Phoenix are now looking tight, both musically and trousers-wise, so I’m going to leave this blog right here. They’ll be reviewed later. Thanks for keeping me company. See you same time tomorrow for the titan of rock that is Ed Sheeran. Good night!

It’s washed away by Warpaint doing the fabulous song Undertow. There’s also a Grohl link in the way it seems to nod to Nirvana’s Polly.

Lauren and Huw are on the TV in their zone by the Park stage, and they’re introducing Tom Walker, who sounds like a cross between James Blake, Adele and Paolo Nutini – in other words, just a bit contrived.

I’m persevering with BBC2 for a bit, but Alt-J aren’t making it easy.

And here come the fireworks as they come to a halt, three minutes past midnight. They’re taking a well-deserved bow. Whatever you think of the songs, they gave that performance all they had.

richbravedart

25 June 2017 12:06am

Despite all the sniffy comments and smug elitism the foos prove you wrong where it matters. Emotion and a crowd that stays to the end.

“We never really say goodbye, we just say this,” says Grohl as the band mounts an assault on Everlong.

“I feel loose, I feel good – this is the fucking big one, man, I’m into it,” Grohl tells the crowd. “Thank you for sticking around with our band for 22 years.” The UK, he says, is “Where we became a band.”

This is the perfect cover version for them – crowd-pleasing, epic, extravagant – and they knock it out of the park.

Dave Grohl’s off to play the drums while Taylor Hawkins sings. They’re doing Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure.

Dave Grohl annouces that he was told by a journalist that you’re not allowed to swear at Glastonbury – presumably because of the BBC broadcast. Grohl adds that Adele holds the record for the most “fucks” in a live broadcast and then breaks it by singing the f-word about 50 times. It’s juvenile, but also funny and charming coming from him, the nicest man in rock.

Regent Sounds of Denmark Street in London is getting some great publicity thanks to Taylor the drummer’s vest, which advertises it. It’s a real place, too.

Johnny Depp is much in evidence this festival:

Meanwhile Dave Grohl says “This is exactly what I hoped would fucking happen tonight.” Everyone is chanting the “woah” riff from Best of You.

A reader writes, and fair enough:

Kdbur x

24 June 2017 11:26pm

Dave Grohl showing how to headline a festival.......give them what they want......and then give them some more.

Excellent stuff!

After appealing to the crowd to stop thinking about going to the “EDM tent”, Dave Grohl hits them with Best of You. It’s exhilarating, but not quite as great (so far) as Prince’s version at the Super Bowl back in 2008.

After some expert teasing of the crowd, asked repeatedly whether or not they want a break, Foo Fighters hit them with a brutal Monkey Wrench. Meanwhile, according to WhatsApp, the Guardian’s features posse are at the Jacksons, who are currently playing Wanna Be Startin’ Something by Michael Jackson, who died eight years ago tomorrow.

I can remember it vividly, because I was at Glastonbury. It was the Thursday night and I was having a nice chat with my friend Richard. Neither of us were entirely sober.

Another friend, Alan, came up and said: “Have you heard that Michael Jackson’s died?” I dismissed it as a Glastonbury rumour. Then, 10 minutes later, he came back and said it again.

Richard checked on his Blackberry (that dates it) and bloody hell, Jackson actually had died. I stumbled into the Guardian Portakabin to start to configure the web response – meanwhile the Guardian staff in London rushed back into the office having been at a boozy leaving do.

I quickly wrote this piece; the rest of the weekend involved chasing pop stars around for quotes about the legendary performer. But Glastonbury has a way of smoothing over the vicissitudes of the rest of the world, and by Sunday, it seemed like old news.

Shame he never played, mind.

Back to the Foos, and it’s their debut single, This is a Call. I’m old enough to remember Steve Lamacq playing this on the radio for the first time, back in the Cretaceous period (OK, 1995).

It’s loud, vigorous and anthemic, but I remember at the time thinking there wasn’t that much depth to it, and my views haven’t changed in the intervening 22 years.

