And so Neil Young wanders into the wide-angled glare of the Pyramid Stage, blinded by the on-air camera lights, having succumbed to what he previously dubbed the “corporate turn-off” of the modern-day, red-buttonable Glastonbury experience. “How you doing at home in your bedrooms?” he grumps, his stand against the Beebification of the event faltered and his set duly broadcast. But, to be honest, he should be thankful for the additional audience. The Make Everything Pop Again brigade have long argued that Charli XCX should be in this 79-year-old legend’s slot, and you can only concede the point – Young’s Pyramid crowd is as sparse as any headliner’s this writer has seen since Youssou N’ Dour in 1992. As he takes the stage alone, with just a guitar and harmonica and clad in a back-lounge shirt, to strum modestly through 1977’s “Sugar Mountain”, the scene is very much giving mid-afternoon at the Acoustic Stage.
He’s met with no little reverence from the faithful though, and as his Chrome Hearts band join him for a refined churn through the heavyweight grunge country of “Be the Rain”, he undoubtedly still sounds like a bill-topping force. Adding loudhailer yelps through a megatron of a mike stand – numerous effects microphones lined up across a trident of vocal-skewing possibility – he belies any potential accusations of tired old fashion. And the CSNY-style harmonies of “When You Dance, I Can Really Love You” and crunching power rock of “Cinnamon Girl” prove him as capable of thundering through a mighty catalogue as any of Glastonbury’s regular rock greats.
