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The Big Glastonbury Festival 2025 run-down

Festivals and gigs. A listings calendar, plus previews, news, reviews, and photos

So, Glastonbury Festival 2025… what a marathon!

Two people, two cameras, and four very tired legs.

Most photos here by @sara-louise bowrey …feel free to share images but please do tag her.

We had a plan… but at Glastonbury plans never seem to last very long. And as a result, we missed at least one act that we regret forever, but we found a few that almost (but not quite) makes up for it.

WARNING: This is a long page.

It documents all the acts we managed to see over the (very long) weekend.

Check out our band of the festival (Get Down Services), the bands we knew would be good (but you’ve probably never heard of), our favourite ‘old gold’ set (and it wasn’t Sunday afternoon on the Pyramid), and the four acts we stumbled on by accident and who are now on our rotation playlist.

Find out who we are gutted we missed.

We also want to highlight a few ‘told you so’ acts who we have been plugging for years and are now tipping over into mainstream consciousness.

There are also a couple of acts we think should have been on the Pyramid stage, a stack of ‘festival favorites’, an act who opened the festival having been chosen as part of the Emerging Talent Contest, and a stack of bands who are currently in the ‘trying to break through’ category…the sorts of act you ought to be looking our for playing live near where you live – because you never know whether they could be the next big thing.

Oh – and then there is the small matter of a bunch of bands who played the big stages and who we think you might like to see some lovely pictures of…

BAND OF THE FESTIVAL

GET DOWN SERVICES

I was hooked by Getdown Services when I heard them from as distance at Bearded Theory earlier this year. It was one of those moment when my feet got led by my ears…because what I was hearing was somewhere between The Streets and Yard Act produced by Mik Artistik. What my eyes next saw was two slightly overweight blokes from Minehead playing to a near-capacity stage in the woods…and totally owning the stage.

At this point I had no idea what I was seeing…but when they were brought back on stage by the next act – Gurriers – to share a bit more limelight I was convinced this was going to lead places.

Over the next week or so it seemed I couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing their name on BBC6 Music, and after not much thought I gave them pride of place as the first act on my (now traditional) Glastonbury ‘mad to miss’ t-shirt.

Here are a bunch of ‘T-shirt’ acts who I managed to catch up with in person (or at least get a snap in front of their gig) over the weekend…

After striking up an online chat with the band I was one of the lucky ones to get wind of their secret Crows Nest gig on Saturday night. Just after midnight I managed to sneak over a barrier and secure a side-of-stage position for a show that will go down in Glastonbury legends as one of ‘those’ special moments.

The next day it was a race to get to the Croissant Neuf tent early enough to secure a space…although luckily I had the privilege of a press pass, so was able to get into the photo pit where, as it turned out, I was one of only two other photographers able to capture the action.

What ensued was without doubt the hottest, sweatiest, and most enjoyable hour I have ever spent at the festival…and I’ve been going there every year but two since 1993.

I’m not even going to try to describe Getdown Services’ songs – you simply have to listen to them for yourself.

But just so you know it’s not just me, here are a few comments on a post I put up the next day after the band managed to also secure a highly coveted BBC2 backstage live set that saw them mentioned in the same breath as the Pyramid headliner:

WHAT ARE THE SAYING ABOUT GETDOWN SERVICES

Yes! They played one song on the telly called “Dog Dribble” and it was the best thing I saw of the whole event by miles!

Saw Getdown Services doing a show for 6music at the Great Escape. Was only three songs, but it was the best three songs I saw all weekend.

I couldn’t get anywhere near but was piddling my pants outside, gonna make a point of seeing em!

Best set of the festival for me! the vibe was amazing!

WE KNEW THEY WOULD BE GOOD

JEANNIE AND THE WHITE BOYS

Jeannie makes films in her other life. Here she collaborates with friends Dom and Bleu (you might also know him as the drummer in Warmduscher).

The music is as irreverent as the performance is intense.

It’s no surprise they found their way onto my shirt this year, and their Strummerville set knocked my socks off.

ALIEN CHICKS

Yet another band who prove that the spirit of punk energy is alive and well and breeding new talent.

These three south Londoners are on a mission to take the world by storm – one gig at a time.

The heat was intense, but the energy on stage was palpable.

100% genuine. 100% fun.

LOS FUCKIN SURFER SMOKERS

OK – this is a surf-guitar band out of Bogota Columbia.

What more do you need to know??

OLD GOLD

TERRORVISION

Look, Glastonbury might be about ‘contemporary arts’ – but it would fall on its arse without a significant input from the old guard acts of the 80s and 90s. Bands whose songs reverberate down the years and cross generational boundaries.

Terrorvision are – right here and now – a band who are on the top of their game.

We’ve been in the mosh pit for their shows since Reading and Leeds in the 90s, and they have consistently put on some of the most authentic shows we can remember.

This is the second festival we have caught them at this year, and younger bands really need to take a leaf out of their book to understand what a performance is meant to be.

FOUND AT THE FESTIVAL

HENRY KING

Now here’s the thing about festivals. Sometimes you just have to go where your instinct guides you.