I have to say at this point, though, that Dave Grohl was an integral part of one of the best Glastonbury performances I’ve ever seen (in fact one of the best shows I’ve ever seen full stop). He played drums with Queens of the Stone Age in 2002 – Mark Lanegan and Nick Oliveri were also part of the band – and the sheer vicious power of it, coupled with some classic songs, virtually ripped my face off.

And the hits keep coming – My Hero this time, which went down like a raw steak in a tank of piranhas.

Back to the Foos, and readers are emailing in in their, er, pairs. Keep your views coming!

Dan Greenspan writes that we should be checking out Joe Goddard’s DJ set:

Watching online from Los Angeles after trudging through the mud this time last year. I was bouncing around waiting for Warpaint on the Park stage, and man is this Joe Goddard set tremendous. Not a surprise given his Hot Chip affiliation, but it’s clever dance music you can actually dance to, not the derivative sludge that has taken over wide swaths of Coachella.

Matt Dony gets to the matter in hand:

The thing with the Foo Fighters is, they write some brilliant songs, but haven’t put together a consistently brilliant album since The Colour And The Shape. The upshot is, I never listen to their albums, but they are terrific value live when they can largely drop the dross. And Grohl is a masterful frontman.

Dave’s regency curls and beard do give him quite a familiar look:

When Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters drummer, was announced, he hollered “daaaay-oh!” at the crowd, Freddie Mercury’s old bit of singalong stagecraft. “That’s two Queen things already,” fretted Grohl. Hawkins then led the band on Cold Day in the Sun, before Grohl ripped into Congregation. Eight songs in and it’s still good, dumb fun. A man in the field tweets:

“I don’t think Ted Nugent is popular here,” says Grohl of the Trump-supporting git while introducing the rest of the Foo Fighters – the guitarist had just busted out a Nugent riff. When he gets to bass player Nate Mendel, the band launch into a snatch of Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust.

Another hit, The Pretender. “Do you love rock’n’roll?” Dave enquires of the crowd. “Do you wanna dance with me?” It’s 2017 but in an ever-changing world, some things are perennial.

It’s going to be long night, says Grohl. They’ve got eight albums of material, and a ninth in the can “which you ain’t even fuckin’ heard yet”. Nine albums, yikes. That’s three times the amount Nirvana managed.

A reader called Crannon is kind enough to email:

I always think i can’t bothered for Foo Fighters and am well over them, but they’re hard to deny. Bloody good songs and sound great live.

Nothing is being left to chance – the Foo Fighters are doing their third hit in succession: Learn to Fly. It’s not subtle, but it’s brutally effective.

I’m either a pushover or the Foo Fighters are bringing their A game, because I’m already enjoying this quite a lot.

Now it’s All My Life. It’s safe to say that the Foo Fighters aren’t going the Radiohead route of stuffing the set with difficult deep cuts ... mainly because, to my knowledge, they haven’t got any. The crowd are going nuts, almost drowning out the band on the chorus.

And after an acoustic start, they slam into a full-on rock take on the song.

As Dave himself would holler: “I got a confession to make!” I don’t really get the appeal of the Foo Fighters, but in the spirit of Glastonbury I’m going to stick with this in the hope of being convinced. At the moment, I’m still baffled that Grohl went from being in one of the best bands of all time (Nirvana) to this bunch, wildly successful though they are.

“As I was sitting in my wheelchair, watching the show on TV, Florence played a fucking Foo Fighters song way better than we ever played it.” So they’re starting the show with that song, and dedicating it to Florence. It’s Times Like These.

He’s back! The crowd looks enormous and it’s exciting to see Stormzy boss them so convincingly. This moment hasn’t been broadcast yet, but the #grime4corbyn posse, of whom Stormzy was such an effective member, should be enjoying their unexpected success in moving the political needle:

OK, now it’s Stormzy, tearing up Big for Your Boots on the Other Stage ... except the transmission is screwed.

Now we’re getting Wormrot, a Muslim band from Singapore who are, we’re told, “brutal”.

I’m still on BBC2 – and we’re getting a digest of the Earache records thrash metal showcase that hit an unsuspecting Glastonbury on Thursday night. “We don’t set out to shock people but the music is clearly sonically exytemely violent – we get a kick out of wrecking people’s heads,” says Mark “Barney” Greenway, the singer from Napalm Death.

