IDLES fulfil a lifelong dream and cement their status as stars at Glastonbury 2019

“We’ve waited 12 years to play here, it’s the greatest place on Earth,” Joe Talbot announces to what will likely be the biggest crowd the Park stage sees all weekend at this year’s Glastonbury. Since the band broke out suddenly and wonderfully after the release of their 2017 debut album ‘Brutalism’, the festival has taken a fallow year, and the fast-rising IDLES haven’t been given their much-deserved Glastonbury moment.

Playing Glastonbury - let alone slaying the Park stage to such a huge and devoted crowd - is a dream for any musician, but for the Bristol boys, it seems more significant than for most. “I’ve watched bands [at Glastonbury] that changed my life, and I hope in some way we can change yours,” Joe announces to a crowd that have undeniably already been changed by them.

From the moment the now iconic stabs of bass that open ‘Colossus’ announce their entrance, it’s clear that tonight will be a classic; IDLES have ticked off almost every checkpoint on the way to becoming a truly big, truly huge band, and on the week that they announced a show at London’s Alexandra Palace, they can add Glastonbury to the list of defining steps that are quickly making them one of the country’s greatest.

‘Danny Nedelko’, dedicated to “all the immigrants that make this country a better place”, has become a bonafide anthem, and when the set closes in a customary thrash through ‘Rottweiler’, it feels like - for a band whose last two years have been packed with formative moments - their long-awaited appearance at Worthy Farm has immediately become their greatest. They can go anywhere from here.