour.
But an early standout is Knitting Song, about the legacy of her grandmother and how she’s identified it not only in the rest of her family but also her female friendships. I’m reminded in her easygoing but considered and detailed storytelling of Olivia Dean’s afternoon Pyramid stage set last year – perhaps that’s Paloma’s next slot.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
A few other pics from sets we didn’t get to see earlier. And a cute Wet Leg fan just because.
Burning Spear reviewed
Jason Okundaye
When you see Burning Spear enter the Pyramid stage to meet his “burning band”, you first notice that he is dripped out in his own merchandise – a ripped vest jacket with the pan-African colours of the Rastafari movement with his moniker on the back, and a cap with his logo. Then you hear him, and it’s like a religious incantation. The idol to worship is not him or his brand but the God he serves: “I an I, son of the most high, Jah Rastafari.” This is the start of Door Peep Shall Not Enter, in which the refrain “give thanks and praise” is dedicated to the “holy man of creation”.
The 80-year-old singer-songwriter, real name Winston Rodney, was a major force, alongside Bob Marley, in importing reggae music from the recording studios of Kingston to the British isles in the 1960s and 70s. His 1975 album Marcus Garvey still stands apart, showcasing a musical ideology indebted to the heroes of pan-africanism and Black nationalist movements.
Rodney and his band look like the coolest, grooviest group of old men you could imagine. The characteristically slower tempo of reggae is matched by his more subdued and composed aura, but then come the moments of magic, where he hovers over nyabinghi drums and taps them with rhapsodic vigour, as though summoning a spirit. Leaving his band to deliver the vibe, he breaks into skanking steps and moves like a ballroom dancer. Tempo switches also become more thrilling – the beats race as Rodney sings Not Stupid, confronting Babylon and its belief that we are “stupid” and might forget the days of slavery.
You might argue that, with its pan-African aesthetics and images on an electric guitar of the civil rights figure and sociologist Ida B Wells, that the set is lacking explicit, loud political statements, perhaps about war or poverty. But these concerns are so deeply woven into Rodney’s lyrics that the set remains a manifesto nonetheless: on Jamaica he sings “it’s best to stand up for something than standing for nothing” and “Marcus Garvey open the door of Jamaica and spread Jamaica all over”.
The incredibly mighty international influence of that small island is felt in this performance – though it is evidently elevated by its solid African influences. That includes the brass instruments: horns, saxophones and trombones evoking the Afrobeat pioneered by Fela Kuti, as well as strong elements of Afro-Cuban jazz. These rhythms seamlessly infuse with the reggae, as does the syncopation and polyrhythmic orchestration. It’s evidence of how such a historic genre, played by a legend and pioneer, has still evolved and upgraded, becoming more surprising, hypnotic and enthralling.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Wet Leg are playing over on the Other stage, showing Inhaler what actual star quality looks like. There’s more rock’n’roll in a single one of Rhian Teasdale’s armpit hairs than the entirety of Elijah Hewson’s body.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Wandered past Inhaler after Jalen Ngonda and there was something actually eerie about the total void where tunes should be – like all the signifiers of a good rock band (handsome singer; strutting and noisy music; black clothing) but nothing to hold them together. Felt like being in some purgatorial Matrix where the AI hasn’t fully worked out how to write songs. Eeek!
