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Kasabian close the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2014

Noel Fielding joins Tom, Serge and co. for Glastonbury 2014’s final curtain.

29th June 2014

Somehow, it’s come to this. Through the obvious (Arcade Fire) to the somewhat controversial (Metallica), now we’re at Kasabian. Leicester’s finest find themselves closing Glastonbury 2014; effectively headlining the whole bloody thing.

You can tell it’s important to them, they’ve brought a big fabric lightbox and a massive screen. On it they’re projecting huge, size seventeen billion Helvetica bold words. Opener ‘Bumblebeee’ got a predictable ‘bumble’. Second track, ‘Shoot The Runner’, introed with a touch of Kanye’s ‘Black Skinhead’, is apparently ‘cordial’ - whether they mean polite or a drink you’d dilute with water is unclear, but at least Tom Meighan is wearing a nice suit and bow tie.

But really, perhaps in a way this is where Kasabian really do belong. ‘Fast Fuse’ (big screen words: 20/20) may to many be a band playing the theme tune to Russell Howard’s Good News on the main stage of the biggest festival in the world, but it does seem to work. This is a huge British rock band, on Britain’s most important live platform. If you get below the critical elite, you’ll find thousands both on Worthy Farm and beyond claiming they’re “killing it”. If it’s not here, then where?

The real question should be, where’s someone better suited to the job? For all their limitations, at least Kasabian have ‘eez-eh’ (no words, something appropriating the time vortex). In a weird way, they’re a band capable of a sort of entry level genius. That may be limited at best (“a little bit like if Jez and Super Hans from Peep Show got a record deal”), but in a sea of bands doing nothing remarkable they’re in your face, causing trouble; a bizarre mix of holy soldiers called to arms and sarcastic wind up merchants.

From ‘Processed Beats’ (voucher) to ’stevie’ (canister), this is a reminder that this isn’t a flash in the pan thing. Kasabian have been banging the drum of Glastonbury’s higher reachers for nearly a decade now. This is a headline slot that has been coming. Those alternatives; take Arctic Monkeys, for example - they’ve done it before. That’s just playing it safe. They’ve earned a shot at least.

The problem comes when Meighan goes AWOL for a couple of songs, leaving Serge to rattle through a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ and ‘Take Aim’. The energy visibly drains on the spot, the spirit of confrontation completely removed. It’s only when the chief rabble raiser returns that it genuinely feels like a Glastonbury headline set. ‘Club Foot’ (dhalsim) makes sure of that by volume alone. It’s a blunt instrument, an insistence of attention. Not clever, certainly big, completely shameless.

Like with superheroes, sometimes we don’t get the Glastonbury headliners we want, but the ones we deserve. No, they aren’t Prince, Bowie or Kate Bush - not even close - but with Noel Fielding appearing for ‘Vlad The Impaler’, there’s no way they can be accused of ever trying to be. As Meighan leads Worthy Farm in a chorus of Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ that leads into a triumphant ‘L.S.F.’, what we’re left with is the Danny Dyer wide-boy of modern music. If we want different, we know what to do. Otherwise, we’ll be ‘avin’ it large with the lads on Tor.

Kasabian played:

bumblebeee
Shoot The Runner
Underdog
Fast Fuse
Days Are Forgotten
eez-eh
Processed Beats
stevie
I.D.
Crazy (Gnarls Barkley cover)
Take Aim
Re-Wired
treat
Empire
Fire

Encore:
Switchblade Smiles
Vlad The Impaler
Praise You (Fatboy Slim cover)
L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)

Photo: James McCauley/REX

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