Saturday, June 26th 2010

Shows:  Glastonbury 2010

Muse, Thom Yorke, Gorillaz Surprise At Glastonbury

By Fernando Scoczynski Filho

Every year, at least one special thing happens at the legendary Glastonbury Festival that makes us wish we were there. 2 proper days into 2010′s, the 40th anniversary of the fest, we already had three. At least there’s YouTube.

The festival always has a few surprise appearances by acts during the day (last year, The Dead Weather came unannounced), and this time it wasn’t any different. Thom Yorke played a short surprise set, mostly by himself, on one of the side stages, and was joined by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood for a few Radiohead classics. The performance was not broadcast, but here’s a short clip of the end of Karma Police, which was obviously a highlight:

As is well-known by now, U2 had to drop their headline slot for the first day of the festival, due to Bono having a medical emergency. Gorillaz were invited to fill in for the kings of stadium-rock, and turned out a pretty damn good performance. During their near-complete recreation of their latest album Plastic Beach, the song Some Kind Of Nature included a guest appearance by Lou Reed. Snoop Dogg joined the band as well, not for Welcome To The World Of Plastic Beach, but to freestyle through the nearly-10-year-old hit Clint Eastwood:

And while U2 were deprived of what would have been their first-ever headline slot at the festival, it seems not all member of the band were willing to accept the loss. Stadium rock king-wannabes Muse, who were headlining the festival for the second time (their first was in 2004) had The Edge join the band for their encore, playing U2′s ultimate crowd-pleaser, Where The Streets Have No Name. So while the festival didn’t get a full U2 performance, Matt Bellamy’s voice (which is, at the moment, in much better shape than Bono’s) would do just fine for at least for one song:

While those three moments were the obvious highlights (and the ones better documented), that’s not to say that they were the only worth mentioning. On the first day, Snoop Dogg had a great performance by himself, before joining Gorillaz on the main stage. Meanwhile, The Black Keys had their Glastonbury debut on the John Peel stage, paying tribute to the legendary radio DJ, telling the crowd “America was never lucky enough to have someone as great as Mr. Peel.” The Flaming Lips were the closing act on the Other Stage, bringing their brand of mass-appealing stage antics with lots of colorful balloons and Wayne Coyne walking inside of his giant plastic hamster ball over the festival crowd. On the second day, The Dead Weather performed their usual killer set on the Pyramid Stage (and you can check out a cool little pre-set interview here).

The third and final day is underway as we write this. We don’t expect quite as many surprises (Julian Casablancas already ruled out a Strokes appearance during his solo set), but Slash is likely to play a solid set, and Stevie Wonder will most certainly close the 40th edition of the festival in style.

With all of this said, the most emotional moment of the final day of Glastonbury 2010 is sure to come from witnessing England’s humiliating elimination from the World Cup.

Photo by Rii Schroer