At Glastonbury Festival’s Apocalypse Museum, an art installation slash testament to the world’s current woes, images of Gaza’s destruction are broadcast on TV sets, while an enormous sign transforms the Shell oil logo into the word “hell”. Over on the Pyramid Stage, meanwhile, Matty Healy of The 1975 used his set to proclaim the value of keeping politically schtum. “You can go out into the world and there’s loads of politics everywhere,” he said. “We don’t need more politics. We need more love and friendship.” In the crowd, the moment was met by light whoops. Many seemed to wince.
This is the strange paradox of Glastonbury Festival, where anger, protest and political action sit geographically parallel to gak, hedonism and the allure of doing and thinking absolutely nothing. And then there’s Kneecap, an Irish hip-hop trio who’ve come to exemplify this very split (or is it a contradiction?), their presence at this year’s Glastonbury – in the face of mounting criticism from across the political spectrum – an unexpected referendum on the festival’s soul. That they haven’t been banned from performing is proof that there’s still life in this old girl yet.
