Years & Years show their pride in emotional Glastonbury set

“Shove a rainbow in fear’s face,” shouts Olly Alexander at the end of this year’s Pride weekend. He’s dressed in double rainbow for a set that’s open, visible and heavily emotional.

Alexander comments that the band played the John Peel tent at Glastonbury 2015, and has since recited some of the awful things that he’s seen happen in the past 12 months; now, the band find themselves on the significantly bigger Other Stage.

Synth player Emre Turkmen also makes a statement, wearing a homemade t-shirt that reads: “music sounds better with EU”. It only further proves that while Years & Years are a pop band with hooks that never end, today’s message is more important, and it’s really hammered home.

Unsurprisingly Alexander’s worshipped as a frontman today, with the crowd and a troup of backing dancers bowing down to one of the most vital new faces in pop. A closing trio of ‘Desire’ and ‘King’, in which a rainbow of confetti falls down on the sodden crowd, show Years & Years as a band that can only move forward, and a band that we need.