As we celebrate an incredible year of live music as part of our Annual Report, we’ve named Glastonbury 2023 our Festival of the Year. Stick around for more lists, accolades, and exclusive interviews about all the best in music, film, TV, and pop culture of 2023, all of which can be found here.
On paper, a working dairy farm in a remote part of Somerset, England seems an unlikely location for Elton John’s final UK live performance. But this, of course, is Glastonbury – the 210,000-strong annual music festival that over the last five decades has grown to be one of the most significant events on the musical calendar. Its Pyramid Stage is bucket-list booking for artists around the world, and a fitting platform for The Rocket Man’s farewell to his home country’s fans.
After a forced shutdown over the previous two years, 2022 marked Glastonbury’s glorious return and a delayed 50th celebration for the Eavis family, who have tirelessly transformed their home and farmland into a music Mecca since 1970. For the famously muddy festival, it was a year of sunshine and release, revelers locked up for two years ecstatic to be back in the fields where so many feel at home.
So how then, would they begin to top such a magical year in 2023?
Glastonbury-goers love to tell you that the festival is about so much more than the lineup. From hedonism to healing, its myriad of smaller stages are a vital part of the weekend. But in 2023, the main stage bookings were unrivaled – a perfect blend of heritage and emerging, genre-spanning acts that thrilled the festival’s all-ages clientele. Rockers were sated with Guns N’ Roses’ Saturday night headline set, Axl Rose’s falsetto standing the test of time thrashing through a two-hour set of greatest hits.
Friday afternoon boasted a surprise set from “The Churnups.” Rumors had been swirling for a couple of weeks about who the unknown band slotted far too high up the main stage schedule could be. But after a rather telling Instagram post from Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters fans began crossing everything that the band would be making a sneaky return to Worthy Farm. It was not until the opening chords of “All My Life” started to play that they got their confirmation. “All right muthafuckers, let’s dance,” roared Grohl. It was a weekend highlight.
Foo Fighters at Glastonbury, photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images
“We managed to keep that one completely under wraps and it really only was confirmed an hour or so before they played,” confesses festival organizer Emily Eavis. “What a set that was – an hour of hits blasted across the valley, it was awesome and insane to see them play like that in broad daylight.” Foo Fighters last played the festival as headliners in 2017, so to catch them play a lowly afternoon set felt like an incredible milestone. “It’s been a real joy to have built such a lovely relationship with the Foos since they headlined here,” Eavis gushed. “This year was their first time here since the passing of Taylor Hawkins, so it felt very poignant.”
