appointment with History: Today will be staged from June 21 to June 25 Festival Of glastonburyThe music review The most important live event in Europe is held every year in the city of the same name in the United Kingdom and is now in its fortieth edition. An event that would be marked by a very high-profile lineup, featuring Artic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John as headliners, the latter battling the final concert of his career. To better prepare ourselves for one of the most emotionally touching musical weekends, let’s go back in time and discover Origin and reasons for success.
1970: Year Zero
glastonbury Very ancient background. In fact, many years before its foundation, in the small country in the south of the United Kingdom, not far from the capital London, the composer Rutland Boughton organized a cycle of music, lessons and performances at the Summer School between 1914 and 1926. Was. event naming Glastonbury Festival: The event attracted the attention of a bohemian public attracted by the artistic proposal.
Nevertheless, the first concert held at Worth Farm, a sprawling field in Pilton (a town 10 km from Glastonbury), was organized in 1970 by Michael Elvis, who proposed the Pilot Pop, Blues and Folk Festival in September. The following year, however, capturing a certain interest nationally, the review was moved to the month of June, in correspondence with the summer solstice. this will be the prelude to Glasto that we know today. Since then, in fact, a rudimentary version of the iconic Pyramid Stage was built for the occasion, a type of stage designed by Bill Harkin that stood out for its pyramidal shape, which would later become one of the Pyramid’s symbols. Went. Festival, To alternate on stage real legends such as Traffic, Fairport Convention and David Bowie. Such a large space and such free-spiritedness found a great response among hippies, who populated Pilton in both 1977 and 1978 with spontaneous demonstrations of a kind, although no photographic evidence survives. glastonburyAs we know, it started taking serious shape only in the 1980s.
Festival becomes an annual basis
Music festivals had already grown significantly in the first half of the eighties, a period when we begin to think Festival As an ever-growing phenomenon, it was therefore decided to set up an entire area aimed at children, which includes ongoing support for charities such as Children’s World, Oxfam, WaterAid and Greenpeace, some of which today are also present voluntarily. The offer becomes more and more exotic, with an ever more diverse cast and increasingly large audiences, so much so that it no longer enters the eligible form. For this reason the organization buys Cockmill Farm, another area of more than four thousand square meters.
With the spread of rave culture, glastonbury It therefore becomes one of the main reference points of the European subculture, reaching an audience of 100,000 to 250,000 in a short time, so much so that it also attracts strong media interest. In 1994, Channel 4 broadcast the event live for the first time, then receiving a substantial contribution from the national BBC network (still owning the television rights). That same year The Levellers, a legendary rock group, set an attendance record by playing in front of an endless crowd of people, a record that no one else has ever broken. Instead the next version will be featuring another very important innovation. Along with the Pyramid Stage, the Dance Stage was also established, a stage entirely dedicated to dance music to meet the needs of the public, who were captivated by Orbital’s performances in 94, thus Festival in a new dimension. In 1997, in one of the most sensational years in history, the BBC and the Guardian newspaper became sponsors of the event, while headliners Radiohead wowed the world with a live set that went down in history.
New Steps, Same Excitement
Moving forward with the years, new stages would be added, including The Glade and Left Field, inserted in 2000, which was the year David Bowie returned to the square. but label glastonbury Will be extremely reduced as just a music festival. The review is actually a kind of social orgy, where thousands and thousands of people from every corner of the world gather to spend the day as a sign of sharing, passing the day between the stage area and the campsite, among the most controversial of places. Another discussed, aided by the use of various hallucinogenic substances permitted by law.
The five-day event is so disruptive in scope that it sometimes welcomes characters from outside the world of music or entertainment. In the past, it was no coincidence that the Dalai Lama also gazed into the Valley of Avalon, who, in a moving speech to the crowd, underlined the importance of “festival dedicated to the people“, criticizing the appearance of politicians who sometimes get on stage to try to garner a few more votes.
2023 edition: Farewell to Elton John
In this latest edition, the fortieth, Glasto will be closed by a final live performance from British singer-songwriter Elton John, which will set up a completely different show than those proposed on his very long farewell tour, embellished with performances of songs absent from his repertoire over the years and by the presence of several guests ready to accompany Rocket Man on stage for the last time.
Many other artists are also expected to attend, including headliners Artic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses, as well as world music headliners such as Central Sea, Lana Del Rey, Church, Alt-J, Blondie, Christine and Queens, Fatboy Renderer included. Slim, Fred Again, Hot Chip, Lewis Capaldi, Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Manskin, Shygirl, Slowthai, Sparks and Thundercat. Everything is ready for another party.
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