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Music

Finally, the Glastonbury Line Up Has Been Announced and It's Spread Over Eighty (!) Different Stages

The festival offers so much for its ticket price, it's a bit of a piss take that every other festival in the country only puts on five stages.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

What makes Glastonbury the de-facto best festival? It's a simple question, really. Alongside the option of literally every cuisine (Goan fish curries to wood-fired pizzas), the ability to freely carry your own booze anywhere on site, and the experience that comes from traversing a myriad of artistic sculptures that've been hand-built as an equivalent to Disneyland, but for adults on drugs, the main reason Glastonbury excels is because of the sheer vastness of its line-up. Most festivals charge upwards of £200 for a ticket and only offer around six stages. Glastonbury, though, has over eighty of the bastards.

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The full line-up was announced this morning and, across the stages, from the Kidz field and Glasto Latino, to the NYC Downlow and the Poetry and Words area, the phrase "something for everyone" is apparent and living strong in their entire running order. Because most people generally tend to get hyped about the headliners, and then feel let-down when it turns out to be some depressing inner-fart like The Who, it's always worth giving the entire line-up a deep-read. Obviously that's quite timely though, so we've cherry-picked out a few things below that've caught our eyes:

Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama

Daft people will say this is going to be shit and boring but c'mon fam. Is there anywhere in world you could see two subjects as far removed, but universally recognised, as Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama? This shit wouldn't even happen at Oxford University. And even if it did, you probably wouldn't be able to witness both talks under the influence of an all-you-can-eat-platter of hallucinogenics, because that would be frowned upon. You would be kicked out of school. Three years thrown to the wayside just because society deems it unacceptable to, y'know, "open up your mind" in ways not constricted to academia. Here at Glastonbury though, that belief is bullshit. So not only can you learn, experience, and Instagram your way through a talk from two of the world's most renowned figures, you can also do it while the heavens open up and the entire spectrum of the inner-chakra dances across the sky. Fuck knows what they're going to talk about - and it will definitely be far removed from any of the sets on the Pyramid stage - but who cares. This could potentially be GOAT. You don't get this at Download.

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Stephen Hawking is making a special guest appearance on the Kidz Field. Despite formally announcing his appearance back in January, Glastonbury still haven't officially announced the Dalai Lama, so your best bet is to hold-out for one of those "secret sets".

The Rabbit Hole

Michael Eavis by William Coutts

The Rabbit Hole is one of the best venues at Glastonbury simply because it's entry-mechanism is ludicrous. You need to bring a carrot, hand it to a white rabbit near the entrance, and then climb through an underground tunnel to reach Wonderland. Shit is wild mad. Aside from that, the reason it's one this list is because, on Thursday night when things are just kicking off, there's one very special guest playing the venue. It's not been confirmed yet - but for the last few years festival organiser Michael Eavis has taken the venue's Thursday night "special guest" slot to sing his way through some of his karaoke favourites. Definitely not something to miss if you're looking for more than the usual beers in the campsite festival experience. Would Melvin Benn do this? No, he wouldn't. He would be too busy counting up all the money made from selling warm beer in the no-personal-alcohol allowed arena.

The Circus Big Top!

I get that a lot of people are scared of circuses. F'real. Clowns are scary motherfuckers. All dressed up in white paint and threatening to steal your nose from a young age, they've created a deep onset fear in many people who, despite being old enough to realise that, yeah, it's a dude dressed up, can't rinse every horror film they've seen from their head. But Glastonbury's circus is free of clowns*. Instead, when having some down time, go and watch some acrobatics or something. There are several on site and they run all weekend, kicking things off at ten in the morning, and going until the early hours.

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The Beat Hotel

The Beat Hotel by Jake Lewis

Although the site gets popping on Thursday, many venues still have their doors bolted down, waiting until Friday to kick things off. The Beat Hotel though, located in the far corner of the field, was a saviour at last year's event, providing what seemed like a sanctuary for those that wanted to start dipping into their various bags of powders from the beginning. It's got a roof - great for the rain! And it's got an outside area - great for the sunshine! All sorts of people play here - Jackmaster and Leon Vynehall are doing a B2B set on the Friday night - but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Just turn up at some point on Thursday and oscillate some limbs like you actually know what music you're listening to, and aren't just aimlessly mouthing words in between gurns.

The Cinema!

Not gonna lie, I've never hit up the cinema. But it's nice to know it exists, right? We all love a good film. This year they've got the Babadook - which, alongside being rated a strong 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, is genuinely one of the scariest horror films I've seen because: lose your sanity and the film is basically your life. They're also showing the new Kurt Cobain documentary, Montage of Heck, and for those in need of some cuddle-time light-entertainment, some weird side-film from the Madagascar series featuring a bunch of penguins is also on offer. Everything is free, obviously. Just roll on up and come through!

The Music!

And then, you've got the main attraction: the music. The original line-up, featuring the likes of Kanye West, FKA Twigs, George Clinton & The Mothership, Flying Lotus, Todd Terje et al, is great and, while some of the new additions (the wank collaboration project between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) leave little to be desired, there's still a few portions of fire. Namely: the addition of Noisey's roll-call of favourite grime artists. The Wow! stage is hosting the likes of Big Narstie, Skepta, Novelist, as well as some great artists from other genres, like Kero Kero Bonito, The Bug, and Four Tet. Not to be missed!