Best Glastonbury 2024 Moments: 10 Memorable Highlights From This Year’s Festival

7: Norman Cook reunites with Paul Heaton

In the 80s, long before he found fame as a DJ, Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) served as the bassist in indie-pop band The Housemartins, fronted by Paul Heaton. After the band broke up, Heaton went on to form The Beautiful South and Cook swapped his bass guitar for turntables, and the pair seemed to go their own separate ways.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when, on Friday evening, halfway through Paul Heaton’s solo set on the Pyramid Stage, Norman Cook joined his former bandmate on stage to perform The Housemartins’ biggest hit, Happy Hour, which peaked at No.3 in the UK back in 1986. A glorious display of reconciliation, it will certainly go down as one of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments.

6: Bombay Bicycle Club perform Tender with Blur’s Damon Albarn

Performing on the Other Stage on Friday, indie-rock band Bombay Bicycle Club pulled off one of the biggest surprises of the weekend when Blur and Gorillaz songwriter Damon Albarn turned up to play a couple of songs with them. Given that Albarn made a guest appearance on Bombay Bicycle Club’s recent album, My Big Day, he was already on friendly terms with the band, which gave frontman Jack Steadman the courage to pop the question. “We just kind of asked, and he was really up for it,” Steadman told Sky News. “You don’t ask, you don’t get.”

Not only did Albarn play on Heaven, a song he co-wrote with Steadman for Bombay Bicycle Club’s latest record, but he also sang a rendition of Blur’s 1999 single Tender, treating the Glastonbury audience to an “Oh, my baby” singalong that elevated the set to epic heights. Reasserting his indie cred, Albarn’s guest appearance proves that he will always go down a storm at Worthy Farm.

5: Shania Twain reminds us why she’s still the one

As the “Queen Of Country Pop,” Shania Twain stepped onto the Pyramid Stage for Sunday’s Legends slot and was instantly greeted with cheers by the Glastonbury crowd. Capping off her career comeback with famous hits such as You’re Still the One and That Don’t Impress Me Much, Twain performed to a sea of cowboy hats and hobby horses, and she was visibly overcome by the adulation she received. “I’m feeling frickin’ amazing,” she shouted. “You guys are country music fanatics!”

It’s easy to understand why the experience was so emotional for Twain. In 2003, she contracted Lyme disease and lost her singing voice due to dysphonia, eventually resorting to open-throat surgery in 2018 to fix her vocal cords. Now back making music again, Twain may sound a little huskier than in her late-90s heyday, but she’s still got bundles of attitude and put on a hell of a show that immediately became one of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments. Sashaying her way through the triumphant finale of Man! I Feel Like A Woman!, she definitely seized her moment in the fields, reminding us all why she’s still the one.

4: Dua Lipa duets with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker

Summoning radical optimism with pop hits galore, Dua Lipa was on irrepressible form throughout her Friday-night headliner spot on the Pyramid Stage. Keen to prove that she was capable of anything, the Houdini hitmaker stunned the crowd by speaking about her love of the Australian psych-rock outfit Tame Impala, before welcoming their singer, Kevin Parker, onto the stage to sing a duet with her. As unexpected team-ups go, it was a thrilling move that made for one of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments.

Unsurprisingly, it paid off spectacularly. Together, Lipa and Parker sang a cover of Tame Impala’s most famous single, The Less I Know The Better, bringing a touch of funktronica and neo-psychedelia to the IDGAF queen’s dance-pop masterclass. Since Parker co-wrote many of the songs on Dua Lipa’s latest album, it was hardly a surprise to discover that she was a Tame Impala fan, but to use her platform to introduce her pop fanbase to an indie artist with a cult following proves just how deep her well of inspirations runs.

3: LCD Soundsystem pay homage to Kraftwerk and Daft Punk

Taking Glastonbury revellers on a dance-punk trip down memory lane, LCD Soundsystem delivered what was easily one of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments then they took to the Pyramid Stage on Friday night. Appearing just before Dua Lipa, James Murphy’s group treated the audience to an electro-pop treatise that wasn’t just packed with hits, but also doubled as a history lesson exploring the roots of electronic music. Cleverly interpolating Kraftwerk’s Computer Love into their 2010 single I Can Change, as well as smuggling Daft Punk’s Robot Rock into their hipster anthem Losing My Edge, the whole performance was a deep dive down an EDM rabbit hole.

With Murphy’s acerbic lyrical wit sharper than ever, LCD Soundsystem ran through hits such as Tribulations, Someone Great and Dance Yrself Clean, proving that the on-again, off-again group are true masters of their craft. Mixing punky attitude with floor-thumping beats that invade the body and soul, Murphy and his bandmates created a cultural moment that was every bit as potent as their Madison Square Garden “farewell show” ten years ago. Rounding off their set with a riotous run through All My Friends, LCD Soundsystem made us all feel lucky they called off their hiatus to settle unfinished business.

2: Banksy interrupts IDLES’ set with a refugee boat stunt

Unleashing passionate howls of rage, post-punk band IDLES were Friday-night headliners, bringing lashings of political invective and seething ire to Glastonbury’s Other Stage. As the band ran through the song Danny Nedelko, a pro-immigrant anthem and a rebuttal of right-wing rhetoric, a rubber dinghy with dummy migrants slowly made its way across the crowd. At first, the audience thought the band themselves were behind the stunt, but it was later revealed to be the work of the anarchic street artist Banksy.

This wasn’t the first time that Banksy has been involved with Glastonbury; in 2019, the artist designed a Union Jack stab-proof vest for Stormzy. This time, however, he turned his sights on the rubber dinghies that refugees use to cross the English Channel, deploying the lifeboat during IDLES’ set to critique the UK government’s anti-migrant policy. The band later admitted they had no idea that Banksy was planning the stunt, but the firebrand’s satirical antics made for one of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments.

1: Coldplay go back to the future with Michael J Fox

Making history by headlining Glastonbury for a record fifth time, Coldplay took to the Pyramid Stage on Saturday night and played in front of a 100,000-strong crowd with almost evangelical zeal. Delivering a spirited celebration of humankind, Chris Martin frequently brought smiles as well as tears to people’s faces. The most poignant moment in the group’s set came when Back To The Future actor Michael J Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, was wheeled on stage with a guitar to join the band in their encore, with Martin praising Fox as “our hero forever and one of the most amazing people on Earth”.

Throughout the group’s set, hits such as Higher Power, Adventure Of A Lifetime and My Universe acted as vessels for messages of love and togetherness, all played to a crowd comprised of people of every age, race and gender. Even more admirably, Coldplay also took bold risks, such as embarking on the afro-jazz freakout of Arabesque with Femi Kuti, debuting a brand-new hip-hop crossover song with Little Simz and inviting Laura Mvula to sing a rendition of Violet Hill. By the time Chris Martin called upon the crowd to send out peace-loving vibes across the world, it was clear Coldplay had done more than enough to earn a spot at the top of the best Glastonbury 2024 moments.

Check out the best Glastonbury Festival performances of all time.