Glastonbury live: Dua Lipa, Marina Abramović and more to perform as main stages open on Friday – live

 Glastonbury live: Dua Lipa, Marina Abramović and more to perform as main stages open on Friday – live

The festival’s biggest stages are opening today and the sun is almost shining – join us as we review sets and look towards sets from LCD Soundsystem and more

Playing to an ever-swelling crowd gearing up for Sugababes after her, Noname will have converted thousands of people to her hyper-literate, hyper-skilled wordplay, which really is the ideal for conscious hip-hop: politically biting, but not drearily worthy. She’s backed by an on-point band who deliver shuffling, frequently polyrhythmic beds for her raps.

This is MCing on the hardest difficulty setting: she’s not just quick, but vying with a beat that could easily dart away from her. It’s not mere mic cleverness: her castigation of the “war machine” chimes with a festival that champions nuclear disarmament, and her announcement “I’m a socialist; I don’t fuck with billionaires” gets a big cheer. The hooks are a delight – a “yippee kai yay” chorus has the audience chirruping along – and ultimately, there’s such joy in language itself: “Ticky ticky boom boom in a lagoon-goon, kissing a pum-pum, pussy tasty like fufu, pussy never been fooled, fooled...” runs the rapturously sexual Boomboom.

In the same way that I imagine Glastonbury has an emergency button that says “deploy Coldplay”, I also suspect they also have one that says “activate Confidence Man”.

The Australian duo have absolutely perfected the art of festival-pleasing, with songs that perfectly clash the Minogue (both of them – and frankly more Dannii) Eurotrash-disco nexus with the more accessible parts of PC Music trash and self-awareness. (My friend very accurately refers to them as “goth Aqua” even before they play Cool Party, with its delightful lyric “I’m a cool party girl in a cool party world”, which also suits this most Brat summer.)

They also have the iconography to back it up: in frontman Reggie Goodchild, they have a classic “what does he actually do?” synth-pop foil, their choreo is like stylised versions of your silliest bedroom moves (I particularly like one I’d describe as “scampering pony crab”). As I reported earlier, several members of the audience are wearing homespun versions of Janet Planet’s pointy boobs and the drummer/DJ’s veiled, brimmed, beekeeper-style hat (one guy has veiled his baseball cap, and gets a lot of mileage out of his spell on the big screens).

It’s hard to tell why they haven’t become actual, bona fide breakout pop stars: although parts of their set sound much like a YouTube house megamix, Luvin’ U Is Easy is a seductive, chugging would-be classic that makes you imagine how great a Balearic Kylie era would have been. And it’s hard to pull off genuinely funny without tipping over into being a comedy band, from the fake blood on Goodchild’s chest to Planet’s pouring water on her hair and windmilling it dry. But who cares about the big leagues when there are moments like the sun breaking through the crowds as Planet sings “I only want a good time, sunshine”: pure Glastonbury kismet.

The Mary Wallopers are keen to take folk music back to its roots – where the genre is subversive, rowdy and unapologetically political, rather than twee. Here, to a full Park Stage, they do exactly that, conjuring absolutely raucous crowds with their jaunty Irish ballads, and punctuating songs with messages about wealth inequality and Palestine.

Despite playing to thousands of people, the set captures the energy of a small local pub: there’s silly storytelling about fleas, fishing and drinking as pints are swilled and feet are stamped. towards the back, a few mini ceilidhs break out to the storm of quick, jangly strings and punchy drums. Much of the Mary Wallopers’ material is short and snappy, and some songs date back hundreds of years, but even with the traditional Scottish and Irish vernacular, tracks like the chirpy Cod Liver Oil & The Orange Juice inspire boozy but verbatim singalongs from the crowd. It’s definitely the most engaged — and joyous! — crowd I’ve seen across the festival so far.❤️🌹

Quick wit and sheer entertainment value aside, the Mary Wallopers’ musicianship is strong. The percussion is razor-sharp, the penny whistle solos are lovely and, between them, they have some serious pipes. Brilliant all round!

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