Walking past the ‘pub’ tent next to the Cider Bus one lunchtime my first impression was that there was a DJ playing some high-energy funky disco stuff…but there was a live edge to it that I found intriguing.

In need of a drink anyway I ducked inside…and was immediately captivated by two guys behind a set of decks…Henry King on vocals, and Matt Lane on tracks and percussion.

There was a small crowd, but they were getting the vibe, and Henry was soon out amongst them, delivering falsetto lyrics and swapping over to trumpet duties without missing a beat.

Think Klaus from Umbrella Academy reinventing Prince, and you might get the idea.

This is the kind of thing that every big Pride event wants to have as a centrepiece to their show, it has the upbeat energy and wide appeal that totally sets the right atmosphere.

ROZSA

Rozsa plays an electric harp and blends a delicious smoothie dripping with trip-hop rhythms and jazz sentiments.

Her show at the Croissant Neuf bandstand was no doubt boosted by being flagged as a ‘one to watch’ moment on the press tent whiteboard.

Watch out for her…she’s got serious potential.

HYBRID KID

Technically I didn’t discover Hybrid Kid at Glastonbury as I did the sound for him at a small Great Escape fringe dhow a month or so ago.

But I had no idea that Danny Lloyd (HK’s alter ego) was playing at Glastonbury, so when I stumbled on him at the Open Arms bar next to the Greenpeace Stage I decided to stay around and have a proper listen as a punter rather than part of the crew.

Hybrid Kid isn’t new. There are two albums of material under Danny’s belt, and tours that have taken him across the Atlantic and back. Tom Robinson has delighted in his guitar playing and his ‘top track’ has amassed almost half a million Spotify streams.

He’s a one-man garage band, and brilliant.

THE HALFWAY KID

Racing between one band and the next I found myself trotting past the Left Field tent – once a home-from-home as I had the profoundly life-changing experience of booking the line-up here back in the mid 2000s before Billy Bragg took over.

I’m pleased to say that most of the Left Field acts this year would have been strong contenders if I was still in that hot seat, but The Halfway Kid wasn’t a name I recognised. However, his voice was enough to tempt me in an threaqten being late for my next musical appointment.

The Halfway Kid is a project fronted by British-Sudanese singer and songwriter Saeed Gadir.

That’s really all I know at this point – other than the fact he seems to have written a follow-up album to Paul Simon’s Graceland.

Proper, proper good music.

GUTTED WE MISSED…

SAMANTICS

Sam – how did this happen?

Somehow neither of us managed to get to the Bimble Inn for your show.

Gutted. Gutted.

WE TOLD YOU SO

For the past few years we have been telling anyone who would listen that there were a bunch of bands emerging who would be going on to bigger things.

Here’s four of them who played at Glastonbury this year and who are all now on the verge of proper mainstream acclaim:

NOVA TWINS

GURRIERS

FAT DOG

LAMBRINI GIRLS

SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE PYRAMID

Everyone else is saying it too. Both The Prodigy and Gary Numan could have put on headline Pyramid shows.

That’s all we have to say on the matter.

THE PRODIGY

GARY NUMAN

FESTIVAL FAVES

Somewhere there is a rule written that says that a festival isn’t technically a festival unless at least one of a group of around 20 stalwarts of the circuit are on the bill.

Glastonbury plays by the rules, so here are six of the ‘magnificent 20’ who we caught over the long weekend.

ANDY TWYMAN

BEANS ON TOAST

CHRIS TT

DUNCAN DISORDERLY

SISTER SUZIE

TOWN OF CATS

EMERGING TALENT CONTEST

OAKLEY STARR

Oakley Starr got their tickets and booking through impressing an industry panel who were sifting through emerging talent to find ‘the next big thing’ who might take advantage of a Glastonbury show to launch the next stage of their careers.

We caught their ‘gothic country’ set on the Croissant Neuf bandstand where they were the opening act of the whole festival!

Oakley Starr at Glastonbury 2025
Oakley Starr at Glastonbury 2025

BREAKING THROUGH

This next set of bands might already be on your radar, but generally speaking they are still in the ‘grass roots’ category – loved by those who know them, but not yet the sort of act that the average bloke down the pub would have heard of.

Give them a listen and see if they float your boat… they do mine.

ADULT DVD

BIG REFERENCE

CHALK

HEARTWORMS

SLEAZE

GEMMA ROGERS

MEN AN TOL

THE BIG ONES

And finally, here’s a run-down of the big names we saw on the big stages.

For me the top three were Biffy, Pulp and Turnstile.

Who were your faves?

ALT BLK ERA

AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS

BIFFY CLYRO

CMAT

FRANZ FERDINAND

HAIM

INHALER

KAISER CHIEFS

KATE NASH

LOLA YOUNG

NEIL YOUNG

PULP

ST VINCENT

SUPERGRASS

THE 1975

THE LIBERTINES

THE SCRIPT

THE SELECTER

TURNSTILE

WEEZER

WET LEG

WOLF ALICE

 

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