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Music

Glastonbury Festival Would Like You to Know That It's Down With the Kids

The festival's first major announcement seems to skew pretty young, and that can only be a good thing.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB

The earth orbits the sun, the tide rolls in and out. And every year, like clockwork – excluding the odd fallow year, obviously – Somerset's Worthy Farm is prepped for its extremely long weekend of having the shit kicked out of it by uni students and London mums with grown up children. That's right, kids: we're in the leadup to the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (though the less said about this 2019 event the better, probably).

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This morning the festival organisers shared their first lineup poster for 2017, and it's … actually pretty good. Though the Pyramid Stage headliners – Foo Fighters, Radiohead and Ed Sheeran – look predictable and lacklustre, lacking the big hip-hop or pop star of years past (Sheeran DOES NOT count), elsewhere it's as strong and diverse a roster of performers as you're likely to find at any festival this summer. Glastonbury's identity has increasingly become one fractured along the lines of all the genres and cultures it spreads across the farm over that long weekend. Some worry that means it's drifting further from its original ethos, others are probably too busy swaying to a James Bay afternoon set to care about the festival's origins in the caravan and traveler communities.

Featuring appearances from acts like Katy Perry, Boy Better Know, Stormzy, Major Lazer, Solange, Anderson.Paak, and of course Wiley, it seems like this year's festival will skew pretty young. However, inevitably, there are also some acts long past their glory days who have managed to cling on for the benefit of the Boozy Lads contingent, made up of guys called Rob who are "just there for a laugh really (I'm looking at you, Courteeners).

This aside, it's a strong first announcement, and one that actually pretty accurately represents British music right now. See all the acts below, and have a moment of silence for the important greatness of Barry Gibb, who should by rights be headlining every night:

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(Image via Wikimedia Commons)