Why Glastonbury festival isn’t about headliners
Glastonbury festival has revealed its 2025 lineup, featuring Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Neil Young, Olivia Rodrigo, The Prodigy and many more. Some fans are complaining that there’s no superstar headliner after Rihanna and Madonna have been rumoured to perform – but in this article, Adam Bloodworth explains why Glastonbury and all music festivals are about so much more than the music
Research tells us that many of us in densely-populated cities are lonely. For a period of my life, I feared Saturdays, spending half the week drumming up a plan so I wasn’t alone, but often I was anyway. This shouldn’t happen in your twenties, but it does.
Festivals offer an escape, a weekend in a field filled with likeminded people who have, over the years, become some of my best friends.
There’s Ash, who I got chatting to backstage at the Isle of Wight festival. He was working as a liaison between artists at the festival and the charity War Child. Anthony Kiedis popped over for a chat, and later Ash and I bonded over the miraculousness of festivals and the weirdness of the situations they can dump you in.
At Lee Fest, I met Jenny, who ran a festival website like I do (I still run Culture Or Trash) – we still screenshot each other’s articles, cheering each other on as we progress in our careers.
I barked at James for raiding my tent – he thought I’d abandoned it – on a dreary Monday morning. Now he’s as close to me as the school mates I’ve known since I was 11.
I don’t think shouting at would-be burglars in London would lead to life-long friendship, but there’s a different set of rules at a festival, the knowledge that you’re already bonded by the shared experience. You both made it here, to a field in a county you probably visited as a child but hadn’t given a second thought to since.
There’s also a shared energy – at festivals like Glastonbury you speak to people you wouldn’t ordinarily speak to, exchanging personal conversations that would otherwise seem inappropriate for three o’clock on a Friday afternoon. It’s miraculous how camping in a field can chase away stress and anxiety, even if only for a moment.
The people I meet at festivals offer an alternative to going-stale university relationships or school friendships I relied on. In a world with an endless conveyor belt of opportunities for newness – another swipe, another MeetUp group – festival friends are a constant, held forever in the prism of the moment. These seemingly transient weekends in muddy fields have provided me with some of my most lasting connections.
Here’s hoping I make another lifer this weekend at Glastonbury.