Thousands of festival-goers are beginning to enjoy a weekend-long spectacle of music, sunshine and culture at Glastonbury where Sir Elton John, Lizzo and Guns N’ Roses are to perform.
More than 200,000 will be at Worthy Farm in Somerset for the biggest music festival in the world. Despite the cost-of-living crisis, the tickets, which cost at least £335 per person, sold out within minutes months ago.
The gates officially opened on Wednesday but the main acts were beginning on Friday. Festival-goers were set to be spared the mud baths of previous years as bright weather is forecast almost all weekend.
However, the sunshine over the sea of tents was not matched by the increasingly dark economic clouds gathering across Britain.
Shock figures on Wednesday showed inflation refusing to fall, remaining entrenched at 8.7 per cent in May.
Even more alarmingly core inflation, which excludes more volatile elements such as food and energy prices, rose again to 7.1 per cent, the highest level since March 1992.
Core inflation is one of the key metrics closely watched by the Bank of England. Its Monetary Policy Committee responded just over 24 hours later with a “jumbo” interest rate hike of 0.5 percentage points from 4.5 to five per cent.
The move will deepen the economic challenges for hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing their annual mortgage bill rising by thousands of pounds this year or next when they have to renew their home loans.
Family budgets are also being further squeezed by food inflation, still at an extraordinarily high 18.4 per cent in May, despite coming down from 19.1 per cent in April.
At Glastonbury, festival-goers will also have to dig deep amid complaints about the cost of food and drink — including £8 for a tray of chips.
Arctic Monkeys are still billed as tonight’s headliners on the Pyramid Stage — even though their performance was thrown into doubt after front man Alex Turner fell ill with acute laryngitis. The band was forced to cancel a gig in Dublin on Wednesday after Turner was advised to rest.
Tour buses with the Arctic Monkeys’ logo were spotted on the site this morning and Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis told the BBC that Turner would be fit enough to perform.
“He’s recovering, I’m sure we’re going to be all right. We’ve got a couple of back-up plans if not,” she added. “We have always got back-up plans for everything.”
A mystery band named The Churnups, who have no social media footprint or music on streaming services, was also listed to play on the stage on Friday. Many have speculated that they are actually the Foo Fighters after frontman Dave Grohl talked about “churning up” emotions as the band tours without late drummer Taylor Hawkins for the first time.
Quizzed about the rumours, Eavis said: “I wouldn’t like to give anything away. You’ve got to allow the surprise to happen. It’s all about the surprise.” Temperatures today and tomorrow were predicted to hit 24C, with Sunday reaching 26C.
According to the Met office, there is a 40 per cent chance of rain on Sunday evening when 76-year-old Sir Elton will close the festival on the Pyramid Stage. His first ever appearance at Glastonbury is being billed as the final UK show of his mammoth farewell tour.
Four secret guests are set to join him on stage amid reports that one could be Rocketman actor Taron Egerton.
Sir Elton’s partner, David Furnish, said that he was “sworn to secrecy”, adding: “It’s people he just thought, ‘I’d really like to do something with these artists’. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Highlights from the festival will be broadcast across the BBC for those looking for some light relief from the week’s economic gloom.
Glastonbury co-founder Michael Eavis, 87, yesterday performed on the Park Stage in what his daughter Emily described as a “lovely moment” to “kick-off the festival”.
He was wheeled onstage in an office chair to perform a collection of classics as he recovers from an operation on his leg.
