Images: BBC / Instagram/lindabxx

Glastonbury 2016 Recap: The Good, The Bad & The Muddy

Another year, another Glastonbury Festival full of ups, downs and mud as far as the eye can see. Here are some of the good-est, bad-est and muddiest moments from Glastonbury 2016.

Good: Tame Impala Reppin’ Oz With A Rainbow

Tame Impala led the Aussie contingent during this year’s Glastonbury shenanigans, and their set featured the rise of a beautiful English rainbow, a performance of Mark Ronson’s Daffodils and (of course) some Tame Impala classics.

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Bad: The Last Shadow Puppets’ Daggy Dance Moves During Tame Impala’s Set

Alex Turner and Miles Kane were captured daggily dancing along to Tame Impala while the Aussie band performed the Currents album cut The Less I Know The Better

…but The Last Shadow Puppets boys made it up to everyone by performing a cover of David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream, from the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Good: The GlastonBowie Tributes

A bunch of hardcore David Bowie fans organised their own tribute to the late musician at Glastonbury this year, naming it GlastonBowie and proceeding to belt out a stack of the singer’s most famous songs, including Rebel Rebel, Space Oddity and Life On Mars.



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Bad: Being Stuck In Your Car For Almost 24 Hours

Thousands of Glastonbury-goers had the unfortunate experience of being held up in their cars for hours on end after heavy rain and a four-car pile-up led to some pretty crazy traffic jams near the festival site.

As The Standard reports, punters were stuck in their vehicles for up to 21 hours, and waited in a long queue near site entrance following the car crash.

What’s more, bad conditions at the rain-soaked festival site meant that some drivers were eventually unable to use the car parks. In all, it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.



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Good: James Blake Jams With Bon Iver & Vince Staples

James Blake was joined by two very special guests during his Glastonbury set, with Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon and rapper Vince Staples joining the producer on stage during his performance. Blake was joined by Vernon for I Need a Forest Fire, their collaborative track from from Blake’s latest album The Colour In Anything

…while Staples joined Blake for a performance of Timeless, from the same album. Behold:

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Good: Adele’s Swearing Skillz

Adele swore up a storm during her Glastonbury headline set, reportedly dropping profanities a total of 33 times, which is around one profanity every two-and-a-half minutes.

Adele used her performance on the Pyramid stage to tell fans, “Do you know how rock and roll I am? Not very, but the BBC had to give a warning about my potty mouth before I went on. I bet Muse didn’t get that.”

Damn straight they didn’t. Watch Adele perform Someone Like You to close her expletive-laden Glastonbury set, below.

Good: Coldplay Close Glastonbury With Bee Gees Cover & Viola Beach Tribute

Coldplay used the closing slot of Glastonbury 2016 to perform two Bee Gees covers with the band’s Barry Gibb, who helped out on To Love Somebody and what Chris Martin called “the greatest song of all time”, Stayin’ Alive.

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It was a steaming hot set all round…

…and it also saw Coldplay honour the memory of English indie rockers Viola Beach, who were tragically killed in a car crash in Sweden in March this year.

“We’re gonna create Viola Beach’s alternate future for them, and let them headline Glastonbury for a song,” Martin told the crowd, before Coldplay covered the group’s song Boys That Sing. Catch footage of the tribute right here.

The Muddy

This year’s Glastonbury was officially the muddiest in the festival’s 46-year history, with some hungry knee-deep mud pits literally swallowing up punters’ wellington boots.

As The Guardian reports, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis says the mess was partly due to torrential ran which hit the festival site in the weeks before gates opened, but it didn’t dampened the spirits of festival-goers.

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Eavis says all the woodchip in the south of England was used at Glastonbury this year, in an attempt to control the muddy mess. “I’ve never seen mud like it in the whole life. This is worse than 1997,” he says, referring to the previously crowned ‘year of the mud’. “In all 46 years, it hasn’t been as bad as this.”

Here’s to another year of music, mud and mischief at Glastonbury. Bring on 2017.

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