I was watching it "live" on the BBC iPlayer and when Polly was due to go on they just put up the schedule, with no hint as to why PJH wasn't on yet. Then when the band went on they cut back to the stage. The BBC obviously didn't want to show Marina Abramović. In the end Polly only came on 15 minutes after her set had been scheduled to start and played for 45 instead of 60 minutes.
We seem to be getting odd snippets about how all this came to happen but I've not seen any proper announcement about who invited Marina e.g. whether it was Glastonbury's idea or Polly's.

https://x.com/JustinCorbin4/status/1806782383750103182
On a lighter note, moving from Gaza to Gazza, there were a few folks on twitter yesterday saying that John Parish looks like former England footballer Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne. Not sure what he will make of that ...

Well, yeah, but even if it was Glastonbury who came up with the idea, and reached out to Polly, they surely wouldn’t go ahead without her permission. Or maybe she was the brains behind it from the beginning—which wouldn’t surprise me, she sometimes likes a symbolic gesture at a high-profile event; remember her reading the John Donne poem during Glastonbury 2016 in a thinly veiled criticism of Brexit? Funnily enough, she dropped "Down by the Water" from the setlist on that day as well.

Oh and thank you Romario for uploading the show for us non-Brits, great quality!

I read that the theme of Glastonbury this year was "peace" and this was done by the festival and some art group in London called "Circa" I believe. I found the explanation online somewhere.


Edit this is what I read https://www.instagram.com/p/C8wU7hUomRL ... N6ODJyMjdi


Anyway show seemed great despite being a little shorter.

^ Thanks!

I wonder if she will play more of the songs she's only teased so far ("Horses", "Dollar Dollar", "Community of Hope", there was even "The Water Is Wide" on one rehearsal setlist IIRC) once she's done with summer festivals and back to playing her own longer gigs in the US.

While I found it all a bit naff, I don't object to it happening. Just a shame the set was cut short! 

reviews -
https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/sto ... ry-review/
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 68413.html
https://www.thetimes.com/culture/music/ ... -0nkk0x272

I wonder if Grohl tried to muscle in on their set!? https://www.instagram.com/p/C8xiOPGI-48/?img_index=5

Is that Polly's fella in the green jacket?

Thank you! i'll watch it right away.







i did my usual digging for a bit.


-First of all, even italian news sites adressed this:
https://video.corriere.it/cultura/duecentomila-persone-silenzio-7-minuti-nuova-performance-marina-abramovic/8ea0d354-364f-11ef-b92f-b8a51f0e64af
https://www.fanpage.it/stile-e-trend/moda/duecentomila-persone-in-silenzio-per-7-minuti-la-performance-di-marina-abramovic-al-glastonbury/

i won't translate the whole articles, but they say the silence lasted 7 minutes and only fanpage (the second link) names PJ, but just to say, like "it happenned before PJ Harvey performance"; fanpage too quotes abramovic saying she was "terrified and honored" ("Ero terrorizzata e onorata"), but doesn't say PJ was involved in abramovic' performance. So one of them is wrong, either NME or Fanpage. But there's more:

this italian site: https://www.rivistastudio.com/marina-abramovic-glastonbury/, wrote before the show (and quotes this "The Guardian" article:https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/28/marina-abramovic-glastonbury-silent-seven-minutes) that abramovic was scheduled to perform a 7 minutes general silence before PJ, and says the thing was organized by "Circa" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIRCA_(art_platform)), so not by PJ.
I do think, PJ was "kind enough" to suppress one song to give Abramovic more breathing space.

