Dua Lipa might have closed the Pyramid Stage with a bang on Friday night, but Glastonbury’s real headline performance took place hours earlier on West Holts Stage. A staggering amount of people showed up to watch 00s pop icons Sugababes blast through hits, but their all guns blazing show was tainted by panic in the crowd and people struggled not only to get a glimpse of Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena, and Siobhan Donaghy, but to move at all. Not long after the trio opened their set with hit Freak Like Me, people in the crowd started expressing concern about being so tightly packed in, with others trying to leave the crowd also vocalising panic.
As soon as I rounded the corner towards West Holts Stage, it quickly became clear that the situation was chaotic. Stewards desperately tried to enforce a one-way system, but eager fans slipped through, with the crowd already pushing people up against the food vendors lining the area. Within minutes of the set it became clear festival organisers had missed a trick: Sugababes should have been on the Pyramid Stage.
The situation quickly became suffocating, with the swarms of people packed on top of each other sucking the joy out of hearing chart-toppers like From Hole in the Head to Freak Like Me and About You Know in the flesh. It didn’t take long for festival goers and those watching from home to take to X, formerly Twitter , to echo the sentiment. Shortly after the group’s set wrapped, one person wrote online: “Hey @glastonbur.
