Days after railing against the festival’s association with the BBC, it seems Neil Young is back on track to headline Glastonbury.
Is this the weirdest way a Glastonbury headliner has ever been announced? Days after Canadian American rocker Neil Young said that he wasn’t playing the UK’s biggest music festival, the 79-year-old has now seemingly confirmed his attendance.
Earlier this week, Young wrote that he’d been in the process of signing up for a headline slot and was “looking forward to playing Glastonbury”. However, the ‘Harvest Moon’ singer then explained that he was “told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in”.
“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being,” Young explained before stating: “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.”
In a remarkable U-turn on that information, Young posted a new update on his website today claiming that: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved.”
“Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there! LOVE Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts,” Young finished.
It’s a brief message that comes as quite the surprise. No headliners for the 2025 Glastonbury Festival had been announced when Young first posted about his refusal to attend. Now, with still no official announcement from Glastonbury, it seems that Young has confirmed he is at least one of the headliners through his blog.
Young previously played Glastonbury in 2009 when he headlined the Pyramid Stage alongside Bruce Springsteen and Blur.
Notably, the BBC took over coverage of Glastonbury in 1997 from Channel 4 as its exclusive broadcast partner. When Young performed in 2009, fans noticed that his performance wasn’t fully broadcast on the BBC as with the other two headliners. This was the result of months of negotiations between the corporation and the rockstar’s management.
“Neil’s management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs as they watched and listened to his performance. They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist,” the BBC responded at the time.
The BBC had declined to comment on Young’s previous post.
Neil Young has confirmed through his website that the Chrome Hearts European tour is still coming in 2025. However, he has also written that the previous tour submitted had to have dates cancelled due to “indoor shows”.
“Indoor shows may be too risky on a health level and we don’t want to have to cancel any shows because of health concerns this summer,” Young wrote.
Tickets to this year’s Glastonbury Festival sold out in just over half an hour. Set for 25-29 June, the full line-up is yet to be revealed, although the festival has already confirmed Rod Stewart will play the Sunday legends slot.
Nile Rodgers has also self-confirmed in a speech that he and his band Chic will also be playing at the Worthy Farm event in June.
Source: Euro News
