Glastonbury Festival, Saturday Afternoon/Evening

The Scissor Sisters are on the Pyramid stage and sun is shinning. This is the first of two sets that they’re playing at this years festival – they’ve also got an X-rated show in the dance tent later this evening. Actually the line between the two sets (we see both) is pretty slim. Both are filled with lots of innuendo and outright smut (Anamatronic telling Jake to turn around she wants to take him from behind). Perhaps the only difference between the two sets is the amount of clothing warn my Jake and Ana’. For both sets they draw a huge crowd and we suspect that they have successfully made the move from leftfield disco oddballs to mainstream pop royalty.

Our next band of the day is British Sea Power, who we’ve heard a lot about and who’s debut CD we picked up but has been sitting in the ‘too be listened to’ pile. Well, BSP are a revelation with a sound close to Gene and David Bowie. They also seem to have brought the countryside to the stage with trees, birds and animals (from our position we can’t tell whether these animals are plastic or stuffed) as part of their stage set. All very bizarre.

The Killers are playing the New Tent and unusually for this tent they can be considered to be new. They’ve drawn a huge crowd to the tent proving that every year there is a band that plays the New tent that should be on one of the lager stages – last year it was Kings of Leon. The set is good enough to keep us interested and we’ll try and get to see them in London later in the year.

And so to the daddy, Paul McCartney. Before the gig we’re not sure whether we should see him, after all there are plenty of other bands on. But then you realize that this os your chance to see one of the Beatles playing Beatles songs. And yes it does play Beatles songs, probably more than he does Wings songs and the whole of Glastonbury sings along to every line. You really do realize that you are witnessing a living legend. He plays Eleanor Rigby, which I studied as a piece of poetry at school. When he plays Yesterday and Hey Jude grown men melt and there isn’t a single dry eye in the house. And I haven’t mentioned the pyrotechnics and fireworks during Live And Let Die (which bares a resemblance to the Guns N Roses version).

- posted by Nigella @ 6:57 PM