And so Neil Young wanders into the wide-angled glare of the Pyramid Stage , blinded by the on-air camera lights, having succumbed to what he previously dubbed the “corporate turn-off” of the modern-day, red-buttonable Glastonbury experience. “How you doing at home in your bedrooms?” he grumps, his stand against the Beebification of the event faltered and his set duly broadcast . But, to be honest, he should be thankful for the additional audience.
The Make Everything Pop Again brigade have long argued that Charli XCX should be in this 79-year-old legend’s slot, and you can only concede the point – Young’s Pyramid crowd is as sparse as any headliner’s this writer has seen since Youssou N’ Dour in 1992. As he takes the stage alone, with just a guitar and harmonica and clad in a back-lounge shirt, to strum modestly through 1977’s “Sugar Mountain”, the scene is very much giving mid-afternoon at the Acoustic Stage. He’s met with no little reverence from the faithful though, and as his Chrome Hearts band join him for a refined churn through the heavyweight grunge country of “Be the Rain”, he undoubtedly still sounds like a bill-topping force.
Adding loudhailer yelps through a megatron of a mike stand – numerous effects microphones lined up across a trident of vocal-skewing possibility – he belies any potential accusations of tired old fashion. And the CSNY-style harmonies of “When You Dance, I Can Really Love You” and crunching power rock of �.