Charli xcx, The 1975, Wolf Alice, Pulp, Kneecap, Wet Leg, Alessi Rose, Haim, CMAT and Lorde (phew) all had their spotlight moments at Glastonbury 2025, across stages big and small, tents packed to bursting and crowds ready to scream every word.
But they weren’t the only ones leaving their mark. All across Worthy Farm, artists were busy delivering sets that felt just as essential. Wunderhorse lit the fuse with precision-tooled riffs and colourful smoke. Shygirl turned The Glade into a thumping forest rave. Amyl and the Sniffers tore through their set like they’d been powered by pure sunstroke and spite. The Big Moon offered singalongs, skywriting and dental updates. Skepta reminded everyone exactly why he’s a legend, and The Maccabees brought a tear (and Florence Welch) to the Park Stage.
Glastonbury’s power lies in its sprawl – in the moments between the moments, the magic that doesn’t always come with fireworks but lands just as loud. These sets proved that wherever you planted your feet this year, you were never far from something brilliant.
Best flare-based colour matching
Wunderhorse
Walking on stage to ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ by The Rolling Stones, Wunderhorse lean into their status as arena-fillers-in-waiting. Opener’ Midas’ is sounding absolutely massive – tight and punchy in the way that only a band who have played as relentlessly as Wunderhorse could manage. Rattling through their allotted hour, there’s barely a pause for breath as hit after hit rolls over the leaping crowd. ‘Leader of the Pack’ is met with the first crowd flares of the set, but it’s the very fitting purple smoke which starts pouring from the centre of the seething mass of fans during ‘Purple’ that feels most apt. We see more than a few sweaty fans after the set, each braving the Friday heat to prove their dedication to one of the best guitar bands around.
Best warehouse rave in the forest
Shygirl
While the 1975 are claiming their Glasto-headliner crown over on the main stage, South London’s Shygirl is busy turning the leafy surroundings of The Glade into a sweating, pulsating nightclub. Seamlessly bouncing between contributing live vocals to her own tracks and spinning DJ favourites like The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’, anything goes as long as it’s danceable. It’s got the intimacy of a Boiler Room set, and the crowd of an illegal warehouse rave – most of the people there seem to be committed Shygirl aficionados, but there are more people in the field by the end of the set than there are at the beginning, which is pretty good going for a headline-clashing slot.
Best nautical-themed stage outfit
Amyl & The Sniffers
In 30-degree heat, every mosh pit can be taken as a sign of extreme dedication to a band. By the end of their first song, Amyl and The Sniffers have caused upwards of five. Singer Amy Taylor is belting out snotty punk bangers like ‘Balaclava Lover Boogie’ while strutting around in a bikini covered in starfish. Bassist Gus Romer looks like he’s about 5 seconds away from some of the worst sunburn of his life, while guitarist Declan Mehrtens is pumping out the kind of riffs you don’t normally hear outside of a stadium. It’s not all fist-in-the-face brashness, though. ‘Tiny Bikini’ is the kind of sleazed-up anthem we need more of in this world, if only so we can hear the 6music dads to our left belt out lyrics about their ‘tiny-eeny-weeny bikini’.
Between songs, there’s plenty going on, too. Amy gives her impassioned and full-throated support for the people of Palestine, calling out the politicians on all sides who seem more interested in prosecuting bands for what they say on stage than they do in actually sorting anything out. It’s off-the-cuff, but it hits the mark with more force than even the loudest song in their back catalogue.
Best denyal hygiene
The Big Moon
“Last night I flossed, you should see my gums!” not an advert you’d see at the dentist’s, but instead the words of The Big Moon’s Juliette Jackson explaining how she’s prepared for the band’s Glasto set. Away from the televised stages, they’ve drawn a big crowd to their set at the Avalon tent, filling it out in the dappled evening sunshine. Singalongs abound, and the sheer euphoria of the set does wonders for everyone’s aching Sunday bodies. The cherry on the cake? As they play, a plane skywrites a heart above the festival site. Anonymous pilot, we couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
Best returning 00s indie band
The Maccabees
If there was one Glastonbury set which was never going to disappoint, it was indie legends The Maccabees headlining the Park Stage. Sunday night, comeback tour, gold-plated bangers. What’s not to love? The crowd are singing every word, doing swimming-related dance moves to ‘Latchmere’ and swaying along to ‘Toothpaste Kisses’. Most gratifying is just how vital the band feel, sidestepping cheesy nostalgia or feelings of cashing in by their genuine and heartfelt joy at being up on stage and together again.
To make things even more special, ‘Love You Better’ sees the band joined by Florence Welch in one of the most perfectly matched guest appearances we’ve ever seen. A rendition of ‘Dog Days Are Over’ follows, with Florence asking, “Do we have any Maccabees superfans in the audience? Because you definitely have one on stage.” It’s enough to bring a tear to even this jaded journalist’s eye. One last hurrah before they exit stage right, and it is, of course, ‘Pelican’. Sounding absolutely biblical, there are dozens of people up on shoulders throughout, all euphorically grinning at the perfect ending to Glastonbury 2025. Even if there weren’t any superfans in the audience when Florence asked, there’s a whole crowd of them now.
Best last-minute replacement set
Skepta
With his MAINS clothing line and his Mas Tiempo DJ project, Skepta has been absent from the grime narrative in the last year or two, sporadically returning to grime for a guest verse or his curated Big Smoke festival in South London. After Deftones are forced to drop out of their Saturday night slot, though, it’s announced that he’ll be gracing Glastonbury with a 30-minute impromptu performance – grime, not djing. Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a photo of himself during his famous 2009 Halloween cypher, Skepta seems to be here to remind everyone that he’s still the biggest name in grime.
What follows is an absolutely relentless half-hour of greatest hits, skipping from the new track his verse on Sammi Virji’s ‘Cops and Robbers’ to grime-renaissance classic ‘That’s Not Me’ with barely a pause for breath. By the time he’s broken out ‘Shutdown’ you can almost hear the ground shake with the amount of people leaping around, gun fingers in the air. Straight after Skepta is Charli XCX, with the front row made up of Brat megafans rather than grime fanatics. No matter, they’re singing along too – proof, if any were needed, that Skepta is an absolutely generational talent. All we can do now is hope that they bring him back in 2027 for the full-length set he deserves.
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