Though the main Pyramid Stage at this summer’s Glastonbury festival may resemble your parents’ in-car CD selection — Muse on Friday, i-D cover star Adele on Saturday, and Coldplay closing things off on Sunday — a longer line up has been revealed this morning with a much more diverse set of artists spanning genres from grime to experimental electro.
It looks likely that Skepta will headline a stage, with his name appearing in the big-font main column on the poster under PJ Harvey, LCD Soundsystem, Foals, Beck, and the Pyramid stage headliners. Stormzy, Little Simz, Vince Staples and Lady Leshurr are also on the bill.
As festival head Emily Eavis told i-D earlier this month, with a guarantee of selling out tickets, Glastonbury has no reason not to champion female artists. Women are better represented on this line up than at many festivals. “We have to push for it,” Eavis said, adding “I mean we should be pushing for it the hardest, you know? At Glastonbury there are so many women that are involved in the management of this festival. And that goes all the way back to the very start, from my mom to Arabella Churchill to all these women through the history of Glastonbury that kind of made it what it is. So it’s really important for us to be at the forefront of booking women, addressing it so it’s completely equal.”
The headliner column doesn’t fare so well in the ‘delete the men and what’s left’ test — though Grimes, Annie Mac and Ronnie Spector (of the Ronettes) join Adele and PJ Harvey, as well as the mixed-gender Syrian National Orchestra. Savages, Santigold, Roisin Murphy, Bat For Lashes, Daughter, Nao, AlunaGeorge, Hinds, Chvrches, Wolf Alice, and Låpsley are among the 27 female or female-fronted acts on the 74 act list — it’s not bad, but at still only 36% there is definitely room for improvement.
