Glastonbury 2022, Friday: sunshine, showers, crowds and some amazing music
From start to finish, the first ‘big band’ day of Glastonbury 2022 brought us truly brilliant sets from bands ranging from the smallest to the biggest on the planet.
Over on the Sensation Seekers’ Stage we sat and enjoyed fish and chips in the sun with Bob Slayer (owner, driver and comedy conductor) of the Blundabus whilst watching yet another set from Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip.
(Small side-fact: we once owned that very bus… next time you buy a ticket to ride ask Bob for the story!)
Bumping into Mik later in the day we scolded him for distracting us from all the ‘proper’ new bands we should be exploring at this festival of festivals.
It seems every time something ‘notable’ is happening elsewhere we are sat enthralled, watching him throw paper straws out of his pockets and singing about persistent Yorkshire leaves and rubbish betting shop pens.
Fortunately our trip to see Mik found us in the right place at the right time to chance upon The War and Treaty. This is the sort of powerful gospel-rock that is also epitomized by the slightly more wacky Oh My God It’s The Church, who also grab our attention later on the same stage at Avalon.
If big stage action is more your thing then the two acts in the larger fields other than the two main stages who pulled us in was Greentea Peng (AKA Aria Wells) on West Holts and Dry Cleaning on The Park Stage.
Greentea Peng
The last time we saw Greentea Peng was a couple of years ago at the Fat Tuesday Hastings Mardi Gras Festival, playing in a 120 capacity pub where we were on sound engineering duties and had five minutes to get her and her band plugged in and playing for a twenty-minute set.
Today they were playing to probably 10,000 people and had a stage that was around 15 times bigger than that whole pub where we first saw (and helped) them play.
There is no shadow of a doubt that every festival booker in the world will want a piece of this action and if you missed them at Glastonbury you’ll certainly be able to catch them again soon!
Dry Cleaning
Dry Cleaning have grown up and their live sound and stage persona has matured perfectly since we first saw them in a woodland glade at Latitude a few years back.
They epitomise that ‘genre with no name’ that also includes bands such as Squid, Sports Team, Bodega, Yard Act and more – all of which need to get scooped up onto one label so they can be more easily defined and followed by the same fanbase.
We love their songs and we love their stage presence.
What more is there to say?
Pyramid and Other Stage
With a lot to choose from, for us, it has to be Foals who took the prize for the best set of the day.
Yes, Billy Eilish set her record for the youngest person to headline this legendary stage, and we loved Idles big shout-out to ‘Big Geoff‘ as they acknowledged how bands only make it thanks to the passion of music fans … of whom Geoff has to be the biggest, both in enthusiasm and stature.
But Foals quite simply deserved their place as Friday night headliners by ticking every box on the sheet.
We might be accused of anecdote favouritism by mentioning here that our first encounter was when we were running one of the first ever Great Escape Festival ‘Alternative Escape’ events on Brighton Pier and agreed to squeeze another act onto our line up at the last minute due to rain stopping their planned outdoor performance.
We didn’t know who Foals were at the time, and they rocked up politely with amps in wheelbarrows to play a blistering set that left us in no doubt they would go far.
Which they most certainly have!
Friday Glastonbury 2022 photo gallery
Check out pictures of these and more bands on our gallery below.
