Pyramid stage
The British singer’s Friday night set underlines her claim to be one of the world’s great current pop stars, with a cast-iron hit always around the corner

According to the most intriguing bit of her between-song chat, Dua Lipa’s headlining Glastonbury slot came about as a result of an act of childhood manifesting. The singer claims she wrote out her desire to top the bill on the Pyramid stage in detail, up to and including what night said event should take place on: a Friday, so she “could spend the rest of the weekend partying”. And now here we are: watching a slightly peculiar video of Dua Lipa signing her name and writing the words “GLASTO 24” on a pane of glass, then licking it.

Whether you buy the stuff about manifesting or not, Dua Lipa has clearly spent a lot of time carefully studying and absorbing how a successful Glastonbury headline set works, and putting what she’s gleaned to good use. The announcement of her appearance led to a degree of consternation, particularly after her most recent album, Radical Optimism, failed to replicate the kind of world-beating success afforded its predecessor, the lockdown smash Future Nostalgia. But she already has a stockpile of inescapable hits, from New Rules to her Elton John collaboration Cold Heart, which is half the battle won. And furthermore she throws everything she has at her set in order to lend it a sense of event, rather than it being simply another pop show transposed to a field in Somerset, another stop-off on a world tour that happens to be on a farm.

Serbian performance artist tells Pyramid stage crowd to confront cyclical violence in thousands-strong ‘collaboration’

It’s been home to some of the UK’s loudest singalongs, most propulsive rap lyrics and most cacophonous guitar solos. But the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury experienced something almost unprecedented in its history on Friday: total silence.

The Serbian artist Marina Abramović, invited by festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis, led the audience in what she called a “collaboration” called Seven Minutes of Collective Silence, to “see how we can feel positive energy in the entire universe” and act as a bulwark against the horrors of war and violence.

South Korean 13-piece boyband take to Pyramid stage for ‘Glasteen’ in front of fanbase often overlooked by western festivals

When they bought their Glastonbury tickets last year, Leah Townsend and Taz Delarosa never expected their favourite K-pop band to end up in the lineup. “I cried so much when we found out,” said Delarosa, 26. “I think this is going to be massive for them.”

“I was over the moon,” added Townsend, 26. “It was completely unexpected – we didn’t think it was going to happen.”

The first day is reaching its climax – join us as we review the best sets and bop to Pyramid stage headliner Dua Lipa

Park, 12.25pm

Just after Lynx at Park, Bishi – wearing a gold kaftan and a white feathery headdress – performs Yoko Ono’s Voice Peace for Soprano before leading the crowd in a primal scream for peace, power and whatever you fancy, really. (If collectivism isn’t your thing, she suggests it could be a warmup for Dua Lipa later on the Pyramid stage.)

Serbian artist hopes Friday’s ‘public intervention’ will make festival goers reflect on the current state of the world

Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage has played host to some of the loudest rock bands in the world and mass sing-alongs with thousands of participants, but on Friday the artist Marina Abramović will step out and ask the crowd to do something different: remain silent for seven minutes.

“I am terrified,” said Abramović, whose performance pieces have made her one of the most famous artists in the world. “I don’t know any visual artists who have done something like this in front of 175,000 to 200,000 people. The largest audience I ever had was 6,000 people in a stadium and I was thinking ‘wow’, but this is really beyond anything I’ve done.”

The London five-piece are due to have this year’s Glastonbury moment – the cherry on four years of hard work. But from accusations about their authenticity to the speed of their rise, they say success has been ‘disturbing’

The annual scramble for Glastonbury tickets is a rite of passage – and Georgia Davies is used to disappointment. “I’d been trying to get tickets for years,” she says. “It never worked.” But last year, she and her friends found a workaround. “The trick is to play it,” she says with a grin.

Davies plays bass in Britain’s most talked-about young band, the Last Dinner Party (TLDP). The baroque-pop five-piece have had a staggering rise since forming in the pandemic, fuelled by their maximalist, nihilistic debut single, Nothing Matters, released in April 2023. Two months later, they played Glastonbury’s Woodsies stage, clocking off just after noon to enjoy the rest of the festival. It was “the best feeling ever”, says the rhythm guitarist, Lizzie Mayland: the thrill of performing, plus the freedom of being a punter.

With the BBC livestreaming globally for the first time, and an especially rich lineup of Black artists, 2024’s festival champions a broad remit – but plays it safe with Coldplay

Whether seen as too male, too white, too traditional or not traditional enough, complaints about the Glastonbury lineup have become something of a national pastime. But as it opens its gates for 2024’s edition, the festival can lay claim to one of the most diverse and globe-straddling bills in the British festival calendar this year.

For the first time there are two women among the three Pyramid stage headliners. On Friday Dua Lipa is expected to bring lavish production and thrilling choreography to her relatively small but hits-packed discography, making her the most dance-focused headliner since Basement Jaxx in 2005. On Sunday the American singer SZA becomes the first Black woman, and first R&B artist, to headline the Pyramid since Beyoncé in 2011. The Sunday teatime “legend” slot will also be held by a woman: Shania Twain.

The multi-talented musicians were held back in their home country where even certain instruments were off limits – but they’re ready to take centre stage at Worthy Farm

Walking into an industrial estate in Peckham, I can hear impassioned cries coming out of a rehearsal space located here. Soaring vocals are punctuated by the gentle strum of a thumb piano along with bells that are strapped to the shaking ankles of Pendo and Leah Zawose, who make up the Zawose Queens. It’s their first time playing this music outside Tanzania – and if that wasn’t enough of a culture shock, some of their first-ever UK gigs will be a trio of sets at Glastonbury this weekend.

“We don’t really have any idea about Glastonbury or what it will be like,” says Pendo, via Aziza Ongala who is the band’s manager and acting as a translator. “But I’m told it’s a big deal. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to grasp how big of an experience it is until we actually do it but we’re very excited.”

From A-list pop names such as SZA and Dua Lipa to rising stars and leftfield oddities, here’s who to try and catch at this year’s festival

There have been the usual Facebook-comment grumbles about how there’s too much bloody pop, but at the very top of Glastonbury’s Pyramid this year is a formidable trio: high-production dance from Dua Lipa (Fri, 22.00), quintessential flag-waving whoa-oh-oh-alongs from Coldplay (Sat, 21.45) and a new flavour for a Pyramid headliner: atmospheric, emotionally intelligent R&B from SZA (Sun, 21.30). Elsewhere, there are ample party-starters in Jessie Ware (West Holts, Sat, 22.15), Jamie xx (Woodsies, Fri, 22.30) teasing his long-awaited new album, LCD Soundsystem (Pyramid stage, Fri, 19.45) and Confidence Man (Other stage, Fri, 15.45). PJ Harvey (Pyramid stage, Fri, 18.00), Little Simz (Pyramid stage, Sat, 19.45), Brittany Howard (West Holts, Sun, 18.30), Corinne Bailey Rae (West Holts, Sat, 16.00) and Kim Gordon (Woodsies, Sun, 18.30) offer various shades of provocation; and Danny Brown (West Holts, Fri, 18.30) and the National (Other stage, Sun, 21.45) essay middle age from fairly polarised perspectives. And after the reformed, original Sugababes (West Holts, Fri, 16.55) packed the Avalon field to bursting in 2022, it seems as though Avril Lavigne (Other stage, Sun, 18.00) will be this year’s hottest nostalgia ticket for the festival’s millennial core. Laura Snapes