For festival goers, the Glastonbury-shaped hole in this year’s calendar might not be such a bad thing.
A UK heatwave means that temperatures down on Worthy Farm would have been pretty unbearable, and the good news is that, rather than getting sunburnt, you can relive Glastonburys past from your own home or – better still – an air-conditioned cinema.
In the latter case, that’s because Glastonbury The Movie: 30th Anniversary Cut is hitting the big screen in selected UK cinemas today. Originally released in 1996, this documents the 1993 version of the festival, which came in the days when there was no wall-to-wall BBC TV coverage and the only decent footage came from the young filmmakers who rocked up with their Panavision CinemaScope cameras.
This 30th anniversary cut has been rebuilt in 4K from the original 35mm footage and features new scenes and a 5.1 Dolby Audio mix. It showcases a ‘90s time capsule of bands – The Verve, Spiritualized, The Orb and Lemonheads, for example – and gives those who have only experienced ‘modern’ Glastonbury a taste of what it was like back in the day.
“Appetite for the 90s is at a cultural high,” says the press blurb, correctly. “The ones who were there want to go back. The ones who weren't want to understand what the fuss was about.”
That said, if you don’t want to see what all the fuss was about and your tastes are rather more current, the BBC iPlayer is your friend; for a limited time, a whole load of more recent Glastonbury content has been placed there for your entertainment.
You can watch headline sets from the likes of Coldplay (2024), Olivia Rodrigo (2025) and Billie Eilish (2022), or go back to the ‘90s again and peer at Radiohead’s Pyramid Stage performance from 1997.
Either way, you should hopefully have easy access to a clean toilet and cool refreshments, which sounds like a massive bonus from where we’re sitting.
