Glastonbury Festival 2017 - Rumours and Secret Gigs

Meg White & Jack White, of the White Stripes, play live at the Glastonbury Festival, 2002. © Jill Furmanovsky

Festival season kicks off this weekend with the mother of them all, the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset which is five days of music, drinking, good times, hazy memories, new friends and often, mud. Hopefully the weather will hold out though. 

Along with just the general vibe of the place, the ability to just pitch up and be able to party pretty much anywhere. Be it the Pyramid stage, your tent, the Healing Field, or outside a burrito stall randomly playing Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere”—there’s also the sheer diversity of music on offer.

Mumford and Sons performing at Glastonbury 2013. © Ty Johnson

This year the lineup across the multitude of stages includes acts like The Orb, Sasha and Digweed, along with Kris Kristofferson, Radiohead, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, The xx, Jamie Cullum, Lorde, Chic, Liam Gallagher, Dizzie Rascal, and Solange. Previous years have seen Florence and the Machine, Jeff Buckley, The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Mumford and Sons, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, the White Stripes, and so many more.

But, a lot of the fun when it comes to the music at Glastonbury are the rumours. The surprise gigs, secret sets and gaps in the schedule that need to be filled. The whispers that run around the festival saying that, hey, psst, Daft Punk are playing the Lost Vagueness fields at 1am. And there are still a fair few TBA slots on the Glastonbury line-up this year, many are the smaller stages but several are prime time slots. Notably The Park Stage on Friday at 7:30pm and The John Peel stage on Sunday at 5:30pm.

Jeff Buckley and Chrissie Hynde backstage at the Glastonbury Festival, June 24, 1995. © Jill Furmanovsky

Plus, Emily Eavis has stoked the flames herself, putting on Instagram last year, “Next year will be ten years since we created The Park area so we are planning some exciting surprises to mark the anniversary.”

With that in mind, here’s five rumours of potential secret gigs or surprise acts from this year’s festival that may or may not turn out to be true.

Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine performing live at Glastonbury 2009. © Jill Furmanovsky

1). Oasis

Liam Gallagher is playing The Other Stage on Saturday evening at 5:45pm and Noel Gallagher is due to appear at the festival to introduce a screening of the Oasis documentary Supersonic. William Hill are offering 12/1 on the pair getting together on stage at some point, effectively reforming Oasis. They’re not bad odds if you fancy a flutter.

2). Queens Of The Stone Age

The Foo Fighters are headlining the Pyramid stage on Saturday night, and it’s rumoured that Queens of the Stone Age might join them. In a BBC interview earlier in June with Annie Mac, Dave Grohl said the following about their new album Concrete and Gold. “It was great because we were one block away from Queens of the Stone Age while they were making their record, so every day we would sneak over to each other’s studios and steal donuts and coffee. These two records, honestly, Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters should just join forces and take over the world right now.” And then when Mac said “Well we are hoping that that happens in some way at Glastonbury, live on the Pyramid.” Grohl responded: “We’ll see what happens.”

Veteran singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen inspired a Glastonbury ‘moment’ when he played his legendary song ‘Hallelujah’ during his Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury 2008. © Virgilio Ponce

3) Pink Floyd

They currently have an exhibition at the V&A, Their Mortal Remains, showcasing their legacy but the surviving members of Pink Floyd haven’t played together since 2005’s Live 8. So now could be the perfect opportunity for Roger Waters and David Gilmour to put differences aside, join up with drummer Nick Mason, dust off some of those old stage props and inflatables, and show Glastonbury how live music is done.

4) Led Zeppelin

Michael Eavis, the festival’s founder and grandmaster, is a big fan of Led Zeppelin and is keen for the band to play there. In fact it was after Eavis snuck through a hedge with his girlfriend (and future wife), Jean, at the Shepton Mallet Blues Festival to see Led Zeppelin that he got the idea for Glastonbury. Plus rumors of a reunion were sparked when back in May Robert Plant left a cryptic message on his website, which is still there, saying, “Any time now…” Could Glasto be that time?

5) Lady Gaga

The pop superstar did play The Other Stage back in 2009, but has yet to come back to Pilton. Things went into overdrive about an appearance from her when, in an NME interview last year she was asked about the festival and replied, “Glaaaastonbury! I don’t have permission to say anything about that.” She’s also due to start a new world tour of album Joanne this August, so playing Worthy Farm in some capacity could be a good precursor to that.

Glastonbury Festival June 2013, Mick Jagger headlining with the Rolling Stones on the Pyramid Stage. © Jill Furmanovsky

Rockarchive is delighted to be able to offer these iconic Glastonbury images as limited edition photographic prints which you can buy here.