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Music

Glastonbury 2016 Was About Everything But the Headliners

The Adele-Muse-Coldplay triad sent more people than ever into the festival’s cooler corners, and the energy there was the best it’s ever been.

This article was originally published on Noisey UK

I have always been loyal to Glastonbury on years where the lineup is looking a little ragged. It doesn’t matter who the headliners are; there’s like 12 main stages! It’s the biggest collection of performances in the Western world—everything from Will Young to Young Fathers. If you’re stuck in front of the mainstage moaning about having to watch Jess Glynne, you’re doing it wrong.

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But this year more than most, the festival began with a distinct lack of focal point. Muse and Adele clearly have a lot of friends among the broad church of Glastonbury-goers, but if you’re looking for something to fire you up before you spin off into the night, they’re hard to get excited about. Disclosure did a solid headline set on the Other Stage on Friday night, but it was just as solid as when they headlined the West Holts stage a few years earlier. Underworld (Friday, West Holts) and New Order (Saturday, Other Stage) feel too familiar to be considered legends but still too past-it to feel like vital headliners. Without a Kanye, Blur, Metallica, or even a Lionel Richie or Dolly Parton to bring everyone together, the festival started to feel a bit disjointed. Where do you meet up with your whole squad? What corner of the site do you begin your journey into the night from? Some people clearly couldn’t handle the struggle: at one point a bunch of supermodels were dancing to music from a phone for three hours.

Photo by Jake Lewis

But the years where there are a lack of big-name draws can breathe life into the cooler corners of the festival. On Friday, the entire Sonic Stage was turned into a UK rap and grime b2b with Section Boyz, Stormzy, and Kano. The sets were buzzing with an energy lacking on the bigger stages. All day, stoned teenagers who’d probably only just emerged from hotboxed pop-up tents started to emerge in swarms. The NoS ban seemed to have had no impact, as the only thing that could be heard above the soundsystem was the whizz of balloons. It felt like a coming together.

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Later that night, up at Stonebridge bar, Toddla T programmed a night of carnival sounds. Alas, The Heatwave couldn’t make it, perhaps still on a Brexit comedown, but Charlie Sloth took over early DJ duties. His screechy, bomb-dropping set was a little at odds with Glastonbury’s innate state of perpetual chill, but felt like the jolt needed to get things going. In one of the highlights of the whole festival, J Hus came out and ran through his hits—songs so huge even the bar staff were singing along. Lady Leshurr and Section Boyz also made appearances, the former a kind of Yo Gabba Gabba bonkers playground rapalong, the latter a shouty mess that didn’t quite gel with the after hours vibe. But it was Toddla’s own set, with carnival classics and air horns for the front row, that had circles of mates winding into daylight.

NYC Downlow is now a Glastonbury institution, but this year, at the same time as Pride and so soon after the Orlando attacks, it took on a special significance. Going inside the club, this year done out like a meat market (oi oi) with big slabs hanging from hooks outside, you can feel a change of atmosphere, the jolly “festy” vibes replaced with something more honest and austere. Throughout the night, guys in leather straps danced to cold, pulsing disco, dancers and punters throwing off clothes in the dense heat.

By Sunday, normal order was restored, as once again the communal moments were also the biggest moments. Grimes' headline set on the Park Stage was genius in conception, her broken frenzied take on pop matched by her dancers who looked like they’d come straight from a Britney Spears show and just repeated the same moves only this time on 2CB. Then LCD Soundsystem played a set moist with mud and emotion, the slickness of the sprawlng band at odds with Murphy’s pained off-kilter peans for a life slipping through his fingers. Glastonbury is best when people come together as one in big open spaces, but this year it proves you can feel communion in the smallest tents too.

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