mogwai headlined the second stage, with lap guitarist on cody, and luke sutherland playing violin. new stage set consisted of white gauze screens with 'mogwai guitars right', 'mogwai guitars left', 'mogwai drums' and 'mogwai barry', mirror balls, and a fantastic light show. 'summer' played to mark four years since the group's formation.

reviews/comments

from tom barnes:

i was quite suprised by the lack of material from 'come on die young' - but altogether quite pleased. i think the gig went really well and in my opinion it was a better show than the astoria gig this year, the only really downpoint was the sound, which obviously isn't as good in an open-air setting, and made quite a difference to mogwai in particular, for obviousreasons. the band seemed to be in a pretty good mood, albeit a little nervous...

'fear satan' went on for ages and i nearly thought they were going to walk off afterwards! they had a lap steel player for 'cody' which was really quite special, i'm not sure who played it but it was really moving to see stuart singing. the vocals were very treated though, and sounded kinda wierd and a little synthetic, but i guess this was probably born out of his own nerves and wanting to disguise his voice! 'small children...' was more than welcome and surprised me a little, but it was really effective, and had some stereo panning which served to enhance the whole experience more so. 'kappa' was dismissed fairly lightly and 'xmas steps' was perhaps the worst performance they made on the night - luke sutherland's violin decided it was going to make lots of nasty scratchy sounds which sounded like the amp had blown up or something - and this seemed to put the band off a little. the rendition was no where near as powerful as the astoria performance which is probably the most amazing thing i have ever heard.

'summer' seemed to be a little bothered with the distraction of 'xmas steps' and the sound was not mixed as well as it could have been, but, hey, who's complaining... 'helicon 2' saw stuart sitting down on the front of the stage resting up against one of the monitors which made him look remarkably relaxed, considering! 'helicon 1' was really special, it was an amazing feeling to look up and see the night sky and the moon above you during 'helicon 1'. believe me, it really was a great feeling...

the finale of 'herod' pretty much finished everyone off. by the end of the song stuart had played guitar, his little drumkit and walked around the stage with the mic, talking inaudibly into it (he seemed to be introducing the band ???) and screaming at various intervals. the lap steel came out again for some serious distortion-slide action (!) and so did luke and his (now, ironically, working) violin as well as at least 3, maybe 4 hooded guitarists (apparently one of them was malcom middleton, no doubt colin hardie was also present) and they ground on for ages and ages until finally they left the stage in peace, and didn't come back for an encore, much to the annoyance of the crowd.

the light show was very impressive and the band were backed by white gauze screens that were printed with "mogwai guitars left", "mogwai guitars right", ""mogwai drums" and "mogwai barry", amusingly - although why dominic gets no screen is beyond me.

in all it was an incredible show. i think i may have liked to have heard more stuff from cody, even though i prefer the other lps. i think they were trying to play the best set they could for the largest audience - they had people to convert and they certainly did win some over - some of my friends witnessed and heard the band for the first time and were stunned and amazed for the longest time afterward. in all, a great show. and stuart dedicating xmas steps to "the abolition of the british monarchy" was a nice touch too. just a shame the bbc chose not to record it for the tv or the radio. looking forward to october, where, i suspect we may hear some new material. i think the band had stuff to get out of their systems and glastonbury was the best place to do it...

from andrew maddern:

mogwai were tremendous, they opened with 'mogwai fear satan' and closed with 'like herod', start looked a bit nervous when they started but it didn't stop them from rocking like mothers. great set as well, about 6 disco balls and loads of huge white screens with 'mogwai: guitars right', 'mogwai: guitars left', 'mogwai: bass', 'mogwai: drums' and 'mogwai: barry' on them. i was stood really near the front next to this guy who was dancing like be from the happy mondays throughout the whole gig and shouting for 'helicon 2' at every opportunity, when they finally finished playing it he started saying 'beautiful' under his breath. i've never actually been surrounded by that many mogwai fans, actually. the last time i saw them was supporting the manics, so. quite a few pretentious comments were made after mogwai left the stage, like 'have you ever really touched the clouds !?, no, really though' and 'they had control of me, i changed when they changed'... anyway, mogwai were the true stars of glastonbury. they were introduced by the silver jew who called them 'the interruption'... they were selling these cool t shirts as well, which said 'mogwai - blur: are shite'... unfortunately, the bbc in their infinite wisdom decided not to film on the other stage on sunday, god knows why... yeah, so... people were waiting for an encore for quite a while, and then left when they realised they weren't going to get one.

apparently, mogwai were also the people inside the vegetable costumes, waving for about 10 minutes at the end of the super furry animals set as 'the man don't give a fuck' was playing. i saw it, but didn't know it was mogwai until i read it in nme. the super furries were brilliant by the way, while mogwai were waving away on the stage, some guy started driving his car through the crowd, and then got up on top of it and started pushing people off (doing his king of the castle bit), he was arrested shortly afterwards...

from claire:

i saw them at glastonbury, and all i can say is that it was the most perfect end to the most perfect day of the best weekend of my entire life. ok, im only 18, but it was still the best ever. i was so happy i could have cried.

from tim spear:

it was a total experience that you could never get in an indoor gig, i was quite near the front and looked round a few times just to see the remains of the sunset and the clouds being lit up etc etc and then back to the stage which was spinning with light and it was really freaky...

from matt claridge [2014]:

The problem with trying to review a gig that took place nearly 14 (gulp) years ago is that without dedicated note taking at the time (no chance!), the memory can play tricks. When that gig comes at the end of 4 (or was it 5) days of Glastonbury madness (beer for breakfast, spliffs for elevenses, strange meat for lunch, speed for dessert, no need for dinner then, but hell there's cheap whiskey to be finished off), it's really hard to do it. So thankfully a read of BrightLight goes some way to filling in the gaps beyond "yeah I was there". The big thing that struck me about this show was a sense of being pleased for the guys in the band (despite never meeting/speaking to them before or since). There's not many acts playing music like Mogwai do who could captivate a crowd that size, but they did, and then some.

