(Credits: Far Out / Raph PH / BBC Stills)
Glastonbury Festival is as much a national treasure as anyone who has ever played it, and considering that includes David Bowie, Elton John and Kylie Minogue, that’s saying a hell of a lot. However, what you also have to remember is that Glastonbury, or more specifically, Pilton, the festival’s nearest village, is a residential area. People live there, and those people are often not exactly thrilled at the prospect of an entire weekend being kept awake by the rock stars of the day, no matter how good this music might be.
Now, one might assume that these people could at least put up with it for one weekend out of the year. You would assume incorrectly. No, the great British public in their infinite wisdom have an awful lot to say about the world’s greatest music festival, and because of their complaints, a very strict curfew system has been implemented on Glastonbury Festival’s major stages. Everyone has to be finished up by half past midnight sharp, or Michael Eavis starts writing some alarming cheques to the local council.
Of course, not only is he in charge of a music festival with a somewhat anarchistic reputation (at least prior to the fences going up), he’s also dealing with the world’s biggest rock stars. On more than a few occasions, those rock stars have seen fit to break those curfews, mischievous little tykes that they are, and go on past their allotted time. While this does make the festival a little more expensive for Eavis than it already is, it’s difficult to argue that it’s not worth it, especially on the Pyramid Stage.
Case in point, the most high-profile example coming from a man not known for truncating his sets, one Mr Bruce Springsteen. The Boss ended his headline set on the Pyramid Stage at 12.40, ten minutes past the curfew. Eavis himself was so bowled over by the set that he hardly cared, saying in an interview afterwards that “I’m going to pay the Bruce Springsteen [fine] myself. It’s not a lot because it was fantastic. The last nine minutes were spectacular”.
Who else broke the curfew at Glastonbury?
A few years prior to Springsteen’s set, quite possibly the only person in music who could claim to be a bigger deal than him topped the bill at Glastonbury. Sir Paul McCartney’s 2004 headline set is widely regarded as one of the greatest performances in the history of the festival, and it would take a cold-hearted bastard to hold the fact that he went a little overtime against him. Unfortunately, we’re talking about British local councils here.
They held their hands out, Eavis paid the fine, but unlike Springsteen, Macca insisted that he paid Eavis back. King tactics from Ol’ Thumbs Aloft. One can assume that Dave Grohl did the same when his Foo Fighters headlined in 2017. They also went overtime, this time by double the amount that Springsteen and McCartney did, playing 20 minutes past the curfew and encountering the very real risk of having the plug pulled on them.
Perhaps the folks backstage went a little easier on Grohl and the gang, since this was a headline slot years in the making. Two years previously, the Foos had been set to headline until Grohl broke his leg on stage a few weeks before they were due to make the trek to Pilton. Florence and the Machine stepped in and, as most emergency headliners have done in Glastonbury’s past, absolutely smashed it.
So, not only was the Foo Fighters’ headline set one of the most anticipated of the weekend, it was one so emotionally charged that not even the threat of mardy Piltonites was enough to get anyone to pull the plug. Honestly? Thank Christ for that. Yet despite all that, let’s hope no other headliner gets any big ideas as a result. Eavis has been very clear that if enough artists break the curfew, they might well lose their license to run the very festival itself.
However, if kept to a minimum, these moments of rule-breaking can be the most exciting moments of the best weekend in any music lover’s calendar.
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