Pet Store Boys evaluate, Glastonbury 2022: A life-affirming, era-straddling set

Pet Shop Boys – Different Stage

★★★★★

Nobody brings the Eighties and 2022 collectively fairly just like the Pet Store Boys. From the second Neil Tennant walks on the stage, inviting us to “a world of reminiscence” because the thumping drums of “Suburbia” start, we all know we’re about to straddle eras.

Chris Lowe, together with a superb stay band, be a part of later. There are Eighties synths, an look from Years and Years (though not singing “It’s A Sin” as predicted) and nostalgic anecdotes about holidays within the Caribbean.

The massive tracks get the Different Stage crowd leaping greater than half the late-night DJs at this competition. A “Dropping My Thoughts”/”You Had been At all times On My Thoughts” remix soars – as does “Love Comes Shortly” and penultimate observe “West Finish Ladies”.

“Alternatives”, for all its high-camp pleasure, is a private spotlight. After the final 5 days, I’m undecided any of us have a lot of the mind, seems, brawn or plenty of cash they point out left… but it nonetheless will get us singing.

Their closing observe, “Being Boring”, is an empowering tribute to the victims of the attack on a gay bar in Oslo, Norway. The phrases “you may all the time depend on a buddy” shut out the set, a becoming end to Glasto 2022. IL

Fontaines DC – Different Stage

★★★★★

“My childhood was small, however I’m gonna be massive!” These had been the phrases promised on Fontaines DC’s debut album. With a gradual construct in the previous few years after which one gigantic swoop of success following their No 1 album, this yr’s Skinty Fia, the band have turn out to be simply that. And on a sizzling Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury, the swarm of twitching followers who buzz across the Different Stage solely serve to reaffirm it.

A real showman, frontman Grian Chatten – carrying his ordinary Pogues T-shirt – throws his arms upwards to summon a cheer. The Dublin-formed group have landed a tricky time slot, clashing with Diana Ross within the Legends Slot over on the Pyramid. It’s testomony to their fearsome fame as a stay act that they’ve attracted such an enormous crowd.

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Now three albums deep, the five-piece have been on the forefront of the latest rock resurgence. They’ve additionally stubbornly resisted categorisation, as a substitute defining themselves by Chatten’s sharp, observational lyrics and their intense, driving instrumentation.

They throw out a number of numbers from their 2019 debut, Dogrel, together with the sonically moodier, but lyrically hopeful tracks of follow-up A Hero’s Demise. Normally an unflinchingly cool collective, they will’t assist however grin as mosh pits broil up in entrance of them. On the cue of “Jackie Down the Line”, a sea of sticky our bodies bash into each other. Fontaines gained’t be dying a dying any time quickly.

McFly – Avalon

★★★☆☆

I do know we’re residing in an age of nostalgia, however even I (a former superfan) am shocked how massive the group for McFly’s first Glastonbury set is.

You’ve obtained to offer it to ‘em. Virtually twenty years for the reason that sort-of-pop, sort-of-emo band burst into the scene with their debut single “5 Colors in Her Hair”, the four-piece have packed out the Avalon stage at Worthy Farm.

Issues kick off, surprisingly, with “Pink”, giving the band an opportunity to flex their stay guitar expertise. Extra rock-heavy deep cuts comply with straight after: “Track for the Radio”, “Lies”. It’s a few of their greatest materials, however you may inform the viewers is impatient for the hits. I feel I is perhaps the one particular person in a 10-metre radius singing alongside.

A minimum of the band are self conscious. “For those who loved that, we’re Mcfly. However when you didn’t take pleasure in that, we’re Busted,” the group are advised, earlier than a rendition of “Clearly” that perks everybody up no finish. A trio of crowd-pleasers follows: “All About You”, “Room on the Third Ground” and the band’s cowl of “Don’t Cease Me Now”.

“Star Lady” will get the largest reception for its eternally juvenile lyric: “There’s nothing on earth that might save us/ Once I fell in love with Uranus.” Something post-2008 falls somewhat flatter.

In brief: an ideal McFly set for me, particularly. Others within the viewers had been left wanting extra.