This seemed to be one of the gigs where everyone at the festival with good taste in music converged to watch a band that if they didn't know, they'd at least heard about. For the uninitiated, an opener like Mogwai Fear Satan soon sorts the men from the boys and whilst festival crowds can be lost quite easily if a band fails to deliver the goods early on, around me (which was only a tiny part of a truly massive audience) people were into it from the opening bars to the very end. And there was a huge mirrorball. It was bloody transfixing. I wasn't sure Mogwai would work outdoors and as festival headliners (where people normally and understandably want the hits and not a lot else), but they did.

I'm sure all the Fun Loving Criminals and Skunk Anansie fans who watched them on the Pyramid Stage had a really good time too, and will look back for many years proud to say that they saw such epic performances, by such interesting and challenging bands. By this I mean that both Fun Loving Criminals and Skunk Anansie are utter shit and anyone who chose to see them over pretty much anything else in the world, but particularly at Glastonbury at the moment in time should hang their head in shame. Opportunity missed on the t-shirt front there guys.

stuart interviewed by 'select' magazine

stuart braithwaite time: 5.50pm, sunday

mere hours before mogwai's show-closing set, mainman stuart braithwaite dropped by the select daily's portacabin to share his thoughts. he doesn't like blur much, does be?

"we just played at a festival last week, the one where the girl died when hole were playing. i think she was crushed or something. we were talking about it today, about how apt it was that when those people got killed at the guns'n'roses gig a few years back they were singing 'welcome to the jungle/you're gonna die.' no false advertising there.

"we were on stage with super furry animals last night, dressed in those pete fowler costumes. i think i begged them to let us do it, actually. we've played with them a few times, they're good boys but we don't live in each other's pockets or anything. i was the yellow one, the 'sun' character. 'but i'm not really big on famous people. it's not like we're particularly famous or anything but i always feel a bit embarrassed when people recognise us. i'm a bit wary of walking round because people say really strange things to me and i get freaked out by it. i end up having these conversations where i'm going, 'i'm in an alright band', that's it. did you hear that one of the guys out of kriss kross killed himself last week? i'm just the bringer of bad news aren't i?

"oh, and those 'blur are shite' t-shirts are ours. they had us chucked off some festival because we slagged them off because we think they're really atrocious. one of the worst bands that have ever existed. the worst fucking cynical marketed manufactured piece of shit. they would never be in that band if they didn't have mortgages. i just thought their new 'post rock' direction was really funny. i didn't actually give two fucks about them until they had us chucked off the festival." em

mary-anne hobbs interviewed by 'theartsdesk'

peel was defiant, definitely, but for all the right reasons. i remember we did this show years ago, we were together at glastonbury, we used to do double-headers together at glastonbury which were some of my favourite shows i ever did in my entire life. it was the year rem were headlining, and michael stipe was being helicoptered in. but earlier on peel had been wandering around the fields and had bumped into stuart from mogwai. now mogwai had just had their first ep out and it was their very first festival appearance if i recall. me and peel were both big fans, but mogwai were that big [holds fingers infinitesimally close together] – they were a fascinating young band and quite revolutionary in their outlook but they had the stature of mosquitoes. but yes, peel said to him, “oh, pop in on the show, we're going to be doing the show a bit later on together.”

later, we were on air and there was this huge kerfuffle: michael stipe's helicopter had landed some short time ago and all this kerfuffle was going on. so in comes stipe's pa, and said to anita, peel's producer at the time [strident voice], “michael isn't giving any interviews on site but he's requested that he's interviewed by john peel on this programme.” so anita communicated this to us, and she looked at peel, and he said, “er... can you just give us a couple of minutes, anita, i'm just going to discuss this with mary anne.” she said, “sure, sure” and closed the door, and he said, “what do you think about rem? do you want to do this? should we?” and i said, “i couldn't give a toss about rem to be honest with you – why do you say that?” so he said [sighs wearily], “ahh, i really don't want to do this; the last time i interviewed michael stipe he made me look like an absolute wanker!” i said, “why's that?” he said, “well when the microphone was down he chatted away to me perfectly naturally and happily and we spoke about all kinds of things – but as soon as the mic was on he gave me one-word answers and made me look like an absolute cunt.” he said, “you know me, i hate doing interviews at the best of times” - which he did, in spite of the fact that he was amazingly good at them.

so he said, “you promise me you're not bothered?” and i said, “no, no, i couldn't give a shit what michael stipe has to say, i'm just not interested.” so he summoned anita back in the room and said [mock imperious], “yeeess... well, can you tell michael stipe's pa that we're dreadfully sorry but we can't possibly fit him in this afternoon because we have stuart from mogwai passing by.” and it was just completely the most fabulous moment, you can't imagine the difference of stature – michael stipe the biggest global superstar of that era, and stuart from mogwai who's literally just put his first ep out... but that was just so typically peel, so defiant but for all the right reasons, because mogwai really were just about the most exciting band on the planet at that point and michael stipe wouldn't have given us anything. so we got a wonderful interview with stuart and mogwai then went on to become a really awesomely influential band, so it was defiant but for exactly the right reasons.