Glastonbury 2025 live: Weather, lineup, BBC schedule, map and latest updates – UK Times

Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis has offered her stance on the ongoing debate about Irish trio Kneecap’s scheduled performance at Glastonbury Festival this week.

A 40-minute blast of pure, undiluted zeitgeist. A gigantic crowd stretching away over hill and vale. A generation’s prejudices and expectations overturned like a flick of dust off the shoulder. A setlist chiselled into quicksilver by Zeus and carried to the stage by a choir of winged roadies. Or maybe just the Dalai Lama, blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

These are just a few of the reasons why a gig playing out on the hallowed grounds of Worthy Farm might go down in Glastonbury folklore – one of those iconic moments that don’t just make the weekend, but mark out the evolution of pop culture. Glastonbury is where musical history is made and cultural colossi are crowned on a near-annual basis.

Some bands can take the hit of losing money to perform, but everyone else, from bookers to production staff to acts being asked to work bar shifts, is being short-changed, writes Oliver Keens, and it threatens to taint the reputation of a national institution.

Glastonbury Festival is taking place this week and, as usual, a number of new artists have been added to the main stages.

In a prime slot on Saturday at 6.15pm on the Pyramid Stage, following a set by John Fogerty and arriving before RAYE and headliner Neil Young, is an act called Patchwork.

Though the performance is tightly drilled – even the confetti deployment seems studied – passion rings through in moments of cheeky theatricality, Jazz Monroe said of Dua Lipa’s 2024 headline show:

From feeding chips by foot to magicians getting into VIP, nothing that happens at Glastonbury is normal. Musicians and festival-goers tell us their strangest moments…

The gates to Glastonbury Festival have opened for the 2025 celebration of performing arts and music.

Organiser Emily Eavis and her father, co-founder Sir Michael Eavis, could be seen counting down and cheering as the festival officially opened while a brass band played.

Campers arriving at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset can expect a mixed bag of sunshine and rain throughout the week, “with sunny spells and scattered showers expected throughout the day” on Wednesday, according to forecasters.

This year’s event will see headline performances from British rock/pop band The 1975, veteran singer Neil Young and his band the Chrome Hearts, and US pop star Olivia Rodrigo.

Performing in the coveted Sunday tea-time legends slot this year is Sir Rod Stewart, who previously said he will be joined by his former Faces band member Ronnie Wood, as well as some other guests.

His performance is to come after the Maggie May singer postponed a string of concerts in the US, due to take place this month, while he recovered from flu.

Speaking to BBC News about the performance, he said: “I just wish they wouldn’t call it the tea-time slot.

“That sounds like pipe and slippers, doesn’t it?”

He previously said he had persuaded organisers to secure him an hour-and-a-half slot after initially being offered 75 minutes.

“Usually I do well over two hours, so there’s still a load of songs we won’t be able to do,” he said.

“But we’ve been working at it. I’m not gonna make any announcements between songs. I’ll do one number, shout ‘next’, and go straight into the next one.

“I’m going to get in as many songs as I can.”

Reporting by Press Association