The Foo Fighters make a surprise return to Glastonbury

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By Mark Savage, BBC Music Correspondent

1 hour ago

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The Foo Fighters delivered a gritty, raw performance that sounded like a collection of their greatest mini-hits

It was one of Glastonbury’s worst kept secrets, but no one was really ready to believe it until it happened.

Shortly after 18:00 GMT, Dave Grohl strolled onto the Pyramid Stage for a surprise set with the Foo Fighters.

It was the band’s first time at the festival since headlining 2017, and their first full UK concert since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins last year.

“You guys knew we were together the whole time, right?” Grohl laughed. “It’s good to see your faces again.”

In the lead-up to the festival, the band was billed as The ChurnUps, and Pulp and Blur were also rumored to be the mystery guests.

But the Foo Fighters confirmed their appearance in a tweet an hour before their set, after which the already packed Pyramid Stage crowd swelled to even greater numbers.

Rewarded with the greatest collection of mini-hits, the group raced through All My Life, Learn To Fly, The Pretender and Best Of You, as well as outtakes from Metallica’s Enter Sandman, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, and Beastie Boys’ Sabotage.

Grohl explained: “We only have an hour so we have to make sure we fit in all the songs that we can”.

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The band drew a crowd of nearly 100,000 people to the Pyramid Theatre

It’s hard to imagine the feelings he and the rest of the band were having.

When the Foo Fighters last played Glastonbury, Hawkins was behind the set. After his untimely death last year, Grohl’s first public appearance was on the Pyramid Stage, during Paul McCartney’s headline.

The singer never gives less than everything he’s got, but, even by his own standards, he was like a possessed man on a Friday night.

The rocks were harder, and the screams were deeper. He was drenched in sweat for the first minute.

It was refreshing and soulful, especially during a slow-motion version of My Hero that felt like an unspoken homage to Hawkins (even more so than Everlong, which was actually dedicated to him).

Immediately afterward, Grohl brings his daughter Violet to the duet “Where Are You Now,” a requiem for his mother, Virginia, who also passed away last year.

However, the group was more party than the maudlin, with long versions of their songs that felt fresh and relaxed, despite the compressed running time.

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Grohl and guitarist Pat Smear have been playing together for three decades

New drummer Josh Freese, who joined just two months ago, is a perfect fit. An accomplished drummer, he’s less focused than Hawkins, who often takes the mic during the band’s gigs, and his playing is more powerful than his predecessor’s melodic style.

But, as Grohl told the audience, “We wouldn’t be here without him.”

After a very short set, which Paul McCartney and his daughter Stella watched from the wings of the Pyramid Theatre, they walked away with a fit of feedback and promise.

“If you guys come back, we’ll be back… See you next year.”

The band in the bill will be followed by British royal duo Royal Blood, starring the Arctic Monkees who were only confirmed to perform this morning, after frontman Alex Turner spent the week recovering from acute laryngitis.

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Texas drew huge crowds to the Pyramid Theater on Friday afternoon

Friday marks the first full day of music at the festival, which opened its doors to 200,000 revelers on Wednesday morning.

Singer-songwriter Ben Howard opened the proceedings on the festival’s second largest stage – known as the Other Stage – shortly before lunchtime.

The Brit Award winner, who recently returned to music after a couple of minor hits, was visibly touched by the crowd that came to see his set early in the morning, bidding a heartfelt, drawn-out goodbye and a thank you at the end.

“It was really special,” he told BBC News after exiting the stage.

“There’s just something in the air, right? Everyone’s having a great time, early doors. It’s magic.”

On the pyramid stage, Joujouka’s top musicians are the first to step on the bill, playing an ancient style of trance-inducing music from Morocco’s Sarif Mountains.

It was a cute, sweet way to wind down people for their day, before a headline-stage lineup that also includes pop singer Maisie Peters, rapper Stiflon Dawn and Scottish rock group Texas.

The latter drew a huge crowd, who were almost perfect on hits like Say What You Want, I Don’t Want A Lover and Summer Son.

It was the first time the band had performed at the festival since 1999, by which time Charlene Spiteri’s voice had developed a subtle rasp that added a welcome touch of grit to soft-focus rock songs.

Speaking at the end of their set, the star said she was asked several times about adding a Texan to the bill, with the unspoken assumption that they were just there to balance out male acts.

“I can only say that Emily Ives is a huge supporter of female musicians,” she said.

“Not because she ticks a box. She puts us through these stages because she thinks we are [expletive] surprising.”

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Stefflon Don brought a touch of dance to the pyramid stage

Elsewhere around the site, The Lightning Seeds hosted a laid-back solo on The Other Stage, while ADG7 gave an impromptu Korean lesson in the middle of their relentless dance set at West Holts.

The highlight of the afternoon was Carly Rae Jepsen on The Other Stage, climbing stage scaffolding and leaping through the crowd during an exhilarating rendition of her hit song Call Me Maybe.

The Canadian star’s dedicated fanbase featured them in pink cowboy hats, brandishing inflatable swords (it’s a long-running joke that the star receives a sword from the audience at every show).

To make things even more surreal, one section of the audience formed a human pyramid, topped with a man in a Super Mario costume who was swinging his hat while shouting the words to Cut To The Feeling.

“I don’t know what to say,” said the singer. “This is one of those memories that will be etched in my mind forever.”

Image source, James Watkins/BBC

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Call Me Perhaps by Carly Rae Jepsen was one of the biggest lyric hits of Friday afternoon

After Foo Fighters, Friday’s highlights also include WizKid, who will add a touch of Lagos to Pilton with a headline on The Other Stage; and R&B star Kelis, who will haul a truckload of Milkshakes to West Holts.

The festival continues all weekend, with Guns N’ Roses, Lizzo, Lana Del Rey, Loyle Carner, Blondie, and Elton John all set to play.

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