- now, on the "performace" itself, and you'll have to forgive my spitefulness: as Romario wrote, it's hippy trash. But i would take it further: it's total bullcrap made by people who lost touch with reality; oh, i'm sure Abramovic' silence will stop all the wars and erase the tens of thousands of children crushed under the rubble in Gaza, and resuscitate the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who got their limbs torn apart and brains smushed in the trenches of the russo-ukranian war. I'm really pround of you, marina, and i'm really proud of the thousands of people who partecipated, willing or not, at this farce. I'm going to end my rant here, or i'll end up boiling my own blood for nothing, really, for privileged, living in their bubble, people who really think they matter something in the "bigger picture" to quote abramovic herself. Whatever, to each their own, who cares, really. Again, apologies for my outburst, it is what it is.


could be anyone, really, the "performance" by Abramovic included touching each other, like you can see in the video here: https://video.corriere.it/cultura/duecentomila-persone-silenzio-7-minuti-nuova-performance-marina-abramovic/8ea0d354-364f-11ef-b92f-b8a51f0e64af.
That to say, could be a friend, a relative, or else... maybe it's a random dude who wanted to randomly hug PJ, a la Morrissey-style



you know what? i can see it!

That wasn't the point of the performance, though?

Anyway, here are some backstage Glastonbury photos by Polly's manager:

-«Noted and forbidding performance artist Marina Abramovic, equal parts nerves and artistic intensity, led the crowd in seven minutes of respectfully-observed silence (try it; it’s a long time). Instructing us to close our eyes (OK, MOJO peeked), she unfurled her all-white outfit which, once she extended her arms, Christ-like, became a giant peace sign. Thus, she hoped, our powerful energy would enter the world and mitigate war and violence. Good luck with that.» source: https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/pj-harvey-at-glastonbury-review/

- « [...] Il mondo è in un posto davvero difficile, possiamo davvero dare tutti insieme amore incondizionato l’uno all’altro, possiamo cambiare il mondo» translated by me: "[...] the world is very harsh place, we can really, all together, give unconditioned love to eachother, we can change the world." source: https://video.corriere.it/cultura/duecentomila-persone-silenzio-7-minuti-nuova-performance-marina-abramovic/8ea0d354-364f-11ef-b92f-b8a51f0e64af

- «The silence is in recognition of what Abramović has previously referred to as a “dark moment in human history”. She told the crowd: “The world is in a really shitty place… There is war, there is a hunger, there is a protest, there is a killing, there is a violence. But what is happening if we look into the big picture? Violence brings more violence. Killing brings more killing. Anger brings more anger. Demonstration brings more demonstration.” She continued: “Here if we try to do something different, how to be in the present, here and now, and how we can actually all together give unconditional love to each other.”» source: https://www.nme.com/news/music/glastonbury-2024-pj-harvey-starts-set-with-marina-abramovic-speech-and-seven-minute-silence-3769788

and, by the way, my point was to demonstrate how that performance of hers was clueless and useless nonsense. It's, as i noted before, hippie rubbish, that preaches random "love and peace" gobbledygook and pretends it really matters, in the real, tangible world. It's a rich person doing what most of them do best : f**kall!

...except breaking the testicles of us plebs with idiotic preaching.

oh, one last thing: i don't care at all where PJ stands on this. I look foward to her 'cause she's one of the most ( or, at least, that's what i think) brillant artists of the last 130 years, and she's a lovely lovely woman with a sweet heart and under-control ego, but i don't agree with a good chunk of her (supposed) political opinions and i won't get influenced by them.
to wrap it up, if others found the performance enjoyable and right, good for them; as i said before, to each their own, i've already spent enough time on a topic i really find distasteful, unpleasant.

another from the guardian photo essay!

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... hoto-essay

well at least we've got this lovely picture

Hello !

Seems odd to me but I've only just come across this forum.

Anyway I was at the Glastonbury performance in the pit to the left of centre stage.

The Abramaovic segment was a a bit of a surprise however as it was actually a very powerful moment (for me anyway), as someone who usually can't keep still for very long it was a challenge, but everyone around me grasped the point and I'm glad I took part.

Normally I don't bring my camera to Glastonbury but I made an effort this time and grabbed a few half decent snaps.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1NseHM3jipTtLF389