There’s been a lot of talk this week about how un-secret the Glastonbury secret sets have become, so I was surprised to find that, when I told some friends that I was on my way to go see Haim’s “TBA” slot on the Park stage, none of them were aware that the show was occurring. And while a healthy, roaring crowd has assembled for Haim’s set, which they posted about on Instagram an hour before their stage time, it doesn’t necessarily feel like there is the same mania around Haim’s surprise appearance as there was around other artists such as Lorde, Pulp and Lewis Capaldi.
Perhaps that’s because, in their 13 years as a band, Haim have basically become part of the furniture at Worthy Farm: they played in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2022, and also performed on the festival’s Covid-era live stream. There is a sense, perhaps, that the chance to see Pulp on the Pyramid stage for the first time in 30 years or Lorde return from a performing hiatus is a bigger deal than rock’s most affable sisters.