BBC2 is now showing Wiley, who’s doing Wearing My Rolex while wearing a Barcelona training tracksuit. The view on Twitter is harsh:

Liam’s talking about his state of mind post-gig to Jo Whiley: “At the moment I’m just fucking spaced out and that jazz shit ain’t helping.”

Katy Perry is now launching into It’s a Hard Knock Life, which in turn morphs into her anthem Roar. And then she stagedives! It is Glastonbury after all. That seemed like a pretty vigorous performance to me with all the hits and some psychedelic touches to boot. Bravo Katy Perry.

Meanwhile artist Grayson Perry offers some ambiguous shade:

There’s nothing new under the sun:

The dancer are now wearing giant venus fly-traps on their heads (or something) in order to convey the full majesty of California Gurls. Meanwhile, Hermione Gingold has a query in the comments:

hermionegingold

24 June 2017 8:42pm

is it just me or is katy p spending most of her energy spreading the upper thigh of her unflattering outfit to avoid camel-toe before the watershed?

x

Now wearing giant eyes on their head, Katy Perry’s dancers have also got the Guardian fashion desk’s seal of approval:

I tried my best with the National, currently being broadcast on BBC4, but Katy Perry is doing Teenage Dream while prancing around in a glittery catsuit with an Illuminati eye on it and accompanied by nine human pompoms. So BBC2 it is for now.

Looks like last night’s Radiohead set has inspired its own fake news.

The crowd didn’t applaud Radiohead turning up their guitars ... when you’re headlining Glastonbury you have people to do that stuff for you.

It did, however, remind me of the story of the great Richard Williams reviewing John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Wedding Album for Melody Maker in 1969. The version he received was a double album, with sides B and D consisting of one oscillating tone – actually a test signal.

Williams wrote of these strange sides: “constant listening reveals a curious point: the pitch of the tones alters frequency, but only by microtones or, at most, a semitone. This oscillation produces an almost subliminal, uneven ‘beat’ which maintains interest. On a more basic level, you could have a ball by improvising your very own raga, plainsong, or even Gaelic mouth music against the drone.”

A delighted John and Yoko sent him a telegram concluding: “We both feel that this is the first time the critic has topped the artist.”

On TV, Liam’s leading a singalong of Don’t Look Back in Anger dedicated to those who lose their lives in the London and Manchester terror attack and Grenfell Tower fire. You’d have to be pretty hard-hearted not to be moved by this.

Our Hadley Freeman has spotted none other than the shadow chancellor watching, of all things, Craig David at Glastonbury. He’ll chill on Sunday.

Attitude is Everything are in the business of improving deaf and disabled people’s access to live music and are sharing videos and images of accessibility at Glastonbury. Check out their twitter feed here.

As those of us at home watch Liam on BBC4, where he’s sounding pretty great and looking sharp AF (big up to his dentist and personal trainer), here’s a review by Gwilym Mumford, who was in the field to see him in the flesh a couple of hours ago.

Gwilym writes (and I add a spoiler warning at this point):

Let’s not bury the lede: no, Noel didn’t turn up, despite endless speculation to the contrary. A brotherly reunion always seemed an extremely dim prospect, even at a Glastonbury festival that has seen its share of surprises. Instead we were treated to the new, defiantly solo Liam Gallagher. Well, sort of. His set was peppered with enough Oasis numbers to keep the punters happy - Rock and Roll Star, What’s the Story Morning Glory, Slide Away. The new stuff - dull, lumpen, sub-Oasis blues rock - fared far worse of course, but there was enough goodwill in the crowd for it to pass without too much grief.

The only dissent came in the form of frequent cries of “Noel”, as if the Other Stage crowd were trying to will him back to Worthy Farm, after his Q&A there yesterday. Noel did make his presence felt, even in absentia, as Liam concluded things with an a capella rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger - his brother’s song, let’s remember - dedicated to the victims of the Manchester and London terror attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire. It was a spine-tingling moment, but also a tantalising hint of what might have been.

Corbyn was so huge he forced Guardian contributor Dorian Lynskey into Glastonbury’s little-heralded rainforest area: