Three and a half sets at Glastonbury
Following two weeks of reflection & recovery, I recap my time playing at Britain’s biggest music festival
The sheer scale and history of Glastonbury is truly overwhelming and I’m still trying to compute how lucky I am to be able to attend, let alone perform there. Last year I had to negotiate the fact that my university graduation coincided with the festival, leading to an absolute cross-country mission - whilst memorable, it is not one I’m keen to repeat. I was really looking forward to getting properly stuck in this year, and so I did. Thank you to everybody who showed up to my sets this year and came to say hello — it’s such a rewarding feeling to be able to contribute to such a seismic event in a small way. Here’s a timeline of the DJing I got up to at Glastonbury 2025 with some sketchy photos to accompany.
Friday 1am @ Crow’s Nest
My first set of the weekend was at a little hidden spot at the top of the hill in the Park area. It’s a relatively small tent containing a bar, a stage and a DJ booth. What I love most about this place is the day’s lineup is announced each morning scribbled on a chalkboard outside — proper old-school.
I was quite nervous to play — I’m nervous at the best of times but I think the weeks of anticipation towards Glastonbury had culminated for me in this experience. I was floored by how many people came up to the top of the hill and danced at quite a peak time in the night, it was super fun. I had to focus on mixing in headphones as there was no booth monitoring so I wasn’t able to look up and take it in as much as I’d have liked but I’m really happy with what I played. I leant slightly away from club and maximised fun moments and world influences. Big shoutouts to the killer Stereo Ferment and Naya Beat compilations which both constituted a fair chunk of what I played.
Friday 4am @ Azaadi
The frenzied scramble to get from Crow’s Nest to Shangri-La in time for this set is forever etched in my brain. Anyone who’s tried to get around South East corner after midnight will understand the perils of closed walkways, queues and diversions. Escorted by James, my manager who was singularly focused on getting us there on time no matter how many security guards had to be convinced, we succeeded. I nearly fumbled my opportunity to play at Azaadi this year but luckily we were all able to make it work last minute so big respect to Bobby Friction & team for helping us out. I’m not exactly a connoisseur of the 4am slot but when this opportunity came in I was super excited to lean in to the areas of my taste I don’t usually get to. So sixty minutes of rippers it was! I got to try out some forthcoming club stuff (AK Cuts) which was super affirming. And what a crowd, so much energy to draw from. At 5am, after an onerous day full of anticipation, this set gave me a second wind and I gladly found myself at Midland closing out the Friday night, wide-awake and ready to go again.
Sunday 9pm @ Greenpeace
I rolled up to Greenpeace running off two hours of sleep and physically (but not emotionally) destroyed - such is the nature of Sunday at Glastonbury. Additionally, clashing with The Prodigy, Overmono & Olivia Rodrigo is quite a fix to be in. I would have definitely been at The Prodigy! But it made it all the more special when people turned up to Greenpeace. The whole thing was a sincerely wholesome experience, I met so many lovely people at this stage both punters and staff, and it felt like everyone who was there really wanted to be there. The second wind phenomena took effect once more and I was in full spirits to close off the festival. But there was one more ace up some silk sleeves yet to be deployed…
Baalti, Sunday 1am @ Azaadi
I actually managed to finally witness one of Baalti’s many Glastonbury sets - we had been clashing all the way up until this one on the final night. They are phenomenal, dextrous DJs and have a brand new live act too. We had hatched a plan to do something fun in light of our most recent collaborative project ‘Stunt Doubles’, so, silk shirts in hand, I watched them absolutely kill their DJ set from the balcony of Azaadi. About 2/3rds into their set, I ambushed them in the booth and we turned the remainder of the set into an impromptu Stunt Doubles b2b. With all three of us severely sleep-deprived (from some long shifts at Maceo’s) but fuelled by the antics, it was one of my most memorable moments from Glastonbury this year. You had to be there! Huge thank you goes out to Bobby Friction and the amazing team at Azaadi for building a space like this in the first place, and giving us the freedom to pull things like this out of the bag very last minute. The type of atmosphere the crew created both front-of-stage and backstage is fully in spirit with Glastonbury.
There we have it… Glastonbury 2025. If you came and danced with me, thank you for choosing to do that despite the overwhelming plethora of amazing acts. Hopefully we get to do it all again in two years!
Thanks for reading,
